Portable Software Suite...?

[Misty]

@loyukfai: What kinds of PDFs are you trying to make? Do you want PDFs which contain only text, or which have a combination of text and pictures? Because if you want only text, you don't need PDFBeads... you can just use jbig2enc on its own.

Edit: You can find a binary of jbig2enc for Linux here: http://www.dokupuppylinux.tk/programs:encoders or here: http://code.google.com/p/pdfrecompressor/downloads/list I don't use Linux, so I can't vouch for how well it works. The DokuPuppyLinux site is maintained by Dingodog, who's a site member here, so maybe he can help you?

Strider: I've never had great success with ddjvu. It doesn't perform great for mixed text/image files, and only supports G4 compression so text isn't compressed as optimally as I'd prefer.

[strider1551]

Strider: I've never had great success with ddjvu. It doesn't perform great for mixed text/image files, and only supports G4 compression so text isn't compressed as optimally as I'd prefer.

Oh, I totally agree - ddjvu is not going to produce the best possible PDF, it's just the only option I know of to go directly from Djvu to PDF, and certainly much simpler than going Djvu to Tiff to Pdf.

That being said, it is handy in certain situations. If the image is just a simple black and white text, the quality of the PDF is about the same but with a slightly inflated size compared to the original.

[Misty]

To get PDFBeads working, use Ruby 1.9. If you want to use apt-get:

- uninstall the Ruby packages you installed (optional, but no point keeping around packages you aren't using!)
- install ruby-1.9.1-full
-

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sudo gem1.9.1 install pdfbeads rmagick hpricot

- Add the Ruby gem path by adding this line to the .profile file in your home directory:

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PATH=$PATH:/var/lib/gems/1.9.1/bin

I've tested this, and I got a correct PDF output from PDFBeads.

PS - you can specify an output name with the -o switch, for instance:

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pdfbeads -o 123.pdf

[Misty]

Oh, I totally agree - ddjvu is not going to produce the best possible PDF, it's just the only option I know of to go directly from Djvu to PDF, and certainly much simpler than going Djvu to Tiff to Pdf.

That being said, it is handy in certain situations. If the image is just a simple black and white text, the quality of the PDF is about the same but with a slightly inflated size compared to the original.

Yeah, it's not bad for pure text, just not optimal. I wouldn't recommend it for users whose goal is a PDF, and who don't want Djvu. I can imagine it's handy for people with Djvu collections though.

[Lazy_Kent]

As suggeted by @snaguy over here (http://www.diybookscanner.org/forum/vie ... 594#p10594), I'm trying to build a Live USB drive to run ScanTailor and PDFBeads.

Installing ScanTailor is a piece of cake since it's available in the Ubuntu archive.

Also found GPRename which should handle the renaming task.

However, I have problems getting PDFBeads to work...

After installing Ruby and RubyGems through Software Center, I installed PDFBeads ("sudo gem install pdfbeads"), then proceeded to install the below through Software Center...

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imagemagick
graphicsmagick
libmagickcore-dev
libmagickwand-dev

Then run "sudo gem install rmagick" and ran into many of such errors...

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No definition for TextureFill_initialize
No definition for TextureFill_fill
No definition for ImageMagickError_initialize
No definition for Enum_initialize
No definition for Enum_to_s
No definition for Enum_to_i
No definition for Enum_spaceship
No definition for Enum_case_eq

And running PDFBeads just give me a 0-byte output...

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ubuntu@ubuntu:/var/lib/gems/1.8/gems/pdfbeads-1.0.3/lib$ ruby -rubygems ./pdfbeads.rb /home/ubuntu/Desktop/PDFBeads/out/* > /home/ubuntu/Desktop/123.pdf

Any idea...?

P.S. Besides, how to add pdfbeads to path so that no need to run a long commandline everytime?

Thanks in advance!

I recommend to build a custom LiveCD/USB in SUSE Studio.
Add home:Lazy_Kent repository to your build. It contains PDFBeads, ScanTailor and more.
http://www.diybookscanner.org/forum/vie ... ?f=3&t=643

[Misty]

Wow, SUSE Studio looks amazing. Never seen a web-based live USB builder before.

I was told when trying to add a repository from 'home:Lazy_Kent' that there was not a compatible version. Is the 'Lazy_Kent for 11.4' repo from the search the one you'd recommend?

[snaguy]

loyukfai

I'm wanting PDF outputs because of my reader setup.

What is your reader setup?

[loyukfai]

What is your reader setup?

Windows desktop plus Android devices. EPUB mixed with PDF.

Cheers.

[loyukfai]

@Misty: Thanks! Now that PDFBeads is running with Ruby1.8, I don't want to tinker with it anymore and start shooting the books ASAP.

(Did copy pdfbeads to /home/ubuntu/bin, which supposed to have the path automatically added due to the presence of "bin" directory according to .profile, but didn't work out last time. Will try again later)

Will check out the jbig stuff after I have a few complete book collections.

Thanks!!!

[Lazy_Kent]

I was told when trying to add a repository from 'home:Lazy_Kent' that there was not a compatible version. Is the 'Lazy_Kent for 11.4' repo from the search the one you'd recommend?

Create image based on openSUSE 11.4 and add 'Lazy_Kent for 11.4'.