[Web4lib] Re: Extracting images from PDF?

[Eileen Lutzow]

Bob,

Do you really want to convert them to some other format?  Why not 
keep them as pdfs and just edit or recombine the pages?

I have Acrobat 6.0 Professional, but looking at the info on the Adobe 
website, it looks like 7.0 might have the same features I mention 
below, but you may need to figure out the exact steps in 7.0.  It 
does take the Pro version, not the free Reader.

I'm not sure I'm clear on what you have though.  Do you have a file 
that has each page from the original as a separate page in the .pdf 
file and you just have extra pages in the file that don't belong 
there or need to be in a different file?  Or is each page in the pdf 
actually made of two pages from the original?

If it's the former, simply extract the pages from the PDF file where 
they don't belong and then recombine them with the file where they do 
belong.  This is what I do in 6.0 Professional:

-- Open the original file and click on the tab to display the page 
previews in the left hand pane.

-- Click on the page(s) that you want to extract.

-- Right click on the page(s)

-- Click "Extract Pages"

-- The page(s) you clicked on should be indicated in the window.  If 
not fill in the page numbers you want to extract.  Click on "Delete 
Pages After Extracting" if you want to delete them from the original 
file.

-- A new window opens with the extracted page(s).  Save it with a 
temporary filename with the .pdf extension.

-- Close the temp and the original files.

-- Click on "Create PDF" and then "From Multiple Files"

-- Click on the names of the temp file and the file it should be 
merged with.  You should click on the filenames in the correct order 
you want to combine them, but if you don't, simply use the "Move Up" 
or "Move Down" buttons to reorder the filenames.

-- Click OK

-- A new window opens with the combined document.  Save it with a new 
filename in .pdf format.

-- Delete your temp file.


However, if what you have is the two pages from the original as one 
page in the pdf, then maybe the crop tool would be useful.  In 
ver.6.0, this is what I do:

-- Open the original file and click on the tab to display the page 
previews in the left hand pane.

-- Right click on the double-page that needs editing.

-- Click on "Crop Pages"

-- Enter how many inches from the left or right side of the image 
should be cropped to eliminate the unwanted page.

-- Click OK

-- Note that the cropped page may look like the font changes and is 
much larger than the original, but that is because the display may 
change to a higher percentage.  Simply reset it to 100% and it will 
look like the original.

-- Save the file.


If you have this double-page page and need to split it between two 
files, you'll probably need to combine the two processes.  Extract 
the double-page without deleting it from the original, save the 
extracted page in a temp file, and then combine the temp file with 
the second file.  Then crop the double-page in both files, cropping 
from the left in one file and from the right in the other to crop out 
the page that doesn't belong.


I've used the first process quite a few times in real projects, and I 
know it works.  I just experimented with the second process now, so I 
haven't used it for a real project, but it looks like it'll work.  
I'm no expert at Acrobat, but let me know if you need more help.

Eileen Lutzow
Charleston Southern University Library
elutzow at csuniv.edu
843-863-7951

On 14 Dec 2005 at 15:47, Robert Sullivan wrote:

> A local labor organization had some old newsletters scanned and
> presented us with 4 CDs of PDFs, with each issue a separate file.
> 
> This would be great, except that they were scanned from a bound volume
> 2 pages at a time, so any given file will contain the last page of the
> previous issue and be missing the last page of the issue named.  This
> portends some amount of patron confusion.
> 
> I'm considering trying to take these images apart and reassemble them
> in a more useful way.  We have Acrobat 7, but our graphics staff uses
> it at a fairly low level so they can't help me.  I have found
> references to software which will let you save images form PDFs as
> TIFFs, but I was hoping for some real world experience.
> 
> Thanks for any advice on the least painful way to handle this,
> 
> --
> Bob Sullivan
> Schenectady Digital History Archive
> <http://www.schenectadyhistory.org/>
> Schenectady County (NY) Public Library
> _______________________________________________
> Web4lib mailing list
> Web4lib at webjunction.org
> http://lists.webjunction.org/web4lib/



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