Re: Viewing PDFs as text?

[Tim X <timx@nospam.dev.null>]

Alan <lngndvs@gmail.com> writes:

> On Mar 11, 6:07 pm, Tim X <t...@nospam.dev.null> wrote:
>> Alan <lngn...@gmail.com> writes:
>> > Less (via lesspipe, I think) is able to read pdf files as text, using
>> > pdftotext.  It would be much easier for me to browse pdfs using
>> > emacs.
>>
>>
>> doc-view will do what you want. However, if you just want a text version
>> of the file, you may find the following useful. this is my txutils.el
>> package. It converts various file types (doc, pdf, ps etc) to text or
>> sometimes html and then displays the output in an emacs buffer. I use
>> advice to attach this to view-file (v in dired). As an added benefit, if
>> you do a view file on an html file, it will render in w3m.
>>
>> Note that this works perfectly for me. Your milage may differ and you
>> may find bugs. I'm certanly happy to recieve bug reports, but cannot
>> guarantee a timely update/fix.
>
> I am using a snapshot of CVS emacs (23.0.60).  I had to edit
> txutils.el to remove the "static-when" clause, but I'm not sure why.
> The file did byte-compile after I did so.  However, view-file ("v")
> does not seem to be re-defined in any way.
>
> I think this package can do what I want.  I DO NOT want to convert to
> png or other formats, or even to a text file.  I only want to view the
> file, which would seem to me, after all, to be the intention of the
> "view-file" command.
>
> Thank you very much.
>
> Alan

Hi Allen,

The bit that deals with emacs 21 can probably be removed now - it was
requird when there was more emacs 21 aound, but now that emacs 22 has
been released, I proably should remove it.

Apart from that, it works perfectly for me. I'll have to check the
view-file advice - maybe I have it in a different file. After a bit of
time, I tend to forget and get confused about some of this stuff.

Tim

-- 
tcross (at) rapttech dot com dot au