1. It works
2. Option to Bcc a copy of sent mail (ideal for POP accounts)

/misc | May 25, 2010

/windows | May 23, 2010

/windows | May 23, 2010

/nix | May 18, 2010

/blosxom | May 14, 2010

/mac | May 12, 2010

/misc | May 10, 2010

Removing Blank Pages from a PDF

Friday, January 28 2005 @ 09:27 AM PST
Contributed by: Admin

Here is an idea for how to remove blank pages from a PDF using pdftotext and pdftk. It is based on a recent posting to comp.text.pdf.

demunn@yahoo.com wrote:
> Hello all,

> Sorry if this is a recurrent question. I'm rendering/printing an HTML
>  document from a web-based program to a pdf file. The web-based
> program has minimal features to control pagination, etc. (I know
> web-based print control is relatively primitive) and the outcome is
> unwanted blank pages in the PDF output file.

> Anyway, I'm basically looking for a program that will allow me batch 
> process a folder of PDF files and strip out the blank pages. Is there
>  any programs or utilities that will do this? Any suggestions are
> greatly appreciated

> DM

Here is one simple idea that assumes that all non-blank pages have
(extractable) text on them.

1. Use pdftotext (from the xpdf project) to convert mydoc.pdf to
mydoc.txt. Pdftotext uses the formfeed character (0x0c) to mark page breaks.

2. Scan mydoc.txt looking for pages with no text. Record these page
indexes (start counting at page 1, not zero).

3. If you find blank pages, use pdftk to remove them. Construct the
pdftk command line using the page indexes you collected in step 2. For
example, to drop page 3, say:

   pdftk mydoc.pdf cat 1-2 4-end output mydoc.noblanks.pdf

It shouldn't be too hard to write such a shell script, eh?

Sid Steward
http://www.AccessPDF.com/pdftk/

---

The Script

Using bash (via MSYS) on my Win2k machine, I have strung some commands together that identify PDF pages with no extractable text on them. I don't say "blank pages," because sometimes a non-blank PDF page has no extractable text on it.

#!/bin/sh
#
# find_textless_pdf_pages.sh
# bash script for MSYS; also requires pdftotext (xpdf);
#
# identify PDF pages that have no extractable text on them;
# linux users might need to omit the -c sed option and then
# drop the 'R' from the sed script;
#
# invoke like so:
#  find_textless_pdf_pages.sh mydoc.pdf
#
pdftotext $1 - |
tr "FRfr" "frFR" |
sed -c -n '/^FR$/{ N; /^FRnFR$/a
PageNoText
/^FRnFR$/!a
Page
D; }'

Command Breakdown

pdftotext - converts the input PDF file into text. It uses the formfeed character (f) to mark page breaks.

tr - translates characters. Sed doesn't see non-printing ASCII characters such as f or r (carriage return). So, translate R->r, F->f, and f->F, r->R.

sed - the stream editor. I discuss sed here. If it finds a line that is just "FR", then it looks ahead to see if the next line is also "FR". If it is, then it prints "PageNoText". If it isn't, then it prints "Page". Finally, it uses the D command to continue processing with just the second line of text.

I'll continue working on this script as time permits.

/nix | May 10, 2010

/misc | May 10, 2010

$ stat foo
  File: foo
  Size: 221       	Blocks: 8          IO Block: 4096   regular file
Device: 801h/2049d	Inode: 540949      Links: 1
Access: (0700/-rwx------)  Uid: (    0/    root)   Gid: (    0/    root)
Access: 2006-12-04 07:00:00.000000000 -1000
Modify: 2006-12-04 07:00:00.000000000 -1000
Change: 2010-05-08 10:01:29.000000000 -1000

stat also accepts wildcards: $ stat *.txt

/nix | May 08, 2010

• How to install Windows from USB: WinSetupFromUSB with GUI - Supports multiple Windows XP/2Kx sources in the same partition; BartPE/WinBulder/UBCD4Win/WinFLPC (NOT ramdisk versions) to any primary partition; Vista/Windows 7/Server 2008 setup to different primary partitions; PartedMagic; other grub4dos CD emulation compatible ISOs; SyLinux bootsector as a file, and optionally a directory, containing a Linux distro booting off SysLinux.
• The Multipass USB Project - Uses PeToUSB, grubinst and grubfordos to boot: Trinity Rescue Kit, Kon-Boot, Ophcrack, DBAN, Hiren's 9.9, Ubuntu 9.04 LiveCD, Windows 7 Install DVD, BackTrack 4, and Macrium Reflect from a single USB drive.
• Creating a multiboot USB drive (PDF) - Tested with Acronis True Image, FreeDOS, MemTest86+, Ultimate Boot CD, and WinPE.
• Shardana Antivirus Rescue Disk - Supports bootable antivirus utilities, Linux LiveCDs, and Windows PE discs.
• Guide for Multi-booting from a USB Drive
• Guide for MultiBoot USB-stick with boot.ini Menu
• Aeroboot 2010 - Scriptable Graphic Multiboot Menu System. Multiboot DVD by Aero step by step | Run AeroStudio ISO from USB Flash Drive
• miniPE, BackTrack and Knoppix in an USB pen
• How to set up a USB Flash key to boot to WinPE+BartPE+MS-DOS+FreeDOS, Using RMPrepUSB
• Multi Multi Multi Boot USB HD, Backtrack 3, XP SP3 Installation, Ultimate Boot CD
• Use ISOEmu boot installation ISO image from hard disk
• Creating Multiboot USB flash drive step by step
• Multiboot USB (PE, Linux And DOS) using Syslinux, GRUB4DOS and/or multiple partitions
• WinBuilder - A script engine that will run projects developed by several authors which produce very efficient boot disks available for several Windows platforms.
• Mk-boot-usb: a Script to Create Multiple-Bootable USB Keys
• Guide to Create a multi-boot rescue USB flash drive
• Roll Your Own Multiboot Usb Flash Drive
• MultiBoot USB with Grub2 (boot directly from iso files)
• multicd.sh - Combine several CDs into one multicd.sh is a shell script designed to build a multiboot CD image containing many different Linux distributions and/or utilities.
• Billix: Multi-Boot USB Key distribution
• UNetbootin - Allows for installation of Ubuntu, Fedora, openSUSE, and various other Linux distributions from Windows or Linux without a CD
• liveusb-creator - Cross-platform tool for easily installing live operating systems on to USB flash drives.

The more robust solutions were generally quite tedious, and none of them worked for all ISO images, as explained here: Boot "any" ISO image or boot "all" ISO images.

Having recently stumbled upon a floppy drive emulator, I started looking for a USB CD/DVD drive emulator and finally found a way to boot any ISO image from USB drive: the iodd 2501. It is a 2.5" SATA drive enclosure with an LED display to select the desired ISO image. Simply create a "_ISO" directory in the drive root and dump your ISO images inside. That's it! The enclosure also has a write protect switch and eSATA support.

The iodd 2501 has booted every ISO image I have thrown at it, on both PC and Mac hardware. When I first tried using the device, the LED would only report "NO-_ISO", despite having followed the instructions exactly. It turns out that formatting as FAT32 in OS X's Disk Utility was the problem; I simply used fat32format under Windows and the problem was solved (NTFS is apparently supported with a firmware upgrade).

I purchased mine from LinITX; they've got detailed instructions, videos, and great customer service.

UPDATES:

1. John Rothlisberger wrote in to ask if ISO images can be changed on the fly during an install. After testing with a Windows XP Media Center Edition 2 disc set I am happy to report that they can.
2. Curtis Reno has started a neat project to build an open source USB CD emulator using inexpensive components. Announcement | Fourm
3. isostick is a similar CD emulator that uses microSD cards and a USB Flash drive adapter. Sadly, it only supports FAT32, though large ISO files can be split.
4. Zalman (which took over iodd development) continues to improve the hardware, recently adding hardware encryption and more.

/misc | May 08, 2010

1. If you've already clicked on the NTFS device icon within PCMan File Manager, right click the icon again and select "Unmount File System" (since Knoppix mounts the drive as read-only from the GUI).
2. Launch Terminal Emulator and run fdisk to identify the NTFS partition:
   $ sudo fdisk -l
3. Mount the device (/dev/sda1 in this example) as writable:
   $ sudo ntfs-3g /dev/sda1 /mnt/sda1
4. When finished, be sure to unmount:
   $ sudo umount /mnt/sda1

/nix | May 01, 2010

/mac | May 01, 2010