Tag: PDF Image-only

[Case Study] Converting TIFF to PDF Using New Command Line Tools

Win2PDF has expanded its Command Line Interface to support two new conversion features.

  1. TIFF to PDF — This option converts TIFF graphic images into PDF files.
  1. PDF Image Only — This option converts PDF files to an Image Only format. Image Only PDF files can be used to make the PDF unsearchable, “flatten” text fields for security, speed up loading time for complex PDFs, and reduce the PDF file size.

As an example, consider this example we recently solved for a customer. They wanted to merge a scanned TIFF image to an existing text-based PDF file.

To accomplish this, they created a small batch file. The first line of the batch file converted the TIFF file to a PDF.

Win2Pdfd.exe tiff2pdf "1.tif" "1.pdf"

The 2nd line merged the PDF into the existing text PDF. (where “2.pdf” was an existing searchable text-based PDF).

Win2Pdfd.exe append "1.pdf" "2.pdf" "New.pdf"

The 3rd line flattened the file to an Image Only PDF. This made the combined PDF file unsearchable.

Win2Pdfd.exe imagepdf "New.pdf" "NewImageOnly.pdf" mono

In terms of formatting for the batch file, full path names were used so that it looked like this when the batch file is run from the Windows command prompt:

They had been struggling to find a solution to do this one particular document conversion, and the batch file solution not only provided the final document with the formatting they needed, but also provided the flexibility to integrate this into their existing document management process.

As we expand the options available in the Win2PDF Command Line Interface, the ability to do these types of highly customized and automated solutions is becoming easier, especially when coupled with Win2PDF Plug-Ins.

As always, if you have a particular conversion or process need for your PDF files, let us know if we can help.

It’s Greek To Me: Case Study for PDF Image Only Files

We recently received a unique support question that illustrated a real-world case where the PDF Image Only file save option saved the day. Here was the issue our customer came to us with:

I am trying to help my wife who is teaching ancient Greek language classes online. The problem is that there is no standard universally recognized font for ancient Greek – they all render the language in different ways. And ancient Greek is quite different from modern Greek. She can create documents on her Windows PC using one of a number of specialized TrueType (TTF) fonts. And she can convert documents to Unicode for pasting into web content and/or she can print or export Unicode documents to PDFs. For most of her students these processes are successful. However some students see only gibberish. She has no control over the various platforms her students are using, Windows, Mac OS, iOS, Android, Chrome, etc.

By Hesiod / Houghton Library, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Is there a way Win2PDF can handle this situation? The best option would be if she could print/export her multi-page documents to non-searchable, graphics only PDFs.

For this case, the solution was easy. Win2PDF can create multi-page image only PDFs that render the TTF fonts as graphics. It’s just a standard Win2PDF file save type the user can select when printing.

While this particular customer was able to make the conversions using other programs, this was the easiest method since it was just a single step to save the PDF file.

When we recommended this solution to the customer, he gave us the following reply:

While the Covid-19 pandemic lasts and much teaching is being done online, you might want to share this information with university departments of Classics and Religious Studies and theological colleges (and other academic institutions that teach archaic languages for which there are no universally standard means of rendering them as computer-created text). My wife cannot be the only university instructor with this problem.

Consider it done.