Consultants doing TeX-related work. ()

Gerree Pecht | 16 Oct 2006 16:18

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pdf2latex

Hello,

I have been asked numerous times if it is possible to convert .pdf file 
to .tex (LaTeX)?

I work on LINUX OS ... some work on Mac's and PC's  ... please advise.

Also, is there an easier software package that I can use with regards to 
presenting
beautiful technical slides containing mega amount of formulas/drawings 
without
too much back-and-forth in files?  Any info on how to include COLOR into 
the
file without having to "mix" the colors to get what I need.  Also, can 
this be
done just by including a "package" at the top of my file?  What command
do I use when I wish to include a word/paragraph, etc. in color either on
a slide or within text.

Any info you can give me is appreciated.

Thanks!

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Anupam Tyagi | 9 Nov 2006 17:27

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Re: pdf2latex

Gerree Pecht <gerree <at> ...> writes:

> 
> Hello,
> 
> I have been asked numerous times if it is possible to convert .pdf file 
> to .tex (LaTeX)?

Only if I could do this well.

> Also, is there an easier software package that I can use with regards to 
> presenting
> beautiful technical slides containing mega amount of formulas/drawings 
> without
> too much back-and-forth in files?  

I think "pdfscreen" works well for this. There is also Ppower4 pre-processor for
some fancy tricks.

> Any info on how to include COLOR into 
> the
> file without having to "mix" the colors to get what I need.  

I think a very good solution is to use WinEdt editor on Windows (sorry, Alex
won't port it to Linux, or should I say his wife who manages the business has
not been able to convince him. I have been trying to convince them for 4-5 years
now.). It has a point and click color matrix. 

> Also, can 
> this be

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Peter Flynn | 17 Oct 2006 23:19

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pdf2latex

Gerree Pecht wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I have been asked numerous times if it is possible to convert .pdf file 
> to .tex (LaTeX)?

I'm not aware of any software that does this directly. PDF files
normally contain only information about the fonts and the position of
the text, whereas LaTeX expects some information about structure.

> I work on LINUX OS ... some work on Mac's and PC's  ... please advise.

pdftotext will extract the unmarked text from a PDF document, so you
can use that and then add back the LaTeX markup needed to recreate the
document.

There are numerous (expensive) commercial packages that apply heuristics
to the font and positional information in PDF documents to try and
deduce the structure, but I believe they output only Word (or perhaps
XML if they're smart). If you can afford them, you could use this as one
stage in the conversion process.

> Also, is there an easier software package that I can use with regards
> to presenting beautiful technical slides containing mega amount of
> formulas/drawings without too much back-and-forth in files? 

Easier than what?
I'm not clear what the "back-and-forth" is that you refer to.
Beamer is the best slidemaker I know for LaTeX.

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