There are many viewers for pdf files.

I have several thousand family photographs that have been digitised to
pdf format.

I need one that will allow me to scan a series of pdf files similar to
the way pix does for jpgs.

A brief search on Google has so far not provided a solution.

Is there one?

TIA

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pinnerite wrote:

There are many viewers for pdf files.

I have several thousand family photographs that have been digitised to
pdf format.

I need one that will allow me to scan a series of pdf files similar to
the way pix does for jpgs.

A brief search on Google has so far not provided a solution.

Is there one?

TIA

When "they are digitized in PDF format", what that means
is a regular image format, has been minimally massaged to
fit as an image bytestream in the PDF. In a similar way,
you could likely convert that back to an image format, with
no loss.

You don't want to use "regular" software for that, because
it will change the bounds of the image, change the resolution,
and generally "mess around". The PDF has a transformation
matrix that will mess with the image and degrade it slightly,
compared to extracting the thing artificially.

You would be relying upon the "regularity" of how the hardware
scanner made the PDF one-page files for you, to come up with
a lossless way of converting them back to images.

Then, your "pix" program could scan the directory of extracted
pictures as you wish.

For laughs, you can try tossing a sample PDF file into
Libreoffice Draw and have it extract the bytestream object,
and see if you get a nice object on the screen as a result.

Summary: Convert the PDF files to a folder of JPGs.
(There may be ways to get slightly better quality,
than using the most naive option for conversion.)

Paul

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On Sun, 22 Sep 2019 12:38:25 -0000 (UTC), pinnerite wrote:

There are many viewers for pdf files.

I have several thousand family photographs that have been digitised to
pdf format.

I need one that will allow me to scan a series of pdf files similar to
the way pix does for jpgs.

For what's worth, providing some basic information about your setup
can help subject matter experts provide more detailed information
and possibly reduce noise from posts for other desktops, distributions...

I can recommend using a ~/.signature file to provide basic information.
Rather than maintain it by hand on new updates/installs/systems....
you can use a script to create it. Here try this
-----8<-----8<-----8<---cut below this line --8<-----8<-----8<
#!/bin/bash #***********************************************************************
#* gen_sig_file.sh - generate $HOME/.signature file Version 1.0
#*
#* Automatically overwrites $HOME/.signature on each login
#* with basic information about your setup.
#*
#* When you post to Usenet your Usenet client can append it to your
#* post which helps respondents to provide more detailed replies.
#*
#* You need to place the script somewhere in your $PATH environment.
#* echo $PATH to see possible locations.
#*
#* Save as gen_sig_file.sh
#* chmod +x gen_sig_file.sh
#*
#* Script Test Procedure:
#* gen_sig_file.sh
#* cat $HOME/.signature
#*
#* Install:
#* For all users:
#* cp gen_sig_file.sh /etc/profile.d
#* or put a link in /etc/profile.d back to gen_sig_file.sh
#* that everyone can read/execute.
#*
#* For a single user:
#* echo $PATH to see possible locations.
#*
#* put $HOME/wherever/gen_sig_file.sh location in user's shell's
#* startup script, for example ~/.bash_profile or ~/.bashrc
#*
#* Login test:
#* click up a terminal
#* su - $USER
#* cat $HOME/.signature
#*
#* Modify your Usenet client to add/append $HOME/.signature
#* to your posts and post a message in one of the Usenet test groups
#* to verify it works as desired.
#*
#***********************************************************************

Sig_fn=$HOME/.signature

DM=""
DISTRO=""

set $(lsb_release -d | grep Description)
if [ $# -gt 1 ] ; then
shift
DISTRO="$@"
fi

if [ -e /etc/sysconfig/desktop ] ; then
. /etc/sysconfig/desktop
dm="DM=$DISPLAYMANAGER"
fi

if [ -e /etc/release ] ; then
DISTRO=$(cat /etc/release)
fi

set -- $(systemctl status display-manager.service | grep PID:)
Greeter=$(echo $4 | tr -d '() ')

echo -en "-- \nRunning " > $Sig_fn
echo "$DISTRO " >> $Sig_fn
echo "$(uname -r) on $(uname -m) Greeter=$Greeter $DM DE=$XDG_SESSION_DESKTOP" >> $Sig_fn

#***********end gen_sig_file.sh ***************************

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Try XnViewMP.

https://www.xnview.com/en/xnviewmp/

It's my default image viewer. I never knew it could do what you are
looking for, until I read this:

https://newsgroup.xnview.com/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=1228&start=15

I converted a bunch of jpgs to pdfs )*. Then I opened the folder with
the pdfs in XnViewMP, and voilà, there they were, the pdf thumbnails.
The individual files can be viewed in the default pdf viewer by
doubleclicking on a thumbnail. You may have to adjust a few XnViewMP
settings to make this work.

)* libreoffice --headless --convert-to pdf *.jpg


Yrrah

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