Thread: Free (and good) PDF to HTML converter?

  1. #1
    Guest Sebastiani's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2001
    Location
    Waterloo, Texas
    Posts
    5,708

    Free (and good) PDF to HTML converter?

    Hi, folks. I'm trying to find a decent conversion tool (preferably one that works 'online', but it really isn't that important). I've tried a handful of the online converters, but all have choked on the input file (it's the C++ Standard). Alternately, if someone here owns a non-free one that they'd be willing to run on it, that would work too. Here's a link to the file that needs to be converted to HTML.

    Many thanks.

  2. #2
    (?<!re)tired Mario F.'s Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2006
    Location
    Ireland
    Posts
    8,446
    Well I tried and I gave up. Using Adobe Acrobat, it crashes when trying to export to HTML 4.01 with CSS, to HTML 3.2 or even to Word. It processes all the pages but then crashes when building the file.

    Why you want to convert a perfectly decent and convenient PDF file into one thousand, three hundred and twenty six webpages is beyond me. But, I don't think I can help. That's my only PDF authoring tool and I know of no freeware tool.
    Originally Posted by brewbuck:
    Reimplementing a large system in another language to get a 25% performance boost is nonsense. It would be cheaper to just get a computer which is 25% faster.

  3. #3
    Registered User
    Join Date
    Dec 2006
    Location
    Canada
    Posts
    3,229
    If you can find a program to convert the PDF into images first... It's going to take quite a bit of space, though.

  4. #4
    Guest Sebastiani's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2001
    Location
    Waterloo, Texas
    Posts
    5,708
    Quote Originally Posted by Mario F. View Post
    Well I tried and I gave up. Using Adobe Acrobat, it crashes when trying to export to HTML 4.01 with CSS, to HTML 3.2 or even to Word. It processes all the pages but then crashes when building the file.

    Why you want to convert a perfectly decent and convenient PDF file into one thousand, three hundred and twenty six webpages is beyond me. But, I don't think I can help. That's my only PDF authoring tool and I know of no freeware tool.
    I guess I just prefer HTML over PDF, in general. But yeah, had similar (no such) luck, even with Adobe tools. I was almost able to get gmail to translate it (you can send then view the attachment as HTML), but it produced some corrupt output in places. Grrr. Oh well.

  5. #5
    Registered User
    Join Date
    Dec 2006
    Location
    Canada
    Posts
    3,229
    Am I right to assume that you are not a web developer .

    Every browser renders the same HTML document slightly differently (VERY differently in the case of IE), with different quirks. PDF is a godsend.

  6. #6
    Guest Sebastiani's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2001
    Location
    Waterloo, Texas
    Posts
    5,708
    Quote Originally Posted by cyberfish View Post
    Am I right to assume that you are not a web developer .

    Every browser renders the same HTML document slightly differently (VERY differently in the case of IE), with different quirks. PDF is a godsend.
    True, but it's usually possible to find workarounds for most browser-specific ideosynchrancies (and if using a language like PHP, the user doesn't even have to have Javascript turned on). But yeah, obviously there will always be differences in display, depending on the browser and platform. On the other hand, it does give the user a much finer level of control over how the content is delivered (especially useful for accessibility issues), it's easily indexible, and - best of all - non-proprietary.

  7. #7
    Registered User
    Join Date
    Dec 2006
    Location
    Canada
    Posts
    3,229
    Last time I checked, PDF is an open standard, too (so is HTML, but it doesn't really help when IE, having 80% market share, doesn't follow the standards). At least different PDF readers render same documents almost if not identically (I have tried a few). Adobe's reference implementation obviously follows their own standard.

    I believe Google indexes PDF documents, too.

  8. #8
    Guest Sebastiani's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2001
    Location
    Waterloo, Texas
    Posts
    5,708
    Quote Originally Posted by cyberfish View Post
    Last time I checked, PDF is an open standard, too (so is HTML, but it doesn't really help when IE, having 80% market share, doesn't follow the standards). At least different PDF readers render same documents almost if not identically (I have tried a few). Adobe's reference implementation obviously follows their own standard.

    I believe Google indexes PDF documents, too.
    Good point(s), Cyberfish. I knew that Adobe had published some of their formats, but wasn't aware PDF was one of them.

    Google does index/translate PDF, but the results are sometimes a little wonky. Could use a little work in certain areas.

    IE does ........ me off though. Just about every compatibility issue arises from the fact that they refuse to stick to the standard, and even strive to become the de facto, which is incredibly obnoxious. That said, they are getting better (if only from all the pressure they've received over the years).

  9. #9
    Lurking whiteflags's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2006
    Location
    United States
    Posts
    9,613
    I used a crappy command line tool to do this. It's not the prettiest document; in fact, it's about as good as Adobe's "save as txt" feature, but it didn't explode and you can read it.

    I agree that not reading the file in PDF is basically insane.

  10. #10
    Guest Sebastiani's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2001
    Location
    Waterloo, Texas
    Posts
    5,708
    Quote Originally Posted by whiteflags View Post
    I used a crappy command line tool to do this. It's not the prettiest document; in fact, it's about as good as Adobe's "save as txt" feature, but it didn't explode and you can read it.
    Thanks for the link, Whiteflags - I'll check it out.

Popular pages Recent additions subscribe to a feed

Similar Threads

  1. Good C compilers for free?
    By identifier-less in forum C Programming
    Replies: 20
    Last Post: 04-03-2006, 05:18 PM
  2. Good Free GUI?
    By Grantyt3 in forum C++ Programming
    Replies: 8
    Last Post: 11-27-2005, 12:18 AM
  3. Question about atheists
    By gcn_zelda in forum A Brief History of Cprogramming.com
    Replies: 160
    Last Post: 08-11-2003, 11:50 AM
  4. Good free server with PHP support?
    By compjinx in forum A Brief History of Cprogramming.com
    Replies: 6
    Last Post: 12-13-2002, 08:48 PM
  5. Other GOOD FREE compilers
    By DarkViper in forum C++ Programming
    Replies: 8
    Last Post: 12-07-2002, 09:16 PM