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Looking for an Acrobat Javascript Genius/PDFKit Genius

So, as some of you may know, I derive great pleasure in projects that not only solve a problem, but prove someone wrong.

My last one was showing that you indeed can create a structured PDF from an Entourage email message. It's a hack, and not the most elegant thing.

That's 1/4th of the Office suite

The acrobat team keeps saying you can't get Word/PPT/Excel to PDF conversions any better than what you have now, which is print to file with some preservation of internet URL links. I have a large set of AppleScript dictionaries in Office that say bullshit, it can be much better. So here's the thing.

I can handle the AppleScript side of things. Not as elegantly as the true geniuses, but I can get it to work in a consistent basis. What I'm no good at is Acrobat Javascript, (or anyone else's javascript for that matter. Yes, I have Dori's book, just no damned time). So if you're good enough at Acrobat JS to handle turning a dead document into a live structured PDF with live tables of contents, etc, or even better, can build that from AppleScript document data in PDFKit, let me know. I would LOVE to build a set of Office -> Structured PDF Macros for Office 2004, (and since they'd be based on AppleScript, they'd move into Office 2008 with little problem) for two reasons:

It solves a real problem, one that Acrobat team refuses to consider, because they're all stupid about EVERYTHING MUST BE EXACTLY THE SAME, and since you can't do it with VBA on a Mac, they won't do it at all.

It would stick a lovely finger into the Acrobat team's eye, and maybe push them to be a little more up front with the difference between "can't" and "won't"

I'd prefer to do this as donationware, with the source available to all, it just seems cooler that way. This won't make a lot of money, and it probably won't even get you much glory.

But doing something that Adobe says "can't be done", (even though we know it's crapola)?

That's cool right there.

So if you have the skills and want to have some evil genius fun, and help a lot of people out, let me know, and we'll have us some fun.

Technorati Tags: Acrobat, Adobe, AppleScript, Microsoft, Microsoft Mac BU, TEH COOL

Categories: Applescript, Other

Posted by John C. Welch at 15:27 | Permalink

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So, as some of you may know, I derive great pleasure in projects that not only solve a problem, but prove someone wrong.\n\nMy last one was showing that you indeed can create a structured PDF from an Entourage email message. It's a hack, and not the most elegant thing.\n\nThat's 1/4th of the Office suite\n\nThe acrobat team keeps saying you can't get Word/PPT/Excel to PDF conversions any better than what you have now, which is print to file with some preservation of internet URL links. I have a large set of AppleScript dictionaries in Office that say bullshit, it can be much better. So here's the thing. \n\nI can handle the AppleScript side of things. Not as elegantly as the true geniuses, but I can get it to work in a consistent basis. What I'm no good at is Acrobat Javascript, (or anyone else's javascript for that matter. Yes, I have Dori's book, just no damned time). So if you're good enough at Acrobat JS to handle turning a dead document into a live structured PDF with live tables of contents, etc, or even better, can build that from AppleScript document data in PDFKit, let me know. I would LOVE to build a set of Office -> Structured PDF Macros for Office 2004, (and since they'd be based on AppleScript, they'd move into Office 2008 with little problem) for two reasons:

It solves a real problem, one that Acrobat team refuses to consider, because they're all stupid about EVERYTHING MUST BE EXACTLY THE SAME, and since you can't do it with VBA on a Mac, they won't do it at all.
It would stick a lovely finger into the Acrobat team's eye, and maybe push them to be a little more up front with the difference between \"can't\" and \"won't\"

I'd prefer to do this as donationware, with the source available to all, it just seems cooler that way. This won't make a lot of money, and it probably won't even get you much glory.\n\nBut doing something that Adobe says \"can't be done\", (even though we know it's crapola)? \n\nThat's cool right there.\n\nSo if you have the skills and want to have some evil genius fun, and help a lot of people out, let me know, and we'll have us some fun.\n

Technorati Tags: Acrobat, Adobe, AppleScript, Microsoft, Microsoft Mac BU, TEH COOL