Would like a good converter for pdf to doc or html to doc or tex to doc

English
#1

I have a lot of word processing to do in Libre Office Writer and I would like to include some pdf files into my odt document. I didn’t want to be forced to first export as pdf and then have the final document be a pdf file. I really don’t like the textboxes in Adobe. So I’ve been taking a .tex file with math equations and converting it to html sort of ok. But the html to doc process I can’t find a tool that does it well. And I’m a little concerned about my hard-drive sometimes. Another thing, why don’t the converters involve the pdf file in the process even though it’s html to doc or tex to doc that I want or tex to odt or html or odt? At least the pdf file has the right appearance. Why not make a list of fonts right away rather than guess at them and miss? Just my opinion. Something better needs to be written - there is a real need to include files in your main document which is in odt format in Libre Office Writer. I have thought about getting a copy of Microsoft Word but I just have one machine that might have it but it’s hard to start it up - I might be forced to do it sometime today. Word might be able to open an html file and have it look ok without just a pic or something.

Update: I am going to write the software myself. I have never failed at developing a technology in my entire life.

#2

Try:

#6

It looks like your need is not to embed a pdf file but to insert math formulas in your document. Embedding PDFs will always be tricky and won’t give you optimal result.

Instead, have a look at Math, the math formula editor. You can acces it with Insert>OLE Object>Math Formula. Of course, the math definition language is not the same as TEX and you’ll have to recreate them, but the result will be better than PDF embedding and surely faster than the whole contorted procedure you describe.

#9

My need is not as you have just suggested, please don’t act as if it’s not a normal thing to read a pdf file and convert it to a Word file. It’s not a technically challenging thing to read a font from a document and draw it onto another document. An Adobe file is not an abstract concept to understand. If you think it’s a difficult or contorted process, then it’s over your head and I don’t want your comments on my thread. Please leave the thread or I’ll get legal with you. Please leave the thread now! I’m asking you kindly. You don’t have the answer, leave!

#10

The Libre Office Math editor just hangs up and the equations can’t be resized. I tried to convert the file I had in odt that had a converted document and Libre Office could not do the job.

#11

It is next to impossible to convert back a PDF to DOC(X) or ODF because PDF is a (frozen) display format. All formatting information has been cleared in the process. A possible solution would be to pass it to an OCR application that will do its best to rebuild the paragraph structure.

All Writer can do presently is insert a small PDF page as an image. But if you try to insert a multi-page PDF, this will fail (again because a PDF is seen as a graphical file, not as a text one).

#12

I may have to go back to the original Tex file if what you say is true. But I wonder why the Adobe file lists the fonts I show - how is that frozen? I don’t know if it’s frozen - Libre Office CAN read a pdf file and show all of it as text, it’s just that there are boxes around the text. But the text can be edited. it’s not a frozen format. It’s not what you think. Sorry but you’re wrong. I don’t use pdf files anymore as a savior of a file as it just doesn’t work to have all the stupid textboxes inserted by Adobe or whoever put them there? I don’t know whether it is Adobe or Libre Office. I might need to email the coders and see that’s going on. It just takes technology to solve a problem. But an Adobe file has text in it. My adobe pdf file has numerous fonts, the ones I list there. The fonts should be what drives the entire process. The entire process should have the fonts ready to go. That’s at least a small part of the problem. The design of substituting fonts breaks down sometimes or all of the time for my documents. The process should just be simple. Just go character by character and redraw the document in the new format, as an odt or doc or docx. I really don’t think it’s a hard problem to solve.
I will be off the thread for a long time today - I have other things to do. I am also making sure to install all of the fonts mentioned in the Adobe Ctrl-D process that I ran. I have summarized the fonts and I just downloaded the fonts to make sure that I have them. I have unzipped them now I need to make them available to LibreOffice - I’ll have to reread the link I had for that when I get back to this tonight.

#13

“Frozen” means you can’t reformat as you would do in any text processing application: paragraph structure has been broken into lines or portions of lines; heading property has been lost (It was used to build an optional navigation TOC for PDF viewer, but the information has been removed from the text); styling is no longer there; … Of course, you can still edit it in graphical apps like Draw but none of the “automated” operations available usually in Writer can be used. And this edition goes by adjusting every text box one by one.

Regarding your fonts, if they are indeed Type 1, Writer won’t be able to use them because support for Type 1 fonts has been dropped several releases ago. BTW, you didn’t mention your OS (assuming it is Windows), nor LO version, nor your save format.

#14

Similar question asked on the AOO forum at Looking for html to doc or odt converter and How to convert .tex files to .doc

#15

My OS for Libre Office is either Fatdog Linux (GNU) or occasionally Linux Mint 18.3 or later.

I use versions of Libre Office usually around 5.2 but I have 7.4 on at least one of my machines.

#16

Have you ever had a look in the basics there? PDF is based on postscript, wich I would describe as a stack-oriented programming language for graphic objects. Text-oriented alingment of characters is one of the simple tasks.
.
Then modern pdf allows also use of java-script, so you have a second programming language inside. On the other end a lot of pdf-files are acually scanned images, so no information if font at all - but perfect reproduced on all devices.
.
You may be lucky and could avoid most of this for your use-case but you are welcome to write the perfect pdf-tool.
As a start you might have a look at scribus-source, as they integrated also colour-management with profiles and pdf/X ( used in professional printing as you surely knows).

I apologize and will leave this. Good luck.

#17

Sorry about my anguish lash-out to others but I don’t understand why the problem of word processing hasn’t been solved in a grand way.

Am I missing something? I am now experimenting with fonts and tex outputs but I’m getting bogged down in installing TexLive on one of my Linux machines. I know it will install on my Mint machines but I don’t want it on there. Just frustrated. I will have to learn pdf file format - not something I thought I had to do - again, I’m writing a book, I wanted to focus on the writing but I have 100 pages written when I thought I would start integrating my Tex and pdf stuff. But all of a sudden, a brick wall. Why?

I normally use Tex in TexWorks on Windows, but I want to try it on Linux and I wanted to still use Type 1 fonts. I cannot believe that support for Type 1 fonts is being dropped - is this by version 7 of Libre Office so that I can still use version 5 type 1 fonts?

Another thing: where does LibreOffice look for fonts - /use/share/fonts correct? Why don’t the fonts I install show up? Is it due to that they are Type 1 and Libre office is ignoring them. I am trying so hard to find a way to solve these problems but I don’t really understand the existing technologies and all the little details that I thought I’d never have to understand. Word processing is not what it should be. A person should be able to write a perfect document with formulas, pictures, figures, diagrams, text whatever. Why is it so hard to do? Why is it so hard to merge documents - the fonts? the method of storage - I started reading your post on pdf file format - I’ll study it.

Right now, I can’t get any newly installed fonts to show up in Libre Office, something that should be almost trivial.

#18

Support for Type 1 fonts is being dropped everywhere, see Adobe site PostScript Type 1 fonts end of support

LibreOffice no longer supports them from 5.3, see tdf#104701.

One reason, amongst many, for not using an older version of LO might be tdf#101220 fixed in LO 7.3 but remember embedded font subsets are still not used, see tdf#85295

A search on the internet shows some have ttf or otf versions

You can create your own font replacement list in Tools > Options > LibreOffice > Fonts

#3

I have tried all of the online converters including Adobe’s - absolutely none of the converters have any merit, they all stink very, very badly and I know exactly why.

What I’m going to do as a solution is to post another question on this forum how to update the fonts in Libre Office. The fonts in my document are very specifically

CMEX10 (Embedded subset), Type 1, Encoding built-in
CMMI10 (Embedded subset), Type 1, Encoding built-in
CMMI8 (Embedded subset), Type 1, Encoding built-in
CMR10 (Embedded subset), Type 1, Encoding built-in
CMR12 (Embedded subset), Type 1, Encoding built-in
CMR17 (Embedded subset), Type 1, Encoding built-in
CMR8 (Embedded subset), Type 1, Encoding built-in
CMSS12 (Embedded subset), Type 1, Encoding built-in
CMSS12 (Embedded subset), Type 1, Encoding built-in
CMSY10 (Embedded subset), Type 1, Encoding built-in

LibreOffice can at least open a pdf file and display it. I’m going to work with that tool and possibly join the coders - the writers of the app if necessary. I’m going to make a better pdf to doc converter myself. The online converters I don’t want anyway, due to sensitive corporate data that gets uploaded. None of them even come close to working. The converters don’t have ANY intelligence in their design, and this includes Adobe whose converter is perhaps the worst of the bunch - unbelievable, I’m in disbelief that such a simple process as converting a document from one format to another and NONE of the companies, not even one, can do it at all. I’m in total disbelief and embarassed to be an American at this point. I literally am forced to join the Libre Office coders and do the job myself.

#4

I tried the link you gave me and it caused a huge problem on my computer. The problem with the technologies is that they are starting to corrupt my hard-drive, I cannot keep trying things, they just do NOT work! NONE as in 0 of the technologies can do the job.

#7

Please don’t post “answers” for what are in fact “comments”. This is a Question & Answer site, not a forum. So, please, repost as comments, then delete your “non”-answers".

#8

I have proposed an answer, it was not a comment.

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