HHeaver Posted January 2, 2020 Posted January 2, 2020 Hello, I am having a problem when placing a pdf, originally created in Finale, into Affinity publisher. For notes with accidentals, the note-head and the accidental are overlapped and import as one character so I can not separate them. The first screen shot is the way it looks once imported, the 2nd is from the original pdf. I have found a word around by editing the document and manually replacing the characters using the maestro font, but it is extremely time consuming. I am new to Affinity, so all suggestions are welcome. Quote
Staff DWright Posted January 3, 2020 Staff Posted January 3, 2020 Hi @HHeaver, Welcome to the forum is it possible for you to post a sample PDF file for me to test. Quote
HHeaver Posted January 3, 2020 Author Posted January 3, 2020 I have uploaded one of the files. Looking forward to your thoughts. 2019 - CC - Gr 5 examples-1.pdf Quote
walt.farrell Posted January 3, 2020 Posted January 3, 2020 I suggest typing the words (without the quotes) "finale pdf" into the search box here in the forums, and read through some of the older topics related to this. Quote -- Walt Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases PC: Desktop: Windows 11 Pro 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Laptop: Windows 11 Pro 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU. Laptop 2: Windows 11 Pro 24H2, 16GB memory, Snapdragon(R) X Elite - X1E80100 - Qualcomm(R) Oryon(TM) 12 Core CPU 4.01 GHz, Qualcomm(R) Adreno(TM) X1-85 GPU iPad: iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 18.3, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard Mac: 2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sequoia 15.0.1
MikeW Posted January 3, 2020 Posted January 3, 2020 Most any pdf reader/editor and some viewers can open a pdf and render it to an image. Which works as long as one doesn't need to edit the image. Quote
MikeW Posted January 3, 2020 Posted January 3, 2020 The following link will convert a pdf to an image just fine. The above attached pdf is rendered at 200 dpi, which is sufficient. The 10 pages are converted, and a zip for download is generated in seconds containing one image per page. https://pdftoimage.com Quote
MikeW Posted January 3, 2020 Posted January 3, 2020 1 minute ago, Lagarto said: This is basically ok as it produces by default 200dpi renders with grayscale mode so the files are print-ready as they are for basic needs, and readily be placeable virtually in any publications. But aiming at 300dpi rendering woud be ideal. Yep, 300 dpi would be better, but best (converting to curves) is more expensive and/or just more "techie." I suspect the convert to curves could be done via command-line with GhostScript. Great will be Serif just getting both pdf passthrough and convert type to curves upon placing. Quote
MikeW Posted January 3, 2020 Posted January 3, 2020 14 minutes ago, Lagarto said: Wow. and if really so, some exclamation marks following... That's really a game changer... It will happen. But until either or both capabilities show up in a beta, it's wishful thinking. Quote
MikeW Posted January 3, 2020 Posted January 3, 2020 Oh...and while PagePlus gained these capabilities before work stopped on it, it never handled all pdfs correctly (neither type conversion nor pdf passthrough), especially with pdfs made with Adobe products. Though Serif was using an older version of the pdf code, so I don't know what advancements were/have been made with pdflib since then. Oh also...PP also could use embedded fonts but the same caveats above apply. lacerto 1 Quote
MikeW Posted January 4, 2020 Posted January 4, 2020 As a follow-up, GhostScript (GS) works just fine. The command line parameters are: "C:\Program Files\gs\gs9.27\bin\gswin64.exe" -o output.pdf -dNoOutputFonts -sDEVICE=pdfwrite input.pdf Need to use a current version of GS (newer than 9.14 I believe) for the single command line. Path to GS needs adjusted for your installation. I created the batch file on my desktop. Without a path for the input pdf, it needs to be located wherever the batch file is. I have no idea if this can be done on a Mac... Mike lacerto 1 Quote
HHeaver Posted January 4, 2020 Author Posted January 4, 2020 Wow!! That's a lot of problem solving. Thanks everyone. I'm not sure I understand everything suggested, but I will see what I can do with what's here. I've completed 4 books each with two-10 page pdf's as this is the first problem I've run in to. Wish me luck H Quote
Catshill Posted January 4, 2020 Posted January 4, 2020 9 hours ago, MikeW said: It will happen. But until either or both capabilities show up in a beta, it's wishful thinking. I wasn’t aware that the developers had committed to this? Quote
Catshill Posted January 4, 2020 Posted January 4, 2020 8 hours ago, MikeW said: As a follow-up, GhostScript (GS) works just fine. How does it compare to Inkscape rendering of fonts? Quote
Fixx Posted January 4, 2020 Posted January 4, 2020 13 hours ago, MikeW said: Path to GS needs adjusted for your installation. I created the batch file on my desktop. Without a path for the input pdf, it needs to be located wherever the batch file is. I have no idea if this can be done on a Mac... I tried to install GS to my mac but I could not solve this path problem. I needed GS for XnConvert to convert PDF files... so it did not happen. Quote
MikeW Posted January 4, 2020 Posted January 4, 2020 1 hour ago, Fixx said: I tried to install GS to my mac but I could not solve this path problem. I needed GS for XnConvert to convert PDF files... so it did not happen. It's been since the early 1990s since I last used a Mac. Though the first part is actually building GS from the source, perhaps this helps? https://www.grenadeco.com/tutorial/introduction-to-ghostscript/ Also, in Windows one can add GS to an environment variable, which obviates the need to type a path. Maybe that sort of thing is possible with a Mac? Quote
MikeW Posted January 4, 2020 Posted January 4, 2020 6 hours ago, Catshill said: How does it compare to Inkscape rendering of fonts? I dunno. But I know some people have expressed a dislike for installing InkScape. This is just an alternative. As I "own" Acrobat & pdfToolbox, I don't need this or other workarounds anyway. Quote
HHeaver Posted January 10, 2020 Author Posted January 10, 2020 Success! I purchased software which allowed me to make a "flattened" pdf and it worked like a charm. To my surprise, even though flattening is supposed to render the pdf un-editable ,(assuming I've understood correctly) I was still able to edit it within Affinity. Thanks for all the help! Quote
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