3 ms·

who would be interested by an online website doing the job?

by jlink 10y ago

akouri 10y ago
I bet most would, but privacy would be a big concern for me at least. script is optimal format for me
- marak830 10y ago
  Privacy is the reason I'd prefer to do this in house.
  - a3n 10y ago
    Not to mention corporate privacy/IP.
    - marak830 10y ago
      Indeed. I might also show this to my wife(works in Nissan), might save her a bit of time.
rodw 10y ago
For what it's worth, here's a service that does that https://documentalchemy.com/demo/pdf2txt https://documentalchemy.com/demo/pdf2txt (and more: https://documentalchemy.com/demo https://documentalchemy.com/demo)
- jlink 10y ago
  thanks for sharing this one, didn't know it.
- flexie 10y ago
  Just tried the demos on this website. I tried to extract text from a pdf that already has searchable text, which can be copy-pasted. This should be the easiest task of all but it made mistakes in every second word. Then I asked the website to make a pdf into a word-file. It just inserted the whole pdf as a picture in word.
  - rodw 10y ago
    > Then I asked the website to make a pdf into a word-file. It just inserted the whole pdf as a picture in word. Really? I'm pretty sure that's not the way this works.
logicallee 10y ago
if you really want to rake it in, serve, at static speeds (meaning instantly, I swear, boot a ramdrive (Tmpfs) and serve static html from nginx all from RAM), text versions of the top 10,000 web sites. there is so much crap on most sites. re-crawl hourly. monetize via Google adwords. EDIT: I'm not sure why I'm being downvoted. I am not suggesting serving PDF's. I am suggesting serving tiny text renders of top sites, that otherwise are much too bloated. the hard part is getting the text and layout right. many people read many sites for the text IMO. So I am suggesting you make an all-text version. As an example, the front page of the New York Times right now, copied into Microsoft Word, is 2504 words. When I save from the word I copied into into .txt - I get a 16.4 KB file. By comparison, when I put the site into a Page Size Checker -- http://smallseotools.com/website-page-size-checker/ http://smallseotools.com/website-page-size-checker/ -- I get 214.23 KB. That is impressively small, and it's a fast page. If I try their competition, the Washington Post, I get 237 KB. If I try the Wall Street Journal, I get 938.15 KB -- nearly a full Megabyte. (This is actually more what I was expecting - I'm impressed by the Times.) Suppose someone desperately wants to glance at the Wall Street Journal from a poor connection where they barely get data. The difference between 12 KB and nearly a megabyte is huge. Its the difference between 4 seconds and 312 seconds: 4 seconds as compared with 5 full minutes. So there is a large need in my opinion for such a service in case someone desperately wants to see a text render. Preserving any formatting at all, helps hugely.
- cozzyd 10y ago
  You can use the SHA-1 of the PDF's to avoid serving the same pdf twice.
  - coulix 10y ago
    SHA-256 ;)
  - vgb2k11 10y ago
    You've been away from HN a few days? The SHA-1 collision example uses PDFs in its demo. Hence other commenter saying SHA 256
2_listerine_pls 10y ago
check docparser.com
- jlink 10y ago
  interesting service which was not present yet back in 2015 when I wrote my class.
  - krakaukiosk 10y ago
    Correct! We launched July 2016
andreif 10y ago
Yeah, sure, a public one for not privacy-critical PDFs plus something like a Heroku button to build own secure app (with auth and no storage). See e.g. my file sharing app https://github.com/andreif/SecretFile https://github.com/andreif/SecretFile

who would be interested by an online website doing the job?

by jlink 10y ago

who would be interested by an online website doing the job?

akouri 10y ago

I bet most would, but privacy would be a big concern for me at least. script is optimal format for me

marak830 10y ago
Privacy is the reason I'd prefer to do this in house.
- a3n 10y ago
  Not to mention corporate privacy/IP.
  - marak830 10y ago
    Indeed. I might also show this to my wife(works in Nissan), might save her a bit of time.

rodw 10y ago

For what it's worth, here's a service that does that https://documentalchemy.com/demo/pdf2txt https://documentalchemy.com/demo/pdf2txt (and more: https://documentalchemy.com/demo https://documentalchemy.com/demo)

jlink 10y ago
thanks for sharing this one, didn't know it.
flexie 10y ago
Just tried the demos on this website. I tried to extract text from a pdf that already has searchable text, which can be copy-pasted. This should be the easiest task of all but it made mistakes in every second word. Then I asked the website to make a pdf into a word-file. It just inserted the whole pdf as a picture in word.
- rodw 10y ago
  > Then I asked the website to make a pdf into a word-file. It just inserted the whole pdf as a picture in word. Really? I'm pretty sure that's not the way this works.

logicallee 10y ago

if you really want to rake it in, serve, at static speeds (meaning instantly, I swear, boot a ramdrive (Tmpfs) and serve static html from nginx all from RAM), text versions of the top 10,000 web sites. there is so much crap on most sites. re-crawl hourly. monetize via Google adwords. EDIT: I'm not sure why I'm being downvoted. I am not suggesting serving PDF's. I am suggesting serving tiny text renders of top sites, that otherwise are much too bloated. the hard part is getting the text and layout right. many people read many sites for the text IMO. So I am suggesting you make an all-text version. As an example, the front page of the New York Times right now, copied into Microsoft Word, is 2504 words. When I save from the word I copied into into .txt - I get a 16.4 KB file. By comparison, when I put the site into a Page Size Checker -- http://smallseotools.com/website-page-size-checker/ http://smallseotools.com/website-page-size-checker/ -- I get 214.23 KB. That is impressively small, and it's a fast page. If I try their competition, the Washington Post, I get 237 KB. If I try the Wall Street Journal, I get 938.15 KB -- nearly a full Megabyte. (This is actually more what I was expecting - I'm impressed by the Times.) Suppose someone desperately wants to glance at the Wall Street Journal from a poor connection where they barely get data. The difference between 12 KB and nearly a megabyte is huge. Its the difference between 4 seconds and 312 seconds: 4 seconds as compared with 5 full minutes. So there is a large need in my opinion for such a service in case someone desperately wants to see a text render. Preserving any formatting at all, helps hugely.

cozzyd 10y ago
You can use the SHA-1 of the PDF's to avoid serving the same pdf twice.
- coulix 10y ago
  SHA-256 ;)
- vgb2k11 10y ago
  You've been away from HN a few days? The SHA-1 collision example uses PDFs in its demo. Hence other commenter saying SHA 256

2_listerine_pls 10y ago

check docparser.com

jlink 10y ago
interesting service which was not present yet back in 2015 when I wrote my class.
- krakaukiosk 10y ago
  Correct! We launched July 2016

andreif 10y ago

Yeah, sure, a public one for not privacy-critical PDFs plus something like a Heroku button to build own secure app (with auth and no storage). See e.g. my file sharing app https://github.com/andreif/SecretFile https://github.com/andreif/SecretFile