5 ms·

Bit of a tangent, but does anyone know of a service where I can copy in a pdf url and get a rough approximation of the content as plain text html?

by rpm4321 14y ago

rpm4321 14y ago
Here we go: http://viewtext.org/article?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nickbostrom.com%2Fextraterrestrial.pdf&format= http://viewtext.org/article?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nickbostrom... I'm really paranoid about loading unfamiliar websites up (I've got a version of Chrome with js and plugins disabled that I use for random links), and pdfs are still a bit of a concern as an attack vector. It looks like this viewtext.org will come in handy. </tangent>
lloeki 14y ago
Not a URL but arguably more useful: $ curl http://www.nickbostrom.com/extraterrestrial.pdf | pdftotext - - Don't forget the two dashes, as it doesn't default to reading stdin, and doesn't default to writing to stdout when instructed to read from stdin. Also, pdftotext is part of poppler in Arch and poppler-utils in Debian.
- rpm4321 14y ago
  Embarrassingly enough, I'm a Python dev on Win7 - now you know why I'm so paranoid. :) Thanks anyway, though.
  - lloeki 14y ago
    Then, PDFMiner comes to mind. Pure python, so slower but no C/native dependencies.
  - nfg 14y ago
    The instructions work fine with cygwin on windows btw, pdftotext is in the poppler package.
Terretta 14y ago
EDIT: Reading comprehension problem -- you wanted clean HTML. I thought you meant you wanted an HTML5 viewer. - - - This is nice: https://docs.google.com/viewer https://docs.google.com/viewer Example using this PDF: https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://www.nickbostrom.com/extraterrestrial.pdf https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://www.nickbostrom.co... Clean, light, and doesn't require a GA login.
AdrenalinMd 14y ago
Usually the vacuum's functionality of scribd is used, but it seems to not work at this moment http://www.scribd.com/vacuum?url=http://www.nickbostrom.com/extraterrestrial.pdf http://www.scribd.com/vacuum?url=http://www.nickbostrom.com/...
wtracy 14y ago
I paste the complete url into Google search, then hit "Quick View" on the first result.

Bit of a tangent, but does anyone know of a service where I can copy in a pdf url and get a rough approximation of the content as plain text html?

by rpm4321 14y ago

Bit of a tangent, but does anyone know of a service where I can copy in a pdf url and get a rough approximation of the content as plain text html?

rpm4321 14y ago

Here we go: http://viewtext.org/article?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nickbostrom.com%2Fextraterrestrial.pdf&format= http://viewtext.org/article?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nickbostrom... I'm really paranoid about loading unfamiliar websites up (I've got a version of Chrome with js and plugins disabled that I use for random links), and pdfs are still a bit of a concern as an attack vector. It looks like this viewtext.org will come in handy. </tangent>

lloeki 14y ago

Not a URL but arguably more useful: $ curl http://www.nickbostrom.com/extraterrestrial.pdf | pdftotext - - Don't forget the two dashes, as it doesn't default to reading stdin, and doesn't default to writing to stdout when instructed to read from stdin. Also, pdftotext is part of poppler in Arch and poppler-utils in Debian.

rpm4321 14y ago
Embarrassingly enough, I'm a Python dev on Win7 - now you know why I'm so paranoid. :) Thanks anyway, though.
- lloeki 14y ago
  Then, PDFMiner comes to mind. Pure python, so slower but no C/native dependencies.
- nfg 14y ago
  The instructions work fine with cygwin on windows btw, pdftotext is in the poppler package.

Terretta 14y ago

EDIT: Reading comprehension problem -- you wanted clean HTML. I thought you meant you wanted an HTML5 viewer. - - - This is nice: https://docs.google.com/viewer https://docs.google.com/viewer Example using this PDF: https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://www.nickbostrom.com/extraterrestrial.pdf https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://www.nickbostrom.co... Clean, light, and doesn't require a GA login.

AdrenalinMd 14y ago

Usually the vacuum's functionality of scribd is used, but it seems to not work at this moment http://www.scribd.com/vacuum?url=http://www.nickbostrom.com/extraterrestrial.pdf http://www.scribd.com/vacuum?url=http://www.nickbostrom.com/...

wtracy 14y ago

I paste the complete url into Google search, then hit "Quick View" on the first result.