AscToPDF: Intelligently convert text to PDF


Example Text to PDF conversion

The following PDF file (20 kb) has been created by converting this text file (33 kb). Should you wish to study these at length, you can download both in a zip file (17 kb).

The original text file is a lightly edited version of an RFC (page numbers and some extra blank lines have been removed).

Note that in this conversion:-

  • The conversion is "as is", warts and all. We've not edited the output at all.

Headings

  • All the chapter headings have been recognised as such, and are marked up accordingly. In this case the headings were numbered, but AscToPDF can cope with many different type of headings (numbered, underlined, capitalised etc). Normally the type of headings used will be detected by AscToPDF, but the program's options will allow you to specify your heading type.

  • The line beginning "[2] as saying" hasn't been wrongly interpreted as chapter 2. This is because AscToPDF's text analysis engine spots that this line is at the wrong level of indentation to be a heading. As a result the headings identified by AscToPDF are 100% accurate.

Bookmark list

  • Each heading ends up in the bookmarks list (in Acrobat Reader click on the Bookmarks tab at the side), allowing you to easily navigate around the resulting document.

Bullets

  • Bullet point lists have been recognised as such. Although there aren't many examples in this document, check out the references in Chapter 9, and note the formatting on items [3] and [9].

Heavily formatted text

  • The heavily formatted page headers have been detected, an output in a fixed font to preserve the layout.

  • Similarly the diagram at the top of chapter 3 ("Restricting forged traffic") has been correctly detected and faithfully preserved.

Fonts

  • The "normal" text is properly justified in a proportional font, making it easier to read.

  • Headings are output in a larger, bolder font.

  • Heavily formatted text is put in a fixed pitched font to preserve the layout, for example at the start of the document, and the top of each page.

  • ASCII diagrams have been automatically detected an put out in a fixed font in a font size that fits the page.

Paging

  • Page markers in the original have been honoured in the output.

  • As far as possible paging is done so as to avoid placing a heading at the bottom of a page, or breaking a table or formatted region of text over two pages. In this example however excessive blank lines has lead to extra pages being created.

  • Page numbers have been added at the foot of each page. In later releases we hope to allow custom headers and footers to be defined.






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