[Boatanchors] PDF Writer Needed

[mikea]

On Wed, Jan 20, 2010 at 10:53:57AM -0600, Jim Haynes wrote:
> On Wed, 20 Jan 2010, Bill Cromwell wrote:
> 
> >>
> >> If the source document is in poor condition, you would be better advised to
> >> scan to TIFF, clean it up, and then convert to PDF.  Or just leave it as
> >> TIFF.  If you don't intend to distribute it, there's no advantage and several
> >...
> > I use a H-P flatbed scanner (single sheet) and Linux operating system
> > with Open Office. Open Office was recommended in another post and I
> 
> I also use Linux and a flatbed scanner (Canon LIDE 35).  What do you use
> to do the cleaning up?  Can you do that from within OpenOffice?  I use
> a rather archaic viewer, xv, and it's editor.  Then there are some
> tiff-to-pdf programs out there that I've been using.

You (and others) may want to have a look at gimp, the Gnu Image
Manipulation Program. It's free, runs on Linux, FreeBSD/NetBSD/OpenBSD, and
most Windows versions, and does a good job. The operator interface is a bit
baroque, but serviceable.

> Something else you can try, considering that the original manual is
> falling apart, is to copy it on a good copier that lets you play with
> the gray scale.  Some copiers do a remarkable job of preserving and
> enhancing a document, and then you can scan it for further processing
> without having to handle the original.

Damn! He beat me to it. 

-- 
Mike Andrews, W5EGO
mikea at mikea.ath.cx
Tired old sysadmin