convert PDF to HTML

topic posted Tue, March 18, 2008 - 9:56 AM by  Ilana
Has anyone used a piece of software to convert a PDF to HTML? I have seen a few available online. I created a document in InDesign and need to send it in an email like HTML. Photoshop could turn the PDF into a Zoomify object, but I don't know what to do with that. Please share your advice.
thanks!!
Ilana
posted by:
Ilana
SF Bay Area
  • Re: convert PDF to HTML

    Tue, March 18, 2008 - 5:34 PM
    If you don't have any links or need live text, you could just save your layout a a JPEG and paste that into an HTML email and you're done.

    If I need something with live text (like a web page, you can't control fonts, text wrap and so forth) and/or links, I usually hand code the page or use Dreamweaver and then mail it. There's really no shortcut if you want control over how it looks.
  • Re: convert PDF to HTML

    Tue, March 18, 2008 - 9:31 PM
    I tend to distrust conversion software, especially when dealing with HTML pages. Several of my clients request updates via pdf pages and I usually do the following:

    ~ Open the pdf file in Illustrator or Photoshop and strip out all of the text.
    ~ Save the pdf as a jpg or crop out individual pieces as separate jpg's, depending on the layout of the page.
    ~ Create a page div, with the "jpeg'd" pdf as a background image or individually place the images
    ~ Copy the text out of the pdf, paste into notepad and then into your web page.
    ~ Create styles that will recreate the look of the original pdf.

    It's not an elegant solution, but I've not found another way that works consistently. Particularly, type set in a web page is much sharper and nicer than images of text.

    Good luck,

    SMS

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