Infix: a tool for editing PDFs
Thread poster: Dr. Ing. Dagoberto Pinillo Diaz
Dr. Ing. Dagoberto Pinillo Diaz
Dr. Ing. Dagoberto Pinillo Diaz
Local time: 16:25
Member (2002)
German to Spanish
+ ...
Apr 14, 2013

This tool will be just a great way to do my job in a more efficient and faster way. I would greatly recommend this software to everyone who is working with pdf files, it is simply a time saver!!!!!Thank you infix

 
Sergei Leshchinsky
Sergei Leshchinsky  Identity Verified
Ukraine
Local time: 17:25
Member (2008)
English to Russian
+ ...
+1 Apr 14, 2013

Great tool!

 
Adam Łobatiuk
Adam Łobatiuk  Identity Verified
Poland
Local time: 16:25
Member (2009)
English to Polish
+ ...
Yes, it is Apr 15, 2013

However, your client might prefer to get a Word file back, so you need to convert the target PDF anyway.

 
Evgeniy Borzykh-Letov
Evgeniy Borzykh-Letov  Identity Verified
Russian Federation
Local time: 22:25
English to Russian
+ ...
It has some functional limits Apr 16, 2013

To me, if you want to polish a PDF file slightly it is a good tool but it has some limitations..
Major updates and editind will take a lot of time...
Helpful a lot when you dont need to go through scanning and converting it to editable format.


 
trhanslator (X)
trhanslator (X)
Alternative software for editing PDFs Apr 16, 2013

When you're on a Mac you might also want to check out PDFPen Pro (that recently ran a promotion), that offers similar functions. PDFPen Pro (in its latest incarnation) also offers OCR.

http://www.smilesoftware.com/PDFpenPro/index.html


 
Kevin Fulton
Kevin Fulton  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 11:25
German to English
Useful, but output often needs massaging Apr 16, 2013

It should be noted that this program only works with files created from MS Office (Word) software, not scanned documents.
I've used InFix on a couple of projects for which the client wanted PDF files. The program saved a lot of time otherwise required for recreating the formatting. However, word/line length differences frequently made post-translation formatting necessary. It was worth the bother on short documents with plenty of space between text segments. I wouldn't want to use it for l
... See more
It should be noted that this program only works with files created from MS Office (Word) software, not scanned documents.
I've used InFix on a couple of projects for which the client wanted PDF files. The program saved a lot of time otherwise required for recreating the formatting. However, word/line length differences frequently made post-translation formatting necessary. It was worth the bother on short documents with plenty of space between text segments. I wouldn't want to use it for lengthy documents with tightly-spaced text.
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José Henrique Lamensdorf
José Henrique Lamensdorf  Identity Verified
Brazil
Local time: 12:25
English to Portuguese
+ ...
In memoriam
The problem is in the PDF file structure Apr 16, 2013

Kevin Fulton wrote:
It should be noted that this program only works with files created from MS Office (Word) software, not scanned documents.


Actually it works on any "generated" (Adobe calls them "distilled") not scanned, PDF file. The point is that ANY software capable of printing to a PostScript printer (it's a standard, a "printer language", not a brand).

InFix has a built-in virtual "printer", whose installation is optional. If installed, you may print from any program "to InFix", and get a first-rate PDF.

Kevin Fulton wrote:
I've used InFix on a couple of projects for which the client wanted PDF files. The program saved a lot of time otherwise required for recreating the formatting. However, word/line length differences frequently made post-translation formatting necessary. It was worth the bother on short documents with plenty of space between text segments. I wouldn't want to use it for lengthy documents with tightly-spaced text.


I first saw an InFix ad here on Proz, tried it, and liked the idea. I was either the one - or one of those - who suggested Iceni to adapt the existing InFix for translation. They did it, and it became InFix Pro.

The main point I see in using it is that once a publication has been artistically laid out in its original language, there is no point in having it rebuilt upon translation.

I'll make this a little more clear. Each DTP app uses its own proprietary file format. None of the few converters from one to another ever performed reliably. So once a publication has been finished, if a translation were required, not only a translator would be needed, but also a DTP operator using the very same DTP app used to build it for the first time.

The DTP-ist would extract all text, usually into Word or Excel tables, so the translator would have something to work on. Then the DTP-ist would copy-and-paste the translated text blocks into their places. This was time-consuming, hence expensive.

Some translators are skilled DTP operators, so they could undertake the entire operation. However how many DTP apps could one translator master and own?

The leading first-tier ones are InDesign (and its father, Page Maker), QuarkXpress, and Frame Maker. Then there are the amateur-level ones, MS Publisher and Serif PagePlus. And finally there is the open-source Scribus.

According to Murphy's Law, when a translation client found the perfect translator for the desired language pair and subject matter, this one would not have/be skilled in the 'right' DTP app.

Once I had a prospect who asked me for translation on Frame Maker files. It was not easy to find a suitable DTP operator skilled in it. And it was not cheap either: he'd charge me for the DTP work about as much as I would to translate and rebuild that entire catalog using PageMaker. He explained that the program was such a pain, that he wouldn't take it lightly.

Since ALL DTP apps generate PDF files, InFix Pro offers a one-size-fits-all solution, and does the copy & paste work automatically, instead of the DTP operator. No translator has to worry what software was used to create a publication after it has been distilled into a PDF.

Translation often causes text to swell or to shrink, so layout adjustments are a must. Quite honestly, InFix is not more complex to do it than PageMaker, yet one must know how to use it.

The problem is that PDF files were not exactly built for this kind of work. The PostScript language just gets those countless items in their right places on the page. For instance, an underscored word in a PDF becomes a word and a straight line underneath. So one must delete that line, find that word, and underscore it again in InFix.

The program has all the tools to do everything that is needed, however due to the very structure of PDF files, it might not be always so easy.


 
Rolf Keller
Rolf Keller
Germany
Local time: 16:25
English to German
PDF is not PostScript Apr 17, 2013

José Henrique Lamensdorf wrote:

Actually it works on any "generated" (Adobe calls them "distilled") not scanned, PDF file. The point is that ANY software capable of printing to a PostScript printer (it's a standard, a "printer language", not a brand).


Just to get it straight: ANY software is capable of printing to a PostScript printer because it's the operating system (e. g. Windows) that provides this feature. The only thing you need is a driver for any PostScript printer.

Windows includes such drivers, e. g. the MS Publisher Imagesetter driver in Vista.

However, PostScript is not PDF: both languages are similar but different and not compatible. So you need a converter from PostScript to PDF. I use the free GhostScript/GhostView combination for this, but admittedly this is not a solution for everybody.

Infix probably provides a PDF printer driver, a PostScript driver would not be suffient.


 


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Infix: a tool for editing PDFs






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