Applications of Argus

Argus is a very powerful and flexible PDF document conversion and extraction tool. It is controlled via configuration files. A number of common applications of Argus are described in the tables below.

For each type of conversion/extraction application the appropriate configuration file(s) are identified with a brief description of each. Each configuration file path is also a link to page which gives more detailed information: sample input and output data, the command line used to produce the output and information regarding important config file settings that you are most likely to want to modify.

These descriptions and configuration files are by no means a comprehensive list of what Argus can do; they just serve as templates so that it should not be neccessary to write a configuration file from scratch.

• Whole Page Conversion

  
  

  • HTML

    Config Files	Description
    htmlConfigs/articles.cfg	Output PDF articles - simple html, one file per article with images.
    htmlConfigs/css1.cfg	HTML using Cascading Style Sheet v1. Fonts and sizes are retained using styles but layout is not.
    htmlConfigs/linkedPages.cfg	Generates simple HTML output with navigation links at the top and bottom of each page.
    htmlConfigs/reflow.cfg	Generates simple HTML output as a single file without preserving layout.
    htmlConfigs/super.cfg	Generates quite complicated HTML retaining layout using Cascading Style Sheet v2.
    htmlConfigs/tabulated.cfg	Generates simple HTML where page is retained as best as possible by positioning the text in a table covering the whole page.
    htmlConfigs/table.cfg	Example configuration for PDF documents which contain tables of data which must be output in HTML format.

  • RTF

    Config Files	Description
    rtfConfigs/layout.cfg	Converts to RTF readable by Microsoft Word and other word processors. Layout is preserved but no images are included.
    rtfConfigs/links.cfg	Converts to RTF readable by Microsoft Word and other word processors. Hyperlinks are preserved but no images are included and layout is not preserved.
    rtfConfigs/reflow.cfg	Converts to RTF readable by Microsoft Word and other word processors. No images are included and layout is not preserved.
    rtfConfigs/table.cfg	Example configuration for PDF documents which contain tables of data which must be output in RTF format.

  • Page Thumbnails

    Config Files	Description
    imageConfigs/pageThumbs.cfg	Produces a fully rendered JPEG page thumbnail for each page

  • Multi-page TIFF

    Config Files	Description
    imageConfigs/renderMultiTiff.cfg	Output format is multi-page tiff which is generally most useful for archive or fax applications.

  • Structured PDF to XML/HTML

    Config Files	Description
    structConfigs/structHTML.cfg	Output HTML based on PDF structure tags. A single HTML file with images is produced.
    structConfigs/structXML.cfg	Output XML based on PDF structure tags. A single XML file without images is produced.

  • Vector EPS

    Config Files	Description
    imageConfigs/vectorEPS.cfg	Converts PDF to vector EPS producing a single EPS file for each page.

  
  

• Image Extraction

  Config Files	Description
  imageConfigs/tiff.cfg	Extracts images from the PDF and saves each image as an individual TIFF file.
  imageConfigs/jpeg.cfg	Extracts images from the PDF and saves each image as an individual JPEG file.
  imageConfigs/png.cfg	Extracts images from the PDF and saves each image as an individual PNG file.
  imageConfigs/bmp.cfg	Extracts images from the PDF and saves each image as an individual BMP file.
  imageConfigs/rasterEPS.cfg	Extracts images from the PDF and saves each image as an individual Photoshop-compatible raster-EPS file.
  imageConfigs/opitiff.cfg	Extracts images and OPI dictionary data from the PDF; output image info in text doc and images as TIFFs.
  imageConfigs/opihtml.cfg	Extracts images and OPI dictionary data from the PDF; output image info in HTML doc and images as JPEGs.

  
  
• Text Extraction

  Config Files	Description
  textConfigs/text.cfg	Extracts text from the PDF and saves output as plain (WinAnsii) text in a single file.
  -	Extract text from the PDF and save output as HTML. See HTML configurations above - set Image Output config setting to false to produce and HTML file which just includes text.
  -	Extract text from the PDF and save output as RTF. See RTF configurations above.
  -	Export text using articles (threads) to dictate text order. See HTML article sample configuration - set Image Output config setting to false to produce and HTML file which just includes text.
  textConfigs/gridText.cfg	Example configuration for PDF documents which contain tables of data which must be output in plain text format.
  charMaps/htmlSimple.cmap	This is a config include file. It defines a CHAR MAP to map from Unicode bytecodes to HTML entities. Used by reflow.cfg and table.cfg.
  fontMaps/uniSymbol.fmap	This is a config include file. It defines a FONT MAP to map from Unicode bytecodes for Symbol font characters to Symbol font bytecodes. Used by several HTML and RTF configs.

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