Why, no, English makes no sense at all. Whyever should it?

[lexiphanic]

So today I am realizing that one of the long-term tasks I have been given is something I really wish I could hand over to a tech writer. Like, a real one (wiredferret or hypatia_j, need a project?) The task is rewriting and updating our construction standards to reflect changes in the last 10 years. Being me, I must also make it into a useable and intelligent

Comments

[wiredferret]

I'd love it if they'd pay me for it. Restructuring is fun!

The best way to get usable text out of a PDF is to pony up the money and buy Acrobat. But you could try CutePDF, instead. Compared to the opportunity cost of typing it up, it's pretty cheap.

[glinda_w]

Oh gah. My old (Win98) scanner had a program that would scan something in as text (OCR?); it still took some proofreading, because it wouldn't get stuff perfect, but was a lot easier than typing in. If you have a printer/scanner combo, or have access to a scanner, might be worth trying to Google something.

Sorry I can't remember the name of the program; I used it to scan in the Tech Writing Manual (originally on dedicated word processor files, no way of converting to Word, 8" floppies).

[msss]

Is it a text PDF or a scanned image? If it's text, I'd select all (Ctrl-A), copy and paste into your word processor. You'll get some additional page numbers and probably line breaks, but still faster than typing.

If it's a scanned image, then you probably need to feed it into OCR software. How long is it?

[msss]

Come to think of it, that probably won't work for diagrams/pictures. But you couldn't type those up anyway.

[lexiphanic]

Too long. Got it figured out, though. It didn't transfer all that cleanly, but it's better than retyping 30 pages.

[hypatia_j]

Sorry :) I'm booked through February unless irresistable instructional design problems magically appear before me.