Improving `swf` to `pdf` conversion (more valuable in view of EOF of Flash Player)

[Iey4iej3]

First, it seems that Adobe is gradually deprecating Flash and Specifically, we will stop updating and distributing the Flash Player at the end of 2020. So maybe less and less people are interested in conversion into swf.

It seems to me that gfx2gfx is disabled by default, which depends on an obsolete library pdflib lite, which is discontinued (there is however proprietary pdflib) and pretty limited (they, of course, try their best to sell their proprietary counterpart). As far as I have tried, swftools does not compile with poppler.

I wonder whether any developers are interested in rewriting/improving the conversion from swf to pdf, which hopefully preserves as much data as possible (so without rasterizing images, nor making texts into images, but preserving fonts). There seems some possible approaches:

1. Make enable-poppler work.
2. Take advantage of the conversion used in XeTeX, that is, first convert swf to xdv, that is, extended DVI, then use xdvipdfmx to convert as in XeTeX.
3. Writing a xslt to translate swf into Postscript by swfmill, then convert it into pdf.

I hope that one of these approaches is easy and will be implemented in the future. In view of the EOF of Flash Player, it seems more worthwhile to convert swf (as lossless as possible) to other formats.

[ROBERT-MCDOWELL]

On 1/3/2020 3:39 AM, Iey4iej3 wrote:

First, it seems that Adobe is gradually deprecating https://theblog.adobe.com/adobe-flash-update/ Flash and |Specifically, we will stop updating and distributing the Flash Player at the end of 2020|. So maybe less and less people are interested in conversion into |swf|.

It seems to me that |gfx2gfx| is disabled by default, which depends on an obsolete library |pdflib lite|, which is discontinued (there is however proprietary |pdflib|). As far as I have tried, |swftools| does not https://github.com/matthiaskramm/swftools/issues/17#issuecomment-570063173 compile with |poppler|.

I wonder whether any developers are interested in rewriting/improving the conversion from |swf| to |pdf|, which hopefully preserves as much data as possible (so without rasterizing images, nor making texts into images, but preserving fonts). There seems some possible approaches:

1. Make |enable-poppler| work.
2. Take advantage of the conversion used in |XeTeX|, that is, first convert |swf| to |xdv|, that is, extended DVI https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_DVI, then use |xdvipdfmx| to convert as in |XeTeX|.
3. Writing a xslt to translate |swf| into Postscript by |swfmill|, then convert it into |pdf|.

I hope that one of these approaches is easy and will be implemented in the future. In view of the EOF of Flash Player, it seems more worthwhile to convert |swf| (as lossless as possible) to other formats.

— You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/matthiaskramm/swftools/issues/68?email_source=notifications&email_token=AAUGX4AFSH6QSVBGVRYQ6HTQ34PWBA5CNFSM4KCMRPQKYY3PNVWWK3TUL52HS4DFUVEXG43VMWVGG33NNVSW45C7NFSM4ID3NYCA, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAUGX4HNWHSRXQBRHLXU3FLQ34PWBANCNFSM4KCMRPQA.

So maybe less and less people are interested in conversion into |swf|. wrong.

[matthiaskramm]

Out of curiosity, could you describe your use cases? You're migrating from Flash to normal web content? But the Flash content is primarily text?

[Iey4iej3]

I feel sorry that I did not reflect on it so much. You are correct that it might be not a good idea to convert arbitrary swf files, which are intrinsically animations, into pdf. My use case is that, I bought two ebooks from a press which I find only offers online view afterwards (I guess that this is used to protect against pirates). I succeeded to convert the fetched swf files into pdf by gfx2gfx in the swftools, however the result is imperfect: fonts are in-line replaced by vector graphics, therefore a lot of duplicates. On the other hand, I also find it better to sweep out the dependence on pdflib lite. Anyway this does not seem to be of great importance, if you are interested in general animations, rather than static or semi-static swfs (like those converted from books or slide shows).

[nissansz]

Is it possible to use gfx2gfx-pdftext for Chinese? I got wrong characters. [email protected]

[matthiaskramm]

The pdf might be using a font that gfx2gfx can't find. Try running "pdffonts" (part of xpdf) to find out what font it is, and then add it to /usr/local/share/swftools/fonts (or C:\SWFTools\Fonts, on Windows.)

[nissansz]

The pdf might be using a font that gfx2gfx can't find. Try running "pdffonts" (part of xpdf) to find out what font it is, and then add it to /usr/local/share/swftools/fonts (or C:\SWFTools\Fonts, on Windows.)

I tried to compile exe from arch linux using gfx2gfx-pdftext, but, there is error, saying: in pdf.c

include <pdflib.h>

no this file or fold for <

How to solve?