FAQ

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Non-technical

Languages and libraries used in pdf2htmlEX?

• C++ (most part)
• C (wrapper of Fontforge)
• HTML (output)
• CSS (complicated enough to be considered as a language)
• Javascript (UI actions/effects)
• Python (scripts for testing / packaging)
• Poppler (PDF parsing)
• Fontforge (font manipulation)
• jQuery (for the default UI)

pdf2htmlEX doesn't work for my pdf file

• Bug reports are always welcome, please file an issue with the link to the broken pdf file.
• However there are several exceptions when the bug cannot be fixed in time (or at all)
  • The file does not follow the PDF standard (it might still be displayed correctly in PDF viewers)
  • Something wrong with libraries used by pdf2htmlEX (poppler / fontforge)
  • There are a few technical limitations of pdf2htmlEX. See the issues tagged need solution

I want more features!

• Pull requests / patches are as welcome as bug reports.
  • Thank you!
• Try to convince me that the feature is attractive/challenging/important.
  • I will put it into the TODO list.
  • There's little chance that feature requests about user interface will be accepted.
• Feature Commissions are accepted.
  • Proposed a feature and price by
    • Sending me an email
    • OR filing a new Issue on GitHub
    • OR leaving comments on an existing Issue on GitHub
  • I will confirm before I start to implement

Pitfalls

I cannot compile pdf2htmlEX

• Make sure you have installed all required packages (and headers), see Readme.
• Make sure poppler has been compiled with --enable-xpdf-headers
  • Especially when you see something about goo/GooString.h
• Make sure C++11 is supported by your compiler
• Fontforge has not been linking friendly until recent:
  • Git version is recommended
  • If there's something wrong about 'spiroentrypoints.h', install header files of libspiro
  • If there's something wrong about 'undefined reference of Py_xxx', install header files of python-2.x
  • If there's something wrong about 'libintl.h', install gettext and set your system include path accordingly.

'Cannot open the manifest file'

• Run 'sudo make install' or 'make install', depending on your environment.

There is no image generated

• Make sure you did not specify --process-nontext 0
• Make sure libpng (and headers) is installed BEFORE poppler was compiled.

The generated HTML file looks ugly

Recommended web browsers

• IE9 / Firefox / Opera / Chrome (Windows)
• Firefox / Chrome / Opera (Linux/Mac)
• Firefox (Android)

For WINDOWS XP users: Please make sure ClearType is turned on

(Control Panel -> Display -> Appearance -> Effects -> "Use the following method to smooth edges of screen fonts" -> ClearType)

The generated HTML file freezes my Firefox

• Don't zoom in too much
• Use a smaller value for --font-size-multiplier

Something wrong with text in the generated HTML file, I cannot even read them

• Install ttfautohint and run pdf2htmlEX with --external-hint-tool=ttfautohint
• Try --auto-hint 1 carefully, which is experimental now.

I got incorrect text after copy & paste

• try run with --tounicode 1
• Make sure you CAN copy & paste with a PDF viewer

Generated text are too small to read

• try run with --zoom 2

Images are blurred

• try run with --hdpi 288 --vdpi 288