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What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays

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  What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Marion <marion@facts.com> - 2025-02-28 20:09 +0000
    Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-02-28 21:00 +0000
      Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Marion <marion@facts.com> - 2025-02-28 23:56 +0000
        Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Marion <marion@facts.com> - 2025-03-01 00:21 +0000
        Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-03-01 02:53 +0000
          Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Marion <marion@facts.com> - 2025-03-01 06:24 +0000
            Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Marion <marion@facts.com> - 2025-03-01 06:49 +0000
              Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Marion <marion@facts.com> - 2025-03-01 07:21 +0000
                Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-03-01 20:23 +0000
                  Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Marion <marion@facts.com> - 2025-03-02 03:18 +0000
                    Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Peter Flynn <peter@silmaril.ie> - 2025-03-03 21:38 +0000
                      Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-03-03 23:35 +0000
                        Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Marion <marion@facts.com> - 2025-03-04 02:35 +0000
                          Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-03-04 03:13 +0000
                      Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Marion <marion@facts.com> - 2025-03-04 03:31 +0000
                        Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays "Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2025-03-04 20:18 +0100
                        Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Peter Flynn <peter@silmaril.ie> - 2025-03-04 22:32 +0000
                          Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-03-04 23:32 +0000
                            Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Peter Flynn <peter@silmaril.ie> - 2025-03-05 22:08 +0000
            Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-03-01 20:17 +0000
              Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Marion <marion@facts.com> - 2025-03-02 03:02 +0000
            Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-03-02 22:03 +0000
              Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Marion <marion@facts.com> - 2025-03-03 03:17 +0000
                Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays G <g@nowhere.invalid> - 2025-03-03 09:19 +0000
                  Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Marion <marion@facts.com> - 2025-03-03 17:01 +0000
                    Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays G <g@nowhere.invalid> - 2025-03-03 19:08 +0000
                      Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Marion <marion@facts.com> - 2025-03-04 03:52 +0000
                        Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-03-04 04:41 +0000
                        Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Tim Slattery <TimSlattery@utexas.edu> - 2025-03-04 10:23 -0500
                          Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Peter Flynn <peter@silmaril.ie> - 2025-03-04 22:39 +0000
                            Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Don_from_AZ <djatechNOSPAM@comcast.net.invalid> - 2025-03-04 21:28 -0700
                              Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> - 2025-03-05 01:39 -0500
                                Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Daniel70 <daniel47@eternal-september.org> - 2025-03-05 20:48 +1100
                                  Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-03-06 02:18 +0000
                                    Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Daniel70 <daniel47@eternal-september.org> - 2025-03-06 18:12 +1100
                                      Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Philip Herlihy <nothing@invalid.com> - 2025-03-06 12:22 +0000
                                    Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Frank Slootweg <this@ddress.is.invalid> - 2025-03-06 10:45 +0000
                                      Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays "Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2025-03-06 12:50 +0100
                                    Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Peter Flynn <peter@silmaril.ie> - 2025-03-07 22:36 +0000
                                      Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-03-08 01:04 +0000
                                Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays "Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2025-03-05 13:26 +0100
                                  Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> - 2025-03-05 09:04 -0500
                                  Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> - 2025-03-05 09:33 -0500
                                    Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays "Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2025-03-05 21:11 +0100
                                  Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Frank Slootweg <this@ddress.is.invalid> - 2025-03-05 14:39 +0000
                                    Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> - 2025-03-05 14:59 -0500
                                      Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Marion <marion@facts.com> - 2025-03-05 21:24 +0000
                                        Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> - 2025-03-06 00:45 -0500
                                      Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Frank Slootweg <this@ddress.is.invalid> - 2025-03-06 10:54 +0000
                                    Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays "Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2025-03-05 21:12 +0100
    Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Anton Shepelev <anton.txt@g{oogle}mail.com> - 2025-03-04 19:13 +0300
      Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Peter Flynn <peter@silmaril.ie> - 2025-03-04 22:43 +0000
        Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-03-04 23:34 +0000
      Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Marion <marion@facts.com> - 2025-03-04 23:58 +0000
        Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Wolf Greenblatt <wolf@greenblatt.net> - 2025-03-04 19:11 -0500
        Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Anton Shepelev <anton.txt@g{oogle}mail.com> - 2025-03-05 12:50 +0300
          Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Zaidy036 <Zaidy036@air.isp.spam> - 2025-03-05 16:50 -0500
      Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Marion <marion@facts.com> - 2025-03-04 23:24 +0000
        Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Peter Flynn <peter@silmaril.ie> - 2025-03-05 22:39 +0000
          Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Philip Herlihy <nothing@invalid.com> - 2025-03-06 12:17 +0000
            Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays "Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2025-03-06 13:33 +0100
            Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Peter Flynn <peter@silmaril.ie> - 2025-03-07 22:43 +0000
      Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Marion <marion@facts.com> - 2025-03-04 23:53 +0000

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#2619

On Sat, 1 Mar 2025 20:17:30 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote :


> Here's another PDF toolkit: Poppler. This is a more extensive one, that 
> covers both the creation and rendering of PDF files. For example, Inkscape 
> relies on Poppler when you ask it to import pages from a PDF file into 
> your illustration.

You know your PDF tools for sure! 

Apparently Poppler is a free and open-source software command-line tool
library used more on Linux than on Windows, who naming was inspired by
 <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Problem_with_Popplers>

But there are also Windows binaries, apparently.
 <https://poppler.freedesktop.org/>
 <https://github.com/oschwartz10612/poppler-windows>
 <https://github.com/oschwartz10612/poppler-windows/releases/tag/v24.08.0-0>
 Name: Release-24.08.0-0.zip
 Size: 15090263 bytes (14 MiB)
 SHA256: 58A6F9AE269756231D2F9AA6CBA39D75FEC6DEACAF3C4A50683383B5F3D5A527

The poppler-utils are used to
 [x]Extract text from PDFs (pdftotext).   
 [x]Extract images from PDFs (pdfimages).  
 [x]Convert PDFs to other formats (pdftoppm, pdftocairo, pdftohtml).  
 [x]Get information about PDFs (pdfinfo).  
 [x]Merge and separate pdf files.

To test, I downloaded it and extracted it to Windows to see these:
 pdfattach.exe: Embeds files into a PDF as attachments.
 pdfdetach.exe: Extracts embedded files (attachments) from a PDF.
 pdffonts.exe: Lists the fonts used in a PDF.
 pdfimages.exe: Extracts images from a PDF.
 pdfinfo.exe: Displays information about a PDF.
 pdfseparate.exe: Separates a PDF into individual pages.
 pdftocairo.exe: Converts PDFs to PNG, JPEG, etc. using Cairo graphics
 pdftohtml.exe: Converts PDFs to HTML.
 pdftoppm.exe: Converts PDFs to PPM/PGM/PBM image formats.
 pdftops.exe: Converts PDFs to PostScript.
 pdftotext.exe: Extracts text from a PDF.
 pdfunite.exe: Merges multiple PDFs into one.
 zstd.exe: Compresses or decompresses (requires Zstandard)

Let's just try "pdfinfo" on the sample PDF we previously downloaded:
 <https://www.hekatron.de/fileadmin/user_upload/testfolder/Sample.pdf>

 pdfinfo Sample.pdf
 Title:           PDF Metadata Sample
 Subject:         Test Document
 Keywords:        12345678
 Author:          Nigel Maddocks
 Creator:         Acrobat PDFMaker 15 for Word
 Producer:        Adobe PDF Library 15.0
 CreationDate:    Fri Aug 21 02:42:21 2015 Mountain Daylight Time
 ModDate:         Fri Aug 21 02:45:31 2015 Mountain Daylight Time
 Custom Metadata: yes
 Metadata Stream: yes
 Tagged:          yes
 UserProperties:  no
 Suspects:        no
 Form:            none
 JavaScript:      no
 Pages:           1
 Encrypted:       no
 Page size:       595.32 x 841.92 pts (A4)
 Page rot:        0
 File size:       37545 bytes
 Optimized:       yes
 PDF version:     1.5

The sample is too simple to extract images or detach files included with
the PDF, but I'm sure those other functions work, so it's a nice addition.

Seems like a nice tool. Too bad it doesn't remove metadata as it would be
nice to run a find for all pdf files and to strip out the metadata in them.

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]

#2621

Perhaps another one I should mention is PDFMiner. This is a bit of a 
specialist one, focused on extracting text items from a PDF page, and 
using various heuristics to try to reassemble them into larger text 
blocks.

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#2622

On Sun, 2 Mar 2025 22:03:12 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote :


> Perhaps another one I should mention is PDFMiner. This is a bit of a 
> specialist one, focused on extracting text items from a PDF page, and 
> using various heuristics to try to reassemble them into larger text 
> blocks.

Thank you for adding value to the spirit of this conversation where the PDF
experts and editing experts are involved, along with the Windows users.

Looking up what the PDFMiner Python tool can do for us, it's important to
note it's apparently designed for extracting information from PDF files.

I'm not quite sure how PDFMinor differs from any of the other text
extractors (e.g., PDF to TEXT) but it seems to gather layout data also.

While it can extract metadata, it seems to me it's mostly used to "mine"
large assemblages of PDF files for textual data of interest to the user.

The original PDFMiner has apparently  been forked as pdfminer.six, which,
as far as I can tell from date stamps, is still actively being updated.
 <https://github.com/euske/pdfminer>
 <https://github.com/pdfminer/pdfminer.six>

Since it functions on windows, (within the python enviroment) and since it
does something useful (mine text in PDFs), I'll add it to the PDF chart as
[x] Extract text (poppler) or mine textual & metadata (pdfminersix)

Here's the current chart, where I simply ask for more things done to PDFs.
[?] Print book format PDF (FinePrint payware)
[x] Add or concatenate pages (pdftk, acrobat payware)
[x] Add signature (Adobe Reader Fill-and-sign sign-yourself tool)
[x] Archive sites (wkhtmltopdf, Acrobat payware,fastone scroll capture)
[x] Compress PDFs (ImageMagick, PDFgear, rlvision)
[x] Convert PDF to MSOffice (PDFgear, Calibre for MS Word only)
[x] Convert PDF to MSWord (Calibre, PDFgear)
[x] Convert PDF to epub format (Calibre)
[x] Convert PDF to PostScript (Calibre, Poppler)
[x] Converts PDFs to HTML (poppler)
[x] Converts PDFs to PNG, JPEG, etc (poppler) using Cairo graphics
[x] Converts PDFs to PPM/PGM/PBM image formats (poppler)
[x] Create PDF new text (Irfanview or Paint.NET plugins + Ghostscript)
[x] Edit PDF existing text (Adobe Reader commenting, Acrobat payware)
[x] Embeds files into a PDF as attachments (poppler) 
[x] Extract images (PDF Exchange Viewer, PDF Shaper, PDFgear, poppler)
[x] Extract text (poppler) or mine textual & metadata (pdfminersix)
[x] Extracts embedded files (attachments) from a PDF (poppler)
[x] Fastest PDF readers (Sumatra or Foxit)
[x] Globally search & replace PDF text (Libre Office)
[x] List fonts used in a PDF (poppler)
[x] Merge PDFs (pdfsam, pdftk, PDFgear, Poppler) 
[x] Metadata display on command line (poppler)
[x] Metadata removal (LibreOffice Writer, PDFgear offline)
[x] OCR, PDF-Xchange, freeOCR (paperfile.net), GOCR (jocr.sourceforge.net)
[x] Offline encrypt PDF with a password (pdfencrypt)
[x] Online shrink PDF <adobe.com/acrobat/online/compress-pdf.html>
[x] PDF text to audio file (Balabolka)
[x] Remove pages (pdfsam, pdftk)
[x] Remove restrictions (Ghostscript,Ghostview,ps2edit,pdfwrite,pdf2djvu)
[x] Renumber pages (Acrobat Reader)
[x] Reorder pages (mutool)
[x] Rotate pages (Acrobat Reader)
[x] Separates a PDF into individual pages (poppler)
[x] Split PDFs (PDFgear, Poppler) 
[x] Tile PDFs (i.e., to print large posters) (Posterazor)
[?] What other tasks do you do to edit or modify a PDF file?

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]

#2623

In comp.editors Marion <marion@facts.com> wrote:
> On Sun, 2 Mar 2025 22:03:12 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote :
> 
>> Perhaps another one I should mention is PDFMiner. This is a bit of a 
>> specialist one, focused on extracting text items from a PDF page, and 
>> using various heuristics to try to reassemble them into larger text 
>> blocks.
> 
> Thank you for adding value to the spirit of this conversation where the PDF
> experts and editing experts are involved, along with the Windows users.
> 
> Looking up what the PDFMiner Python tool can do for us, it's important to
> note it's apparently designed for extracting information from PDF files.
> 
> I'm not quite sure how PDFMinor differs from any of the other text
> extractors (e.g., PDF to TEXT) but it seems to gather layout data also.
> 
> While it can extract metadata, it seems to me it's mostly used to "mine"
> large assemblages of PDF files for textual data of interest to the user.
> 
> The original PDFMiner has apparently  been forked as pdfminer.six, which,
> as far as I can tell from date stamps, is still actively being updated.
> <https://github.com/euske/pdfminer>
> <https://github.com/pdfminer/pdfminer.six>
> 
> Since it functions on windows, (within the python enviroment) and since it
> does something useful (mine text in PDFs), I'll add it to the PDF chart as
> [x] Extract text (poppler) or mine textual & metadata (pdfminersix)
> 
> Here's the current chart, where I simply ask for more things done to PDFs.
> [?] Print book format PDF (FinePrint payware)
> [x] Add or concatenate pages (pdftk, acrobat payware)
> [x] Add signature (Adobe Reader Fill-and-sign sign-yourself tool)
> [x] Archive sites (wkhtmltopdf, Acrobat payware,fastone scroll capture)
> [x] Compress PDFs (ImageMagick, PDFgear, rlvision)
> [x] Convert PDF to MSOffice (PDFgear, Calibre for MS Word only)
> [x] Convert PDF to MSWord (Calibre, PDFgear)
> [x] Convert PDF to epub format (Calibre)
> [x] Convert PDF to PostScript (Calibre, Poppler)
> [x] Converts PDFs to HTML (poppler)
> [x] Converts PDFs to PNG, JPEG, etc (poppler) using Cairo graphics
> [x] Converts PDFs to PPM/PGM/PBM image formats (poppler)
> [x] Create PDF new text (Irfanview or Paint.NET plugins + Ghostscript)
> [x] Edit PDF existing text (Adobe Reader commenting, Acrobat payware)
> [x] Embeds files into a PDF as attachments (poppler) 
> [x] Extract images (PDF Exchange Viewer, PDF Shaper, PDFgear, poppler)
> [x] Extract text (poppler) or mine textual & metadata (pdfminersix)
> [x] Extracts embedded files (attachments) from a PDF (poppler)
> [x] Fastest PDF readers (Sumatra or Foxit)
> [x] Globally search & replace PDF text (Libre Office)
> [x] List fonts used in a PDF (poppler)
> [x] Merge PDFs (pdfsam, pdftk, PDFgear, Poppler) 
> [x] Metadata display on command line (poppler)
> [x] Metadata removal (LibreOffice Writer, PDFgear offline)
> [x] OCR, PDF-Xchange, freeOCR (paperfile.net), GOCR (jocr.sourceforge.net)
> [x] Offline encrypt PDF with a password (pdfencrypt)
> [x] Online shrink PDF <adobe.com/acrobat/online/compress-pdf.html>
> [x] PDF text to audio file (Balabolka)
> [x] Remove pages (pdfsam, pdftk)
> [x] Remove restrictions (Ghostscript,Ghostview,ps2edit,pdfwrite,pdf2djvu)
> [x] Renumber pages (Acrobat Reader)
> [x] Reorder pages (mutool)
> [x] Rotate pages (Acrobat Reader)
> [x] Separates a PDF into individual pages (poppler)
> [x] Split PDFs (PDFgear, Poppler) 
> [x] Tile PDFs (i.e., to print large posters) (Posterazor)
> [?] What other tasks do you do to edit or modify a PDF file?

I suppose all are available for Windows, it would be useful to know which are
also for Linux or Mac.

G

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#2624

On 3 Mar 2025 09:19:35 GMT, G wrote :


> I suppose all are available for Windows, it would be useful to know which are
> also for Linux or Mac.

Here's the Windows software, so far, that I've tested for PDF manipulation.
 <https://i.postimg.cc/jSNb7bkF/pspdf.jpg>

However, your point about testing Linux/Mac software is well taken, given
the c.e and c.t.p newsgroups will have folks on the Linux & Mac newsgroups. 

My history is that I cut my teeth on IBM assembly, cobol, fortran 77, etc.,
so I grew up on PDP11, DEC/VMS, SunOS, Solaris, etc., well before my first
real Linux (Redhat) & then Centos & Ubuntu, so I agree Linux is important.

And, in the Silicon Valley corporate atmosphere, long ago we all used the
Mac before the dual boot Windows/Redhat became our standard desktop PC.

Since I always download and test (almost) every suggested pgm, what's
needed for me to add Linux would be to dual boot to test these apps out.

For a long while I dual booted to Ubuntu in the Unity days and as an
indirect result, I personally abandoned the dual boot before Unity
(thankfully) died (although I had switched the desktop by then to KDE).

The point of that history being that while I *agree* Linux is important,
I'm not going to be who affirms what works and what doesn't, for Linux.

Likewise, while I have probably more Apple mobile devices than most people,
being a substitute teacher has taught me that the Mac isn't designed with
anywhere near, oh, shall we say "freedoms", as anything that I'm used to.

So, while both the Mac & Linux are widely available for PDF manipulation,
I'm not going to be the one to flesh out what works & what doesn't on 'em.

But someone else can take up the banner and run with it, as this is Usenet.
Here's a "dir /b" of my pspdf archive on Windows for software to consider:
 acrobat
 bullzip
 calibre
 cutepdf
 fileoptimizer
 fineprint
 foxit
 ghoststuff
 msoffice_save_as_pdf
 mupdf
 ocr
 pdf-xchange_viewer
 pdf2office
 pdf_text_to_audio
 pdfcreator
 pdfencrypt
 pdfgear
 pdfminersix
 pdfsam
 pdfshaper
 pdftk
 pdfxchange
 pdfxv
 poppler
 posterazor
 psutils
 sumatra
 wkhtmltox
 wps_pdf2word
 xpdf

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#2625

In comp.editors Marion <marion@facts.com> wrote:
> 
> My history is that I cut my teeth on IBM assembly, cobol, fortran 77, etc.,
> so I grew up on PDP11, DEC/VMS, SunOS, Solaris, etc., well before my first
> real Linux (Redhat) & then Centos & Ubuntu, so I agree Linux is important.
> 
I wrote my first program on punch card... for a IBM (maybe a 340?) and the lab
had half the punchers(?) from honeywell, which, of course had different
character set, Fun!.
And then the usual as you but avoided SunOs and SOlaris and went with Xenix
and HP-UX and of course CP/M and DOS. I installed my first Linux (Yggdrasil,
15 or so Floppy) on a Compaq Presario(I think) with a Massive 10MB HD!
Than I bought a RedHat box and kept with it, so Fedora Core and Fedora now
(KDE). I haven't used Windows for work for almost 30 years, so no ulcers.

[snip]

Thanks for your work here...

G

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#2631

On 3 Mar 2025 19:08:42 GMT, G wrote :


> I wrote my first program on punch card... for a IBM (maybe a 340?) and the lab
> had half the punchers(?) from honeywell, which, of course had different
> character set, Fun!.

Yeah. You reminded me of the computer rooms with the raised floors (for the
A/C) and the big magtapes (I still have one somewhere). When I wrote my
first program in school, it was in punched cards and Fortran 77 on an IBM,
oh, maybe an 1130?

I remember the punched tape machine sat there, unused, while we employed
the "more modern" boxes of punched cards. Do I remember correctly that a
box was about two thousand lines of Fortran code? Most of my code was about
a quarter to, at most, a half a box, so that's probably 500 to 1000 lines,
excluding the obligatory IBM JCL.

At some point (late seventies?) I was writing in PL/1 and about a decade
later in hex (when I wire wrapped my own Motorola 68701 microcontrollers).

At some point in time I swore off programming languages after concluding
that they all do teh same damn thing, only with different syntax. :)

I got sick of the syntax requirements the older I got. :)
Now the only thing I 'program' in is the Windows command line. :)

That's why when Lawrence mentioned Python, I shuddered. I still have
nightmares about having to look up "Error 52" or something like that in the
IBM 1130 documentation. Kids nowadays have no idea how that used to be! :)

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#2632

On Tue, 4 Mar 2025 03:52:13 -0000 (UTC), Marion wrote:

> At some point in time I swore off programming languages after concluding
> that they all do teh same damn thing, only with different syntax. :)

New ways of viewing the programming problem often lead to major 
improvements in programmer productivity.

Remember Brooks’ Law (or one of them): once a code base reaches a certain 
size, a skilled programmer that is familiar with it is only able to 
contribute about 10 lines of suitably-debugged code per day. And that 
applies across a wide range of language abstraction levels, from assembler 
all the way up to what he called “metaprogramming” languages, or very-
high-level languages. Consider how little 10 lines of assembler can do, 
versus 10 lines of shell script or Python or Lisp code.

So the only way to improve programmer productivity is to move to higher- 
and higher-level languages.

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]

#2633

Marion <marion@facts.com> wrote:

>On 3 Mar 2025 19:08:42 GMT, G wrote :
>
>
>> I wrote my first program on punch card... for a IBM (maybe a 340?) and the lab
>> had half the punchers(?) from honeywell, which, of course had different
>> character set, Fun!.
>
>Yeah. You reminded me of the computer rooms with the raised floors (for the
>A/C) and the big magtapes (I still have one somewhere). When I wrote my
>first program in school, it was in punched cards and Fortran 77 on an IBM,
>oh, maybe an 1130?

For me it was an IBM 1620. This was the late '60s at Palo Alto High
School. The machine belonged to the school district. The school
district office was right next to the school, so we got to use their
machine.
>
>I remember the punched tape machine sat there, unused, while we employed
>the "more modern" boxes of punched cards. Do I remember correctly that a
>box was about two thousand lines of Fortran code? Most of my code was about
>a quarter to, at most, a half a box, so that's probably 500 to 1000 lines,
>excluding the obligatory IBM JCL.

A box of Hollerith (or IBM) cards held 2,000 cards. Each FORTRAN
statement would go on a separate card, so 2,000 FORTRAN  statements is
right. And if you dropped your box and spilled your cards, good luck
getting them back in the correct order! BTW: the 1620 was pre-JCL.

-- 
Tim Slattery
timslattery <at> utexas <dot> edu

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#2637

On 04/03/2025 15:23, Tim Slattery wrote:
[snip]
> A box of Hollerith (or IBM) cards held 2,000 cards. Each FORTRAN 
> statement would go on a separate card, so 2,000 FORTRAN  statements
> is right. And if you dropped your box and spilled your cards, good
> luck getting them back in the correct order! 

In my college, the computing centre had a card sorter, which was huge 
and stood on cast-iron lion's feet which someone had painted gold :-) 
But of course it only worked if your program statements or data lines 
(cards) were numbered. You only drop a box of cards once.

(You may hear the voice of experience there :-)

Peter

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#2643

Peter Flynn <peter@silmaril.ie> writes:

> On 04/03/2025 15:23, Tim Slattery wrote:
> [snip]
>> A box of Hollerith (or IBM) cards held 2,000 cards. Each FORTRAN
>> statement would go on a separate card, so 2,000 FORTRAN  statements
>> is right. And if you dropped your box and spilled your cards, good
>> luck getting them back in the correct order! 
>
> In my college, the computing centre had a card sorter, which was huge
> and stood on cast-iron lion's feet which someone had painted gold :-)
> But of course it only worked if your program statements or data lines
> (cards) were numbered. You only drop a box of cards once.
>
> (You may hear the voice of experience there :-)
>
> Peter
>
I worked for Honeywell at a WWMMCCS site (World-Wide Military Command
and Control System) at the Washington Navy Yard as a tech support
guy. This was about 1973. I created new boot decks for the Honeywell 635
as needed, with new patch cards or new configurations. I was carrying a
tray of punched cards to the computer room, one hand on each end of the
card tray. I tried to hook the door handle with my little finger to pull
it open and lost my grip on the tray; cards all over the floor!
Embarrasing to say the least, and I didn't even try to put them back in
order, just punched out a new deck.
-- 
-Don_from_AZ-

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#2644

On Tue, 3/4/2025 11:28 PM, Don_from_AZ wrote:
> Peter Flynn <peter@silmaril.ie> writes:
> 
>> On 04/03/2025 15:23, Tim Slattery wrote:
>> [snip]
>>> A box of Hollerith (or IBM) cards held 2,000 cards. Each FORTRAN
>>> statement would go on a separate card, so 2,000 FORTRAN  statements
>>> is right. And if you dropped your box and spilled your cards, good
>>> luck getting them back in the correct order! 
>>
>> In my college, the computing centre had a card sorter, which was huge
>> and stood on cast-iron lion's feet which someone had painted gold :-)
>> But of course it only worked if your program statements or data lines
>> (cards) were numbered. You only drop a box of cards once.
>>
>> (You may hear the voice of experience there :-)
>>
>> Peter
>>
> I worked for Honeywell at a WWMMCCS site (World-Wide Military Command
> and Control System) at the Washington Navy Yard as a tech support
> guy. This was about 1973. I created new boot decks for the Honeywell 635
> as needed, with new patch cards or new configurations. I was carrying a
> tray of punched cards to the computer room, one hand on each end of the
> card tray. I tried to hook the door handle with my little finger to pull
> it open and lost my grip on the tray; cards all over the floor!
> Embarrasing to say the least, and I didn't even try to put them back in
> order, just punched out a new deck.
> 

You could put numbers in column 72.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/58/FortranCardPROJ039.agr.jpg/960px-FortranCardPROJ039.agr.jpg

You generally also need some spacing between card numbers, like use 10,20,30
then if you added a card it could be 25, then a card between 20 and 25, could
be card 23. You needed a means to support program edits.

If you needed a program label line number, that went on the left
of the card, while anti-spill card numbering went on the right of the card.
This is an example of an infinite loop, and if I spilled these two cards
on the floor, 25 comes before 30 and we're all good. The 100 on the left
is a program label.

100   GOTO 100                             25
      CONTINUE                             30

For small student programs, nobody bothered with column 72. For larger
projects, it was considered a necessary evil.

The easiest way to get the cards numbered, would be to copy the deck to
the output punch and have column 72 content added automatically. I don't
think I ever used the output punch on a mainframe. Maybe my QDGS deck
had column 72, because that was a box-full (2000 cards for some purpose).
I don't recollect where that deck came from -- maybe someone had it
punched for me. The output came in a box (the Ice Queen probably put
the 2000 cards in a box, after they were punched). The ice Queen was
the emotionless computer operator, she wore a heavy sweater year round,
because it was like 50F inside the computer room. I'd been on a tour
of that computer room, and it's like working in the flash freezer
at the fish plant. It is COLD in there. That's why she was the
Ice Queen, as she had mastery over ice, and the ice could not get to her.
Nothing got to her. I don't think the expression on her face, changed
even once. She didn't even have a name! That's how emotionless she was.

   Paul

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#2645

On 5/03/2025 5:39 pm, Paul wrote:
> On Tue, 3/4/2025 11:28 PM, Don_from_AZ wrote:
>> Peter Flynn <peter@silmaril.ie> writes:
>> 
>>> On 04/03/2025 15:23, Tim Slattery wrote: [snip]
>>>> A box of Hollerith (or IBM) cards held 2,000 cards. Each
>>>> FORTRAN statement would go on a separate card, so 2,000 FORTRAN
>>>> statements is right. And if you dropped your box and spilled
>>>> your cards, good luck getting them back in the correct order!
>>> 
>>> In my college, the computing centre had a card sorter, which was
>>> huge and stood on cast-iron lion's feet which someone had painted
>>> gold :-) But of course it only worked if your program statements
>>> or data lines (cards) were numbered. You only drop a box of cards
>>> once.
>>> 
>>> (You may hear the voice of experience there :-)
>>> 
>>> Peter
>>> 
>> I worked for Honeywell at a WWMMCCS site (World-Wide Military
>> Command and Control System) at the Washington Navy Yard as a tech
>> support guy. This was about 1973. I created new boot decks for the
>> Honeywell 635 as needed, with new patch cards or new
>> configurations. I was carrying a tray of punched cards to the
>> computer room, one hand on each end of the card tray. I tried to
>> hook the door handle with my little finger to pull it open and lost
>> my grip on the tray; cards all over the floor! Embarrasing to say
>> the least, and I didn't even try to put them back in order, just
>> punched out a new deck.
>> 
> 
> You could put numbers in column 72.
> 
> https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/58/FortranCardPROJ039.agr.jpg/960px-FortranCardPROJ039.agr.jpg
>
>  You generally also need some spacing between card numbers, like use
> 10,20,30 then if you added a card it could be 25, then a card between
> 20 and 25, could be card 23. You needed a means to support program
> edits.

That was the reason stated when I started BASIC Programming (1985'ish 
.... O./K., so I was a late comer!!) "Number the Lines 10, 20, 30, etc, 
so, if you need to add a bit extra, there were all those other line 
numbers to use!!"

-- 
Daniel70

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#2660

On Wed, 5 Mar 2025 20:48:45 +1100, Daniel70 wrote:

> That was the reason stated when I started BASIC Programming (1985'ish
> .... O./K., so I was a late comer!!) "Number the Lines 10, 20, 30, etc,
> so, if you need to add a bit extra, there were all those other line
> numbers to use!!"

Some of us went by hundreds.

BASIC was designed as an integral part of an interactive timeshared system 
for students and staff to use at Dartmouth. Line numbers served two 
purposes: one as target labels for GOTOs, the other for ordering lines in 
the editor.

Both uses are now obsolete.

By the way, did you have some kind of line-renumbering utility in your 
BASIC system? That would also fix up GOTOs to correctly branch to the 
renumbered lines.

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#2662

On 6/03/2025 1:18 pm, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
> On Wed, 5 Mar 2025 20:48:45 +1100, Daniel70 wrote:
> 
>> That was the reason stated when I started BASIC Programming
>> (1985'ish .... O./K., so I was a late comer!!) "Number the Lines
>> 10, 20, 30, etc, so, if you need to add a bit extra, there were all
>> those other line numbers to use!!"
> 
> Some of us went by hundreds.
> 
> BASIC was designed as an integral part of an interactive timeshared
> system for students and staff to use at Dartmouth. Line numbers
> served two purposes: one as target labels for GOTOs, the other for
> ordering lines in the editor.

Hmm!! Probably O.T. but the 'Dartmouth' you mention .... was that 
Dartmouth, Victoria, Australia or was that somewhere in U.K.?? Or 
elsewhere??

> Both uses are now obsolete.
> 
> By the way, did you have some kind of line-renumbering utility in
> your BASIC system? That would also fix up GOTOs to correctly branch
> to the renumbered lines.
> 
"line-renumbering utility"?? One's mind, maybe. ;-P
-- 
Daniel70

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#2667

In article <vqbhsv$2sjkp$1@dont-email.me>, daniel47@eternal-
september.org says...
>Hmm!! Probably O.T. but the 'Dartmouth' you mention .... was that 
>Dartmouth, Victoria, Australia or was that somewhere in U.K.?? Or 
>elsewhere??
>
>

Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire.

https://calltolead.dartmouth.edu/stories/celebrating-birth-basic-and-
beyond

-- 
--
Phil, London

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#2663

Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
> On Wed, 5 Mar 2025 20:48:45 +1100, Daniel70 wrote:
> 
> > That was the reason stated when I started BASIC Programming (1985'ish
> > .... O./K., so I was a late comer!!) "Number the Lines 10, 20, 30, etc,
> > so, if you need to add a bit extra, there were all those other line
> > numbers to use!!"
> 
> Some of us went by hundreds.
> 
> BASIC was designed as an integral part of an interactive timeshared system 
> for students and staff to use at Dartmouth. Line numbers served two 
> purposes: one as target labels for GOTOs, the other for ordering lines in 
> the editor.
> 
> Both uses are now obsolete.

  Was that by any chance one of the HP 2000 Series Timesharing Systems?

  I supported those in the early 70s, mainly at the technical
'hogescholen' (one level below university) in The Netherlands.

> By the way, did you have some kind of line-renumbering utility in your 
> BASIC system? That would also fix up GOTOs to correctly branch to the 
> renumbered lines.

  Wasn't 'renumber' (or 'ren'?) just a command? Or is my memory playing
tricks with me?

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#2665

On 2025-03-06 11:45, Frank Slootweg wrote:
> Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
>> On Wed, 5 Mar 2025 20:48:45 +1100, Daniel70 wrote:


>> By the way, did you have some kind of line-renumbering utility in your
>> BASIC system? That would also fix up GOTOs to correctly branch to the
>> renumbered lines.
> 
>    Wasn't 'renumber' (or 'ren'?) just a command? Or is my memory playing
> tricks with me?

It could be an external program (in basic itself), that when you run it 
loads some basic source (it is plain text) at renumbers it according to 
some criteria. It has got to find all jumps and fill a table.

-- 
Cheers, Carlos.

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#2669

On 06/03/2025 02:18, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:

> By the way, did you have some kind of line-renumbering utility in your
> BASIC system? That would also fix up GOTOs to correctly branch to the
> renumbered lines.

AFAIR both HP BASIC and DEC-10 BASIC had line-renumbering (into 10s) 
that updated GOTO statements. I believe the DEC-10 BASIC was a direct 
descendant of Dartmouth BASIC, so presumably someone in DEC spotted the 
need and added the feature.

Peter

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#2671

On Fri, 7 Mar 2025 22:36:57 +0000, Peter Flynn wrote:

> On 06/03/2025 02:18, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
> 
>> By the way, did you have some kind of line-renumbering utility in your
>> BASIC system? That would also fix up GOTOs to correctly branch to the
>> renumbered lines.
> 
> AFAIR both HP BASIC and DEC-10 BASIC had line-renumbering (into 10s)
> that updated GOTO statements. I believe the DEC-10 BASIC was a direct
> descendant of Dartmouth BASIC, so presumably someone in DEC spotted the
> need and added the feature.

I recall on RSTS/E, there was a separate utility program called RESEQ that 
did this for BASIC-PLUS programs. It was a long time ago, but it could 
have been that it did not operate on .BAS source code at all, but on the 
byte-compiled executable .BAC files.

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