Quote from: Joe on November 27, 2018, 01:19:33 PMOn the Mac BBEdit is the bomb.

I'm a big fan of bbedit (I miss text wrangler though).

But sometimes you want that excel view of the data. So I use quicklook csv from git hub.

https://goo.gl/images/GJSvoy

This way finder previews the as a table. Can't edit. Just a handy reference.

Quote from: Kermy812 on October 20, 2018, 03:15:46 PMSo I have tons of pdfs that are named by the item code, but it's not on the pdf itself. I know I can do add a text action and use the  %Current Document Name% as a variable, but I don't want to add the ".pdf". If my pdf is named CODE_XYZ.pdf, I want to have CODE_XYZ as the code added to the sign. Anyway to do with pitstop?

Ok... So you can add this as action list or global change. Not sure if you get any extra options in global change. I'm away from the office.

Can you add the text in the top right hand corner so .pdf is always in the same place every time and then mask it with a small white rectangular in the next action ?

Quote from: Fat Boy Tim on April 25, 2018, 03:42:01 PM....Actions in Illustrator as totally hit and miss.

"Convert to Artboards" is a recordable action but "Fit Artboard to Selected Bounds" is not.

Quick Update for anyone else in Motormount's position.

Some "non-recordable" keyboard actions can be added using "Inset Menu Item"

This is in the Action Pallet Menu.

Once the Inset Menu Item dialog box opens, go to your menu item and select it. It will then appear in the dialog box and be stored on your action.

It seems to me that the less you use the keyboard and the more you use menus to record your actions, the chances they are recorded increases.

Hope that helps
 

Quote from: Possum on August 30, 2018, 09:25:50 AMhttps://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/08/blackmagic-external-gpu-review-a-very-apple-graphics-solution/

Oh for the love of god ...WHY!?

I don't care if my next mac is twice the size of my current one. I don't care if it makes more noise that Honda Civic. I just want it to be fast, play nice with lots of other equipment and  (one day when it gets a little slow)  I just want to open a little door and add more memory and drives.

It's on days like these that I miss my old G3. That little latch on the side was the best thing they ever did.

Quote from: scottrsimons on August 29, 2018, 06:28:16 AMPretty high tech video with the cabinet full of Zip Drives and SyQuest Drives. 

Well spotted - Thank god you never made it to the bit with Corel X6!

Hello,

We have a very inexpensive Graphtec FC2250 Flatbed Plotter. Something like that might suit you. They don't make it anymore but the new version is still quite cheap. They are about a 1/3 of the price of the cheapest Kongsberg.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFZ6MlIQIRk

The other machine we nearly bought was the Mimaki CFL-605RT. The resellers said that the insides were just as well made as the Zund's they sell. The reason we did not pick this one is that changing substrate was a bit messy but that won't be an issue for you.

http://www.mimakieurope.com/products/cutting-plotters/cfl-605rt/

Nor sure if the table is big enough for your blankets. Both machines run off Illustrator with a plug in.

Hope that helps you.

Quote from: mattbeals on August 22, 2018, 10:42:55 PMThanks all, it means a lot to me.
  Even at 45, I'm an old, ornrey, indomitable, mule who refuses to accept this.

Let me know if I can help!

You hang on in there Matt. My father in law beat cancer last year. At one point they gave him 24 hours to live. One year on and he's had the all clear. Sadly, he also has Dementia so he can't always remember that he's cancer free. Life is tough.

Quote from: abc on August 27, 2018, 06:23:23 AM

.... If you converted the original PDF to RGB with PitStop or Acrobat, I bet Illustrator would work with that as well!
[/quote]

If you save it as PDF X/4 out of Acrobat then it opens fine in Illustrator and the CMYK colour values in the gradient look pretty much the same as the original.

Pssst - Please don't tell Dov Issacs I did this.

Quote from: StudioMonkey on July 19, 2018, 03:26:50 AMNot sure why it was removed from the GUI but if you think it would stop anybody recovering data I've seen evidence to the contrary.  The only secure delete involves an axe, and that's not 100%.
 

A few years ago me and a buddy at work had to tidy up the storage shelves. We found some old drives that were no use to us anymore. So we encrypted them. With a hammer and a few nails.

Quote from: wonderings on July 06, 2018, 08:31:42 AMOn a Mac I just open the PDF with preview then export as PDF. I get an unlocked PDF, never had it not work but it is not something I am dealing with every day.

Yes... We did the same for years. It's an OSX bug from a while ago. Then they fixed it. Maybe it's come back.

Quote from: Tracy on July 05, 2018, 01:18:59 PMYou ever get a job that just makes you mad?

Urrrrghhh.. Tell me about it!

My entire day has been spent rebuilding a two sided job in illustrator that some joker made in photoshop (tiff with layers). Why? Because another joker promised our top client that they could sign off a proof tomorrow.

Five spot colour lineart job in photoshop, complete with halftone patterns and terrible 3d shading which I had to mimic.

Nevermind Adobe CC subscription, I'm beginning think you should need a license to download it.

hotdog!

I went back to the PDFKEY site to see if they had any new features and found their sister product...

https://pdfextractor-app.com/en/

Now that's a utility!

Quote from: DigiCorn on July 03, 2018, 03:04:33 PMI still just use freemypdf.com

Thanks for the tip!

For years I have used PDFKEY.

  -     https://pdfkey.com/en/

The free version does a page 1 of a PDF of any file size. The full version unlocks the whole lot and has Automator Actions to lock and unlock.

Quote from: ninjaPB_43 on June 19, 2018, 12:00:29 PMShit in, shit out.

I remember in my very first computing class at school they taught us this (Garbage in, Garbage out - hey! we were kids).

At the time I thought they meant it as some kind of warning. These days it seems more like a mission statement.

Quote from: metlife on June 18, 2018, 03:45:44 AM...... One of the departments in our company works on the GMC Inspire Designer software and needs to process these PDF files to the .AFP format. Due to the fact that there is a problem for me with font in PDF files from the client, we can not process them to the AFP format......

Ahhhhh.... GMC Inspire .... well, why didn't you say so.   :-D

Ok, when the PDF is brought into the GMC environment you need to ask what "handling group" they are using. They need to select a handling group (or create a handling group) that treats the PDF as a complete object and adds it to the output without interpreting it or converting it to a native file format.

Now, I am not that familiar with .AFP so you might not have any options to do this, but do ask them the question. It might save everyones time if they can handle the wacky PDF output you already have.