Re: [Swftools-common] pdf2swf - font approximation

[Matthias Kramm]

On Fri, Jun 24, 2005 at 12:25:27AM +0200, Michael Hansen wrote:
> I've been running over the net, downloading PDFs, and converting them using 
> your tool. Most PDF's seems to be converted quite nicely, while some -like 
> this one...
> 
> http://www.bilka.dk/internet/bilka/info/catalogue.nsf/va_lookup_frontpage_pict/Ugens_tilbudsavis/$file/bi_u25.pdf
> 
> (u25 is the week number - replace with current week at viewing)
> 
> ...could bring many happy hours of 'debugging' ! or not ;)

Hm, that PDF converts ok for me in the latest version.
Did you spot any specific differences between pdf and swf which I
missed?

> How do you run this project? For fun and joy or some higher meaning? :) 

It's mainly for fun. There's neither a quest for gaining holy alignment
nor an evil scheme behind it. :)
It started with being a helper tool for a project of the local University
(the project was named "Phybas"- it's linked on the swftools example page),
and I originally wanted to discontinue it after Phybas had been
completed (must have been 2001 or 2002), but at that point there were
already so many people using it, and distributions (FreeBSD, Gentoo,
Debian etc.) packaging it into their software repositories, that somehow
I just didn't get manage to get "rid" of it. ;)
It's quite and entertaining project, though, with Macromedia regularily
adding new interesting features (like video compression etc.) to the SWF
format, and every so often a new challenge to tackle, like the
bezier-polygon intersection routines I'm currently confronted with.

> Is there some way of contributing, and if so how do I get started? 

Good question. :) I guess what swftools still needs most direly is
documentation (like almost all Open Source projects...). 
There's a Wiki at 
    http://www.gearyweb.com/swfwiki/index.php/Main_Page
where everybody can contribute.
Apart from that, if you're a C/C++ hacker, I'm always happy to receive
patches.

Greetings

Matthias