Tag Archives: windows

Manage PDF files

Merge multiple files into single PDF

I’m sure that we all had the need to send a single PDF file, maybe a signed contract. Yes, those 20 or more pages that you need to return, probably with just two of them filled up and signed.

Some PDF give you the ability to digitally sign them. But in my experience, most of them aren’t so modern.

So, what do I do?

I print ONLY the pages that I need to sign, scan them and here I am, with the need to “rebuild” the PDF, replacing the pages signed.

Example.
You have the file contract.pdf, with 20 pages and you need to sign page 10 and page 20.
The scan has a different resolution (or, even worse, it’s a different format, like jpg).

Here the command to make the magic happen:

The bit before -resize is pretty self explanatory. The bit after is a way to have the size of all pages fitting an A4 format, with a good printable resolution.

Of course, to make this happen, you need Linux (or WSL on Windows 10) and imagemagick installed.

Another way is using ghostscript.

A simple Ghostscript command to merge two PDFs in a single file is shown below:

What about a quick onliner to reduce and convert to grayscale your pdf?

PDF size reduce

Sometimes instead, you need to reduce the size of an existing PDF. Here a handy oneliner, using ghostscript:

Other options for PDFSETTINGS:

  • /screen selects low-resolution output similar to the Acrobat Distiller “Screen Optimized” setting.
  • /ebook selects medium-resolution output similar to the Acrobat Distiller “eBook” setting.
  • /printer selects output similar to the Acrobat Distiller “Print Optimized” setting.
  • /prepress selects output similar to Acrobat Distiller “Prepress Optimized” setting.
  • /default selects output intended to be useful across a wide variety of uses, possibly at the expense of a larger output file.

Happy PDF’ing 🙂

Sources:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/23214617/imagemagick-convert-image-to-pdf-with-a4-page-size-and-image-fit-to-page
https://www.shellhacks.com/merge-pdf-files-linux-command-line/
https://gist.github.com/firstdoit/6390547

Migrate Linux Subsystem from one PC to another

Are you enjoying your favorite Linux distro running within the Windows 10 Linux Subsystem?

Have you configured all nicely?

What happened if you get a new pc and you’d like to migrate your VM across?

This is what happened to me. And looking around, I found this post that gave me this kinda-dirty way, but did work!

After that, I decided to review the steps, and I’ve added these directories in the exclude’s list, to make clearer the process of export/import:

Of course, if you have important data in these folders and you want to move across too, just update the one-liner below accordingly. 😉

On your OLD PC

  • Open your Linux VM
  • Get inside your Downloads directory (replace <user> with your username): cd /mnt/c/Users/<user>/Dowloads
  • Make sure to be root (sudo su -)
  • Run:
    tar -cvpzf backup.tar.gz --exclude=/backup.tar.gz --exclude=/dev --exclude=/proc --exclude=/sys --exclude=/run --exclude=/tmp --exclude=/media --exclude=/mnt --exclude=/var/cache --exclude=/var/run --one-file-system /
    NOTE: you could achieve the same using the option --exclude-from=file.txt, and having the list of exclusions in this file. I used a one-liner as it’s quicker to copy and paste.
  • Once done, close your Linux VM
  • Verify that you have a new file called backup.tar.bz in Dowloads

On your NEW PC

  • Install from Microsoft Store the same Linux VM (or reinstall in the same way you have done originally on your old pc)
  • Copy across your backup.tar.bz within your new Downloads folder
  • Open the VM that you’ve just installed (minimal setup – this will be completely overwritten, so don’t be bothered too much)
  • Once you’re inside and your backup.tar.bz is in Download, run the following (replace <user> with your username):
    sudo tar -xpzf /mnt/c/Users/<user>/Dowloads/backup.tar.gz -C / --numeric-owner
  • Ignore the errors
  • Close and re-open the VM: DONE! 🙂

Happy migration! 😉

Ubuntu 16.04 with Office 2010, Photoshop CS2, Spotify and Skype

I can finally decommission my Windows VM!

Yes. I was keeping a Windows VM to use Office and Photoshop. Libreoffice and GIMP are alternative options that where not sufficient – at least for me. On top of that, Skype and Spotify were another couple of software that weren’t really working well or available (at least a while ago).

Now, I have a full working-workstation based on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS – MATE!

Desktop Screenshot

How to?

Well, here some easy instructions.

What you need?

  • Office Pro 2010 license
  • Office Pro 2010 installer (here where to download if you have lost it – 32bit version)
  • Photoshop installer: Adobe has now released version C2 free. You need an Adobe account. They provide installer and serial. For the installer, here the direct link
  • Spotify account
  • Skype account
  • Ubuntu 16.04 LTS 64 bit installed 🙂

Let’s install!

Spotify

For Spotify, I’ve just simply followed this: https://www.spotify.com/it/download/linux/

Skype

For Skype, I have downloaded the deb from https://www.skype.com/en/get-skype/

 

Office 2010 – Photoshop CS2

A bit more complicated how to install Office 2010 and Photoshop… but not too much 🙂
Just follow these instructions.

Firstly, we need to enable i386 architecture

Then, add WineHQ repositories and install the latest stable version:

Install some extra packages, including winbind and the utility winetricks and create some symlinks

NOTE: very importante the package winbind. Don’t miss this or Office won’t install.

Create the environment (assuming your user is called user)

Install some required packages, using winetricks

After that, let’s make some changes to Wine conf.

As described to this post, add riched20 and gdiplus libraries (snipped below):

Click the Libraries tab. Currently, there will be only a single entry for *msxml6 (native,built-in).
Now click in the ‘New override for library’ combo box and type ‘rich’. Click the down-arrow. That should now display an item called riched20. Click [Add].
In the same override combo box, now type ‘gdip’. Click the down-arrow. You should now see an item called gdiplus. Click on it and then click [Add]

Now… let’s install!

This command is valid for both software: Office and Photoshop.

With this configuration, you should be able to complete the setup and see under “Others” menu (in Ubuntu MATE) the apps installed. Please note that you might need to reboot your box to see the app actually there.

During the Office setup, I choose the Custom setup, as I just wanted Word, Excel and Power Point. I selected “Run all from My Computer” to be sure there won’t be any extra to install while using the software, and after, I’ve de-selected/excluded what I didn’t want.

 

Once completed with the setup, if you don’t see the apps under “Others” menu, you can run them via command line (e.g. run Excel):

Office will ask to activate. I wasn’t able to activate it via Internet, so I have called the number found at this page.

The only issue I’ve experienced was that Word was showing “Configuring Office 2010…” and taking time to start. After that, I was getting a pop up asking to reboot. Saying “yes” was making all crashing. Saying “no” was allowing me to use Word with no issues.

I found this patch that worked perfectly:

Just do wine cmd  and paste the above command, or wine regedit and add manually the key.

Apart of this… all went smoothly. I have been able also to install the language packs, using the same procedure wine setup.exe  and I’m very happy now! 🙂

Have fun!