Re: NOMINATION: Adobe makes the MOST USER-UN-FRIENDLY software available today! VERY detailed explanation!!

Mr.Enigmatic@xxxxxxxxx,
In a message on 13 Dec 2005 20:27:24 -0800, wrote :

M> NOMINATION: Adobe makes the MOST USER-UN-FRIENDLY software available
M> today! VERY detailed explanation!!
M>
M> Here is what I want to do: take a 7 graphics, and make one PDF, with
M> one graphic per page, each page Letter-sized, so my colleagues can view
M> them on screen, or print them out onto standard Letter-sized paper if
M> they need to. The graphic only takes part of each Letter-sized page, so
M> I can put a little caption below the graphic.
M>
M> WHAT A FREAKIN' NIGHTMARE!
M>
M> Try #1:
M> Open Adobe Acrobat Professional 6.0. Create a blank PDF file with a
M> Letter sized page and add a graphic to the page. HA HAA HAAA... THAT'S
M> FUNNY! No such option to create a blank PDF. You have to create from
M> Scanner or from File or from another PDF. Why can't I create a blank
M> PDF with 7 Letter-sized pages, and place the images on the pages
M> however I want? NO!
M>
M> Try #2:
M> OK since I already have all the images on my hard drive anyway, I just
M> want to place the first one onto a Letter-sized Acrobat page.
M> Apparently there is NO WAY to do this. I tried this: Fire up Adobe
M> Acrobat 6 Professional. Go to File -> Create PDF -> From File.
M>
M> First, try to place an ADOBE Photoshop file and you get a ridiculous
M> message about "Acrobat could not open 'YourImage.PSD' because it is
M> either not a supported file type or because the file has been
M> corrupted..." Did I mention it is an ADOBE Photoshop file? I can open
M> it in PS just fine. I tried with numerous PS files. NO!
M>
M> Fine. Open it up in PS and save as a JPG. Now do the File -> Create PDF
M> -> From File. You get some random-sized page, something to do with the
M> properties of the image file. Not really sure what image size, pixel
M> dimensions, resolution, etc. Acrobat chooses to use to determine the
M> page size it then creates. Total mystery, but not Letter-sized... so
M> totally useless!
M>
M> OK fine. So I tried resizing the image so it was exactly 8.5x11 inches
M> at 72 dpi. Yes that works to create a Letter-sized page. But that is
M> NOT what I want at all! I want to resize the image so it only takes up
M> a PART of the page, and put some caption text below it. And who says I
M> want 72 dpi? Just resizing at 72 dpi, the image takes up every pixel of
M> the Letter-sized page... not what I want at all!
M>
M> Another problem with this: with an image that is way smaller than
M> Letter-sized, you ONLY get an entire page that is the size of that
M> image, NOT Letter-sized.
M>
M>
M> Try #3:
M> OK fine. Since what I am describing above is something you can easily
M> do in Illustrator, lets try that. Fire up Illustrator 10. First of all,
M> I didn't know exactly how many pages I was going to need. So I just
M> went to Document Setup and I changed it from the default of one
M> Letter-sized page: Width 612 pt, Height 792 pt -- to Width 6120 pt,
M> Height 792 pt -- which gives a nice 10 Letter-sized pages across --
M> page one on the left, and then side-by-side with page 10 all the way on
M> the right. Skipping ahead, when I finished laying stuff out, I saw I
M> only needed 7 pages. So I resized the document down to only 7 pages
M> across (4284 pt) and don't you know it -- Illustrator did NOT just lop
M> off the 3 pages from the right, instead it chose to pull the pages in
M> from the center of the artboard, making all my layout completely out of
M> alignment with the new 7 pages! Ridiculous!!!
M>
M> Try #4:
M> In Illustrator 10, with my work now all nicely lined up on my 7 page
M> wide artboard, with each individual page labeled nicely with 1, 2, 3 up
M> to 7 -- I can now simply create a PDF. Now this MUST be super-simple!!!
M> Using ADOBE Illustrator to create an ADOBE Acrobat document. Don't they
M> even use the same internal language and format and everything?!?! So I
M> did a Save As... chose the type as Adobe PDF, chose a couple of options
M> like Acrobat 5 compatibility, Preserve Illustrator Editing Capabilities
M> -- stuff that shouldn't really matter. And voila! In just a second I
M> get one RETARDED PDF file that is one single page, 7-Letter-sized-pages
M> wide. WHAT THE HELL!!! Dammit this is the DUMBEST thing I have ever
M> seen! ADOBE Illustrator has 7 pages. If you print it out to your
M> printer, you get 7 Letter-sized pages. But save as an ADOBE Acrobat
M> file, you get one 7-page-wide file. MY GOD!!!!!!!
M>
M> Try #5:
M> Take the damn Illustrator document and PRINT to a PDF. Should NOT have
M> to do this, but what the hell, lets give it a try. GEEEZUS! The damn
M> thing prints a new file FOR EACH PAGE!! Come on! Therefore obviously
M> Adobe Acrobat can recognize that there are multiple pages in this
M> Illustrator document, but you can NOT save as one multi-page PDF, and
M> you can not print to one multi-page PDF.
M>
M> Is Adobe TRYING to make their software as user-UN-friendly as
M> possible??
M>
M> ONE MORE HUGE Adobe ANTI-User-Friendly "Feature" -- In Illustrator 10,
M> in a text box, put your insertion point near the end of the text, and
M> press your Forward Delete key to delete the last few letters of the
M> text. Press the Forward Delete key again, and you will start to delete
M> text BEHIND the insertion point!! ADOBE ILLUSTRATOR IS THE ONLY
M> SOFTWARE EVER INVENTED IN HISTORY THAT BEHAVES THIS WAY!!! Adobe
M> Photoshop CS does NOT. Adobe ImageReady CS does NOT. Adobe Acrobat
M> Professional 6 does NOT. Adobe Photoshop Album 2.0 does NOT. No
M> Microsoft product ever behaves this way. No Apple Computer software
M> every behaves this way. I am unaware of ANY software EVER that behaves
M> this way! Why Adobe, why why why why why why do you make Illustrator
M> edit text differently than any other program anyone has ever written in
M> all of human history, including your own?!?!?!?!??!!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?
M> Why?

This can be done with ImageMagick, PSUtils, and Ghostscript:

convert Image1.jpg -comment="Caption 1" -page=letter page1.ps
convert image2.bmp -comment="Caption 2" -page=letter page2.ps
convert image3.gif -comment="Caption 3" -page=letter page3.ps
convert image4.jpg -comment="Caption 4" -page=letter page4.ps
convert image5.jpg -comment="Caption 5" -page=letter page5.ps
convert image6.jpg -comment="Caption 6" -page=letter page6.ps
convert image7.jpg -comment="Caption 7" -page=letter page7.ps
psmerge -oallpages.ps page1.ps page2.ps page3.ps page4.ps page5.ps page6.ps page7.ps
rm page1.ps page2.ps page3.ps page4.ps page5.ps page6.ps page7.ps
ps2pdf allpages.ps allpages.pdf
rm allpages.ps



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