Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2009 August 15

= August 15 =

command prompt
Using windows XP, I have managed to get the command line interface to go totally full screen, unfortunately I can't work out how to get it back to normal.. Please help.83.100.250.79 (talk) 02:48, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
 * You can toggle between fullscreen and windowed by pressing Alt+Enter at the same time. ZX81  talk  03:37, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks (sigh)83.100.250.79 (talk) 10:39, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

how do you check whether
email headers are forged? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.189.57.133 (talk) 06:54, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

If you want to check if a header is legitimate, look a the Received: header. The originating server and IP address (along with other information such as HELO) show the originating source. Later Received headers may be forged, and should only be trusted if you are familiar with the originating mail server. Example. --Sigma 7 (talk) 21:13, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

LCD monitor's optimum resolution is too high for my eyes
I'm looking at buying a new computer and monitor, and it seems that only LCD monitors are available now - CRTs are not. The problem is that I have fairly poor eyesight and typically run my monitor at a relatively low resolution. However it appears that LCD monitors work best at their "optimum" - ie highest - resolution, but that higher resolution causes me significant eye strain. If I switch to a lower resolution, the images is poor, almost as if out of focus. I presume that this is because the computer image pixels no longer match one-to-one with the monitor pixels. I have tried changing the DPI settings to compensate, but it never gives as good an image on anything other than the default values, and it doesn't appear to work correctly with all software. Aside from getting strong glasses, does anyone have any suggestions as to how to resolve this problem. Are there any alternatives to LCD monitors (besides trying to get a second hand CRT)? Are there any LCD monitors that have particularly large pixels? Mitch Ames (talk) 08:26, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
 * What resolution and size are you on now? The lowest resolution common is X by 768 (X=1024 or higher depending on aspect) These are getting rare, but are still common in many hi-def tv displays - if 768 lines vertical sounds like it might be an improvement then I'd suggest to start looking at some hi-def TV's.
 * I can't find a software solution that actually works - most leave tiny icons etc.83.100.250.79 (talk) 10:54, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm currently using 1024x768 with a viewable width of 320mm (12.6"), giving me pixels of 0.31mm. I would actually prefer more pixels - just on a bigger screen. Mitch Ames (talk) 11:20, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
 * You might as well try a CRT because people are giving them away for free or almost free to anyone who will lug them away. I have a very nice (for a CRT) 19" secondary display sitting on my desk that I got for nothing. I doubt you'd find it less fuzzy than a high-res LCD, though. CRTs also have pixels, they just never align 1:1 with the video card's pixels. It's the same as the LCD situation except that there's no optimum resolution. The same goes for any other display technology. -- BenRG (talk) 11:17, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
 * High-resolution really only makes the image sharper; it is not necessarily true that objects have to become smaller. You can increase the text DPI (dots per inch) in Windows, so that the text becomes as large as you wish, and the higher the resolution is, the sharper the text will become. Also, you can increase the size of visual elements in Windows, and web browsers and word processors can zoom their documents to (virtually) any size. The only effect of the screen resolution, is that everything becomes sharper (less "pixelpasta", as we say in Sweden). --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 11:49, 15 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes, check out the accessibility options in the control panel. There are ways to increase the overall font size, the DPI, the icon and pointer size, etc., in ways that are comparatively seamless. If that doesn't work, then you probably want CRT (which you can get for just about free on Craigslist these days, because there are so many of them and they are being more or less phased out). --98.217.14.211 (talk) 14:34, 15 August 2009 (UTC)


 * I agree on the advice people give to simply increase text size and Web browser zoom settings, but if you want larger pixels, consider getting a monitor that is twice the size of some accepted resolution each way - in theory, that should mean that one display adapter pixel maps neatly to a 2x2 square of screen pixels. Don't know if it works in practice though, you should ask to test that in the store before you buy (assuming you can still get reasonably priced hardware in "offline" locations). Jørgen (talk) 18:46, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Bigger monitors have bigger pixels, currently rarely being above 768/1024/1200 vertical lines - a large screen tv with vga or hdmi/dvi input might be cheaper than the equivalent sized monitor (mass production) and have just as good image. eg try a 32" lcd tv.83.100.250.79 (talk) 12:14, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Key sticking
On my laptop my 'r' key seems to stick quite frequently, so I'll have to press the key several times before it works. If that were it, I'd assume the key was dirty underneath or damaged, but for some strange reason the computer seems to register the key presses and stores them, so that when I occasionally press the 'r' key, previous presses will show up at once so I'll end up with a long string of 'r's like 'rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr'. I don't understand why the computer would seem to store this presses but not display them. To make things worse, I'm not sure why sometimes the key seems to work perfectly, but at others is really temperamental. Does anyone have any suggestions or ideas as to what is causing this? As it does get quite frustrating. Thanks. Regards, --— Cyclonenim | Chat 11:06, 15 August 2009 (UTC)


 * You may have a process running at 100% CPU from time to time. Try getting process explorer or some other program that keeps track of process activity as well.  Also, the application you are running may also get snagged on its background tasks as well, causing the keystrokes to come all at once; an easy way to fix this is to restart or reinstall the application.   --Sigma 7 (talk) 21:15, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Probably some combination of the 'r' key getting physically stuck and the above-mentioned software problem (causing the computer to store the presses but not display them). 69.251.180.224 (talk) 02:35, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

missing deleted e-mail
I use microsoft office outlook for my e-mail. While writing several e-mails at the same time, I accidentally deleted one of them. I thought it was an e-mail I hadd received. In fact, it was an e-mail Ihad received, clicked the "reply" button, and had written a long reply. Nevertheless, I hit the red x button and it disappeared. Is there any way to retreive, recover or restore it?

I looked in my Outlook "deleted" bin but it includes only files that were in othe folders (inbox, sent mail) that I deleted. Once I hit "reply," apparently my e-mail is no longer in a file, so when I delete it, it does not go to the "deleted" file.

I looked in my desktop recycle bin and it is not there either.

I have noticed this with Yahoo e-mail too - if i delete an e-mail I received, it goes into a "trash" bin and is therefore easy to recover. But if I delete a response I have ween writing, it just disappears. At least, i have neve been aBle to find it.

The issue is unsent, deleted replies. It seems that everything else ggests saved somewhere ... but not these?

When I delete an e-mail letter that I have been in the middle of writing, where does it go? is there any way to undelete it? Thanks, Slrubenstein  |  Talk 14:00, 15 August 2009 (UTC)


 * I suspect it is on a "file" paradigm where it is not something to be deleted until it is saved. Previous to being saved in some form (as a draft, for example), it just exists in memory and is not committed to a file. So clicking the X then is akin to "canceling," which doesn't delete, because it was never saved in the first place. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 15:37, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
 * And therefore, iretreivable? Slrubenstein  |  Talk 17:06, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Presumably -- if it was just saved in memory, it would be dumped at the first opportunity. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 20:09, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Some email programs - including Outlook - can be configured to auto-save draft emails. Here is a Microsoft help page for Outlook 2007; you can do a similar search for your particular needs.  Nimur (talk) 21:25, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Okay, thanks! Slrubenstein  |  Talk 08:18, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Photoshop CS3 -> MS problem
Not a problem as such, more a feature that I don't have memory for. Most of the time, I make small images in PS, before using them in documents, etc. etc. The problem comes when copying out of PS. In MS Word, for example, it produces a special object, which unfortunately my laptop can't feasibly support. The workaround I've been using for years is to paste into MS Paint and then copy it into the document, which "rasterises" (for want of a better word) it into a usual image. However, recently I've been working to create lots of images, and it's starting to annoy me slightly. Is there a way to turn off? - Jarry1250 [ In the UK? Sign the petition! ] 14:27, 15 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Is there a reason you can't just save it as a file (e.g. PNG) and import it into Word? Word is usually find with importing a variety of file formats, and you will have a lot more control that way than putting it on the clipboard and hoping Word knows what to do with the clipboard object. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 14:32, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I wanted to cut out the time. I've tried it, works very similarly - a little better on image sizing, but requires batching for efficiency. Word usually works out everything fine. - Jarry1250 [ In the UK? Sign the petition! ] 14:36, 15 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Well, Word is pretty notoriously bad at image handling (after all, who uses images in documents?)... I'm not sure there is a better answer here. I assume you've tried to "Paste special" which gives you a few more pasting options? --98.217.14.211 (talk) 15:31, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I hadn't, although it is rather obvious. Changing the setting works, although does involve some more time. Is there a way to get Word to not use Adobe Photoshop Image Object by default? Removing or turning off the ability to handle it, forcing a downgrade? - Jarry1250 [ In the UK? Sign the petition! ] 15:40, 15 August 2009 (UTC)


 * I don't think so, unfortunately. Word's pasting abilities leave much to be desired (says someone who often has to a lot of "paste as unformatted text" because Word can't ever seem to bother keeping formatting consistent). This is, incidentally, high on my personal list of "things a Word processor would do if it was actually set up to be useful." --98.217.14.211 (talk) 16:52, 15 August 2009 (UTC)


 * I think you are pasting as a "Photoshop Object", when you actually want to paste as a picture. Try using "Paste Special" from the word and using one of the picture formats, like "bitmap" or "picture (metafile).  This will probably also make your document smaller.  --Phil Holmes (talk) 09:43, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Big TVs and a strange recurring zoom
Forgive me if I sound like a dunce several times within this question, but things like HDTVs confuse me. I'm really only a step ahead of the helplessly confused consumers at retail stores who ask, "1080p? Is that the same as HDTV?"

Keeping that in mind, I've seen a recurring problem with the two widescreen televisions in our house, and often with widescreens I see set up elsewhere. The picture is zoomed in for some reason, and I can't seem to zoom it out. Now, I've read about how widescreen sets with a regular SDTV connection has the black bars on the side, and people zoom in to get rid of them, yadda-e-yadda. However, it's not the case here. Let's take the big TV downstairs for example, displaying the The Weather Channel.


 * The logo in the bottom right corner is cut off, displaying only "The Weather." This is typical with many other channels because of this problem.
 * I can't see the news ticker-type bar at the bottom, you know, which reports on conditions in your area. The most I can see is the top of the word "now" at the bottom right corner, and the top of the digits for time and temperature in the lower right corner.
 * Vital information is hardly ever displayed at the top, left, or right, so I can't really ascertain the effects on those sides.

Now, let's see what messing with the image settings does.


 * Set by Program - Not sure, but it looks just like 16:9, which is what I keep it on.
 * 4:3 - We get the black bars on the left and right sides, as expected. However, there's still the same amount of material cut off at the bottom and (presumably) top. I'd say things look too skinny and tall here, but sometimes they don't. My visual judgment is terrible, I guess. Have years of online video compression given me a huge tolerance for not-quite-right picture?
 * 16:9 - The setting I keep it on, and the basis of my description above.
 * Zoom1 and Zoom2 - Yeah, right. That will solve the problem. :-P Things are, of course, more zoomed in. In case you hadn't figured.
 * Just Scan - I don't know what this really does, but the problem is actually a little alleviated here; almost all of The Weather Channel logo is visible, the only thing cut off being the actual temperatures and data in the ticker (that is, 3 Day, Air Quality, UV Index, etc. is visible at the bottom, but not the data to go along).

As far as I know, everything is properly connected: the TV is connected with an HDMI cable to a silver cable box provided by Time Warner Cable; we got it for free, upgrading from our SDTV cable box. The box is connected to the wall by a coaxial cable. My mom's TV upstairs, which suffers the same problems, is only connected by a coaxial cable.

One last thing: this problem is only limited to the cable. That is to say, the Wii and DVD player (both connected by humble RCA connectors, by the way) in no way suffer from this zoom-in problem.

So with this mammoth block of information, can someone help this poor HDTV noob?-- The Ninth Bright Shiner 16:05, 15 August 2009 (UTC)


 * It sounds like your cable box is doing the zooming in too and there is no way your TV can recover what it doesn't see. Can you change the settings on your cable box? Try tinkering the screen-fitting mechanisms there or turn it off altogether and let your TV do the zooming instead. --antilivedT 23:14, 15 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Oh, I knew that there was a simple solution that could be expressed in a mere three sentences or less! Thank you greatly!-- The Ninth Bright Shiner

Fax number
Dear Wikipedians:

If someone lives in Hong Kong and has the following fax number:

12345678

and I'm trying to reach her from another country (say the States), what would be the full number that I would use? I know it starts with 011, but am not sure what follows.

Thanks,

70.31.159.125 (talk) 16:14, 15 August 2009 (UTC)


 * First thing I'd do is go to some Hong Kong sites, click for "contact us"--they usually have an address, phone, and fax number. If the numbers are 8 digits, then I'd try the 011-(8 digit number)74.15.87.114 (talk) 16:31, 15 August 2009 (UTC)


 * (International calling code, often written as "+") - (852) - (the number). Our article Telephone numbers in Hong Kong says that numbers are eight digits, and that landlines start with 2 or 3 - hence I'd expect a fax number to start with 2 or 3 as well. From the US you dial 01185212345678. Sometimes you have to dial another number to get an outside line first. Jørgen (talk) 18:40, 15 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks Jørgen, that's exactly what I was looking for. Sorry the telephone number is not a real one, I did it to protect the confidentiality of the original number. The original number does start with a 2. But at least I got the 8 digits right ;-) 70.31.154.245 (talk) 14:42, 16 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Good to hear - I did get the point about 12345678 being an example, just thought you could verify that it was a fax number if it started with 2 or 3 (which it did). Good luck faxing :-) Jørgen (talk) 17:20, 16 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks again Jørgen, I think the main problem for me will be trying to fax over a pre-paid calling card, which could get tricky. If it was straight-dial using my regular phone company's lines then I have nothing to worry about. Fingers crossed... ;) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.29.25.184 (talk) 20:33, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

I’ve never created a website—how much does it cost (time effort)?
Should I even bother if there are better alternatives? Okay, I’ve had accounts on other sites, and I know a little hmtl, and thus maybe, xml. (1) I want about 100 pages—mostly text, and maybe the ability to create more. (2) Could I cheaply store lots of pics, audio, and video—like 1 000 files each? (3) I’ll likely do most of the art and design—i.e. what it would look like. (4) Can I alter the site it at a distance—via other computers? (5) Can I be anonymous—or have it in another’s name—consenting, though maybe a bit of a patsy? No I’m not going to use it to say, traffic drugs, send messages to the sleepers, post hardcore sick kinky internet porn, or violate copyright laws—at least not so obviously (“Click here for your favorite Beatles, Rolling Stones, Metallica, Gene Simmons, Dr. Dre, and Disney tunes!”)—I mostly likes my privacy—and maybe post counter-revolutionary essays. (6) how about forums like this “phpbb” forum? (7) how about wikis—Media Wiki wikis? No, I’m not going to use it to yammer on about “liberal bias” or anonymous edits = edits with no credibility—I still love ya’s Wikipedia and will continue to contribute—perhaps even monetarily, if I can find a way to do so anonymously. :-)

Thank you all for comments and help, and reading my question. :-) .74.15.87.114 (talk) 16:31, 15 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Cost: if you want to have control over your site, host lots of pictures, have total control over the content, you'll probably want to purchase some dedicated hosting. That's not very expensive—$9 a month or so (Google dreamhost or bluehost, for example). You also need to register a domain name--that's around $10 a year. So total straight-up cost you're talking about $120 a year. Which is pretty cheap, as far as things go. This is assuming that you don't become WILDLY popular, in which case bandwidth becomes an issue and prices can go up.
 * That's just straight money. The rest is time and opportunity costs. Here things go up a LOT if you don't have a lot of experience with this sort of thing. Think about how long you think it would take to put up your 100 pages, now multiple that by, say, ten. That's probably how long it will take. It takes a long time, unless you are just throwing things up like one of those Geocities nutjobs, with no care to whether it makes sense, looks sane, etc. I sometimes get paid to make very small sites for people -- maybe 7 or 8 pages total. Getting the design right takes me maybe a week or two; once I have a fixed design, it just takes a few hours or so to drop in all the text and make sure it is working right. But I have been using HTML, CSS, and Javascript pretty continuously for the last, I don't know, six years. All of these things have a learning curve, especially if you are designing new things from scratch. It is an entirely different exercise than just editing something else that has already been constructed, and a lot harder, usually.
 * You can be anonymous to a degree. That is, you don't have to put your name on the site anywhere, and you have your domain name registered "privately" so that all anyone sees is the name of your domain registrar. Your host will, however, reveal your name to authorities if forced to, so it isn't truly anonymous. But it's good enough if you are not doing anything illegal and just want to be discreet.
 * Forums, MediaWiki, etc. -- these things range from "easy to set up in an hour or so" to "you are going to spend a week trying to get this working right." MediaWiki is on the "hard" end of the scale unless you are already familiar with setting up MySQL databases, PHP, and server configurations. How long anything will take, how easy it will be, this all depends on your own knowledge and familiarity with the software, and whether your host provides the necessary tools (like a MySQL database, which is needed for MediaWiki). --98.217.14.211 (talk) 17:08, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Untraceable cell phones, external drives, and that “wii” laptop
Okay, lets say I was in Iran or Red China. I’m on a cell phone and/or laptopping on the internet and/or using an external drive on a desk top, miles from my home. The content of my conversation and/or internet posts are so un-Islamic and/or counter-revolutionary, it’d make Khomeini and Mao—maybe even Deng—spin in their graves. or maybe the CIA and NSA are after me, or maybe I’m a paranoia who has lined the walls of my house with aluminum foil as a means to deflect the mind control rays,  or maybe I’m the type that Interpol would be interested in, and perhaps should be monitored,  or maybe, just maybe, I’m a not-too-abnormal person, living in a not-too-abnormal country, with a not-too-abnormal government, but if there were simple ways to insure a degree of privacy and anonymity in an age where we are losing a fair amount of it, I think I should avail of it.

Should I take the batteries out? What if there was an internal one, and/or one of these “transducers”? Should I perhaps wrap it in aluminum foil—I did so with my AM-FM radio, and I still got reception. What about this “faraday” cage? Would I have to make a box of lead, lead glass, or brick, and lug around a +50 weight?

Will it not matter as when put the external drive, or even CD-ROM or floppy disk, into my computer at home—the one not on the internet—some program will tell my computer to send out rays of its own—gosh am I paranoid or what? :-D

Again, comments are appreciated. :-) 74.15.87.114 (talk) 16:54, 15 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Your computer already sends out detectable rays of its own... see Van Eck phreaking. But, um, yeah. It's hard to be really, really private. If you were seriously serious about total paranoid security, you need a lot of physical apparatus, a lot of understanding of security principles, some familiarity with cryptological software, and so forth. There are books and books written on this kind of thing. You can't just wrap an antennae in tin-foil and expect that to do anything useful. Security is not about one little technical trick (which change at a ferocious rate anyway); it is an entire state of mind, a philosophy of interacting with the world. Instead of reading a bunch of security books, read the rather entertaining Cryptonomicon, which plays with these questions in a very fun way. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 17:16, 15 August 2009 (UTC)


 * You can get more or less good security and privacy by installing stable Debian, encrypting your whole hard-drive, using Tor for all your Internet and maybe something like privoxy to ensure your browser doesn't leak anything unnecessary. TrueCrypt might also be interesting. As per above there are obviously many other things to consider and you can never know too much. -194.197.235.43 (talk) 17:41, 15 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Such good answers in under an hour! Keep 'em coming. Gotta go soon, though. (((((Wikipedia))))74.15.87.114 (talk) 17:56, 15 August 2009 (UTC)


 * See Faraday Cage as per your idea of lugging it around. Luckily for you they aren't huge cages made of lead. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.133.202.209 (talk) 20:50, 15 August 2009 (UTC)


 * See also TEMPEST. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 23:41, 15 August 2009 (UTC)


 * None of this will protect you from an agent (or private eye) with a camera. (In fact, a heavily modified notebook will make you easier to pick out in a crowd of notebook users.) No need to use a TEMPEST attack when a telephoto lens would work as well. APL (talk) 18:36, 17 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Here's a nice little essay on the security mindset, if you haven't got it naturally you'll have to work hard at it. It is people like these who you have to contend with if you have some reason behind your paranoia. Dmcq (talk) 13:12, 16 August 2009 (UTC)
 * That's a fun essay. I think I'll give his book a spin.... --98.217.14.211 (talk) 20:45, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

disconnecting servers during Power Mac G5 bootup
I acquired a Power Mac G5 when a company went out of business. When it boots, it looks for two servers which are not now available. How can I turn off the search for the servers? Also, when I attempt Software Update, it tells me it can't find the update server and that I should connect to the Internet. I am connected to the Internet through an Ethernet port. What can I do? Thanks for your help. --Halcatalyst (talk) 20:26, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
 * What are the 2 servers it is attempting to access, and how do you know it is accessing them (for example, does some message pop up on the screen)? Also, what version of Mac OS is running on it?  What happens if you boot with the "shift" key held down? 69.251.180.224 (talk) 02:42, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Apparently there is only one server, called BDXserve. This was undoubtedly a server at the company where the computer came from. The OS is Mac OS X 10.4.9. When I hold down the shift key while booting, a safe boot menu comes up. It requires a password to continue; I may be able to get the password from the last user (my wife worked at the company, which went out of business, and she may know the person). The first message is "Connection failed: The server may not exist or is not operational at this time. Check the server name or IP address and try again. [OK]" I click OK, and soon after, another message appears: "AFP connection status: looking up "BDXserve. [Cancel]" If I don't cancel, after a while the "Connection failed" messages comes up again. The system reties one more time, and that's it. --Halcatalyst (talk) 21:00, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
 * These are dialog boxes that come up while the computer is booting? Does it at least get to the "Welcome to Mac OS X" screen (the one with the progress bar at the bottom) before it displays the error messages?  Also, what happens if you hold down the shift key only after the "welcome to Mac OS X" screen appears – does it behave any differently? 69.251.180.224 (talk) 06:55, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't see a "Welcome to Mac OS" screen, just the Apple symbol and a spinning wheel, then the main screen. That is when the "Connection failed" message comes up.--Halcatalyst (talk) 14:35, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I meant "Starting Mac OS X..." which should be immediately after the Apple symbol with the spinning wheel. Anyway what you could do is, after you boot the machine, go to System Preferences, then Accounts, then Login Items and see which programs start up when you login.  If there is anything in this list, then to remove it you will probably need the password from the last user.  And likewise booting with the Shift key held down should bypass whatever program is accessing the server in question, if you know the login password.  This password is also necessary for authentication whenever you install new software or critical security updates, so please talk to the last owner of the computer. 69.251.180.224 (talk) 03:28, 21 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I was able to cancel all the login applications and now the connection failures do not appear. Thank you! --Halcatalyst (talk) 17:09, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Text from PDF to Word
Using Adobe Acrobat Professional, I've converted a significant number of Word files from .doc to .pdf, always deleting the .doc file after the conversion is completed. I just discovered that I'd like to add a Word-style comment to one of these converted documents. On a Windows-based computer, is there any way to open the text in Word? I've tried rightclicking-"Open With"-Microsoft Word, but that yields nothing but gibberish. I can copy/paste the words, but this just yields the words themselves; as I have this file as part of a personal archive, I don't want it to deviate from the original, and I don't want to redo every little formatting detail if I don't have to. Nyttend (talk) 20:38, 15 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Short answer: not really.
 * Long answer: if you Google around you can find lots of bits of software that purpose to convert PDFs to Word files. Most of them work by just stripping out the text (as you did when you copied and pasted it). If formatting is important, then there is almost surely not anything that lets you do that. PDF is primarily a "write once" format.
 * Hopeful answer: Acrobat has rather extensive commenting features of its own, which I presume you know about. Perhaps one of these could substitute? There are also features that let you add text to PDFs. You might look into the Advanced Commenting menu and see if there is a substitute. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 21:15, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I just realised something that I'd not explained — I'd like to open this file in a format that Word can produce, either .doc or something else. I'm not talking about trying to edit the PDF.  Nyttend (talk) 22:49, 15 August 2009 (UTC)


 * You have just realized one of the intents of PDF: to be able to distribute documents that can't readily be changed. See Gizmo's Freeware for some tools that might help. ---—  Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 23:11, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Hmm, I never realised that that was part of the goal of a PDF: I knew that it wasn't supposed to be easily changeable, but I didn't know that it was supposed to be difficult to copy. If I'd known that, I wouldn't have asked; thanks for explaining!  Nyttend (talk) 00:13, 16 August 2009 (UTC)


 * If you Google "convert pdf to word" you will find lots of programs whose main purpose is doing what you ask. I don't think they will exactly recreate your text (for example, any styles that you had will be lost and they may not handle headers/footers to well) but I have used a fore-runner of these with considerable success.  And at least you've learnt that disk space is so cheap it's not worth deleting things :-) --Phil Holmes (talk) 09:37, 16 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Actually, it's not that big of a deal: I keep documents that might be extremely important; these are papers from when I was in college. I've always kept all my college papers, and I've added with Word's "Comment" feature the professors' comments on the hard copies; the thing is that I forgot to note the comments from a couple of papers.  As the IP suggested, I simply used the Acrobat commenting feature.  Nyttend (talk) 21:35, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

I have a related question. I want to convert a .PDF, which contains data in a tabular format, to an Excel file. When I use the OCR text recognition of Adobe Acrobat, it does not recognize the white space as delimiting the fields (columns) in the records (rows). Ideally I want to be able to do it using Acrobat itself without having to download new software. 69.251.180.224 (talk) 03:32, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Blender texture problem
I am using Blender 3d and I have a problem with Blender Game Engine. When I start the game the textures are not visible. Nodes doesn´t work either. Does anyone know how to fix it? --81.227.70.94 (talk) 21:00, 15 August 2009 (UTC)