PDF files only partially load in 1.6

LightBurn Software Questions
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1

I want to import / load a PDF file into LightBurn. When I import or load the file only part is present. I am downloading copies of Silent Night sheet music in PDF format. What LightBurn shows is only the horizonal staff lines appear. I have tried various files from different online sources and got the same result. I can take a look at the same files with Acrobat reader or Chrome, and everything shows up correctly. I have tried on different computers all running windows 10 and LightBurn 1.6.0 and 1.6.1.

Does anyone have any ideas?

2

If the rest of the content is text, it won’t import into LightBurn because we don’t support text from PDF files yet.

I’d need to see the file content to be able to say if that was the issue or not, but I suspect that’s it.

3

What is missing is things like the music notes, Staff markings (treble, base clefs), rests, etc. None of these are text. It may be that particular character sets use codes to represent these musical notations that in a different set could be construed as letters / text.

I tried uploading a PDF file for your review, but I am not allowed to upload a PDF image. here is the link i used to download the pdf: Silent Night

out of curiosity why not allow a PDFs text to be uploaded?

4

You can select the notes when viewing as a PDF, so yes, they’re a special “font” embedded in that document:
image

It’s not that we don’t allow it, it’s that PDF files are extremely complex (the specification for them is over 850 pages long, and that isn’t complete). PDF files use embedded fonts, so we would have to support loading and parsing the embedded fonts first, then handle all of the options for text placement and embellishment that PDF supports. It’s on our wishlist, but it’s not at all trivial to do.

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5

Try this one:

silent_night_eng - MRW converted.pdf.txt (625.7 KB)

You’ll need to remove the “.txt” from the end of the file name before you use it.

Hope this helps.

6

Was my converted file of use @JesseInSTL ?

7

Yes, it looks perfect. how did you do it?

8

Great, I’m pleased it worked for you. I opened it in Adobe Acrobat 9.0, exported to Encapsulated Postscript (EPS), imported the EPS into Affinity Publisher then exported from there as PDF. There might well be a quicker and less complex way of doing it but at least it proves that it is possible. If you expect to be doing more of these it would be worth investigating some other apps or online services that allow you to do all that in one go. When I get a moment I’ll see if I can come up with a simpler workflow using free apps and/or services.

9

I’ve found an alternative method using free tools but it’s still a multi-step process.

  1. Convert your PDF to SVG using this service: PDF to SVG - Convert your PDF to SVG for Free Online
  2. Open SVG in InkScape and save as PDF.
  3. Import new PDF into LightBurn.

You’ll need to do some welding of shapes as there are areas that overlap, such as the lettering here:

image
image1208Ă—450 37 KB

Hope this helps.

10

And another one here: https://pdftosvg.com/

The text looks better than the previous one and the SVG created will import directly into LB whereas the previous one came in all messed up, hence the extra step of having to go through InkScape.

11

Thank you, Marcus! I am sorry for the delay in responding, other things pulled me away from the Christmas projects.

If you are interested I am creating a series of round signs (4-inch ornaments, 8-inch, 11-inch signs) for different scores of christmas music. The top layer will be a picture. If you follow Steve (YouTube: HoboWithWood) it is close to his Amazing Grace sign he just released.

Again, thank you.

12

No problem, life gets in the way sometimes!

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