included in the xpdf tools collection is pdftotext.exe which as the name suggests can convert pdf files to a plain text format.

https://dl.xpdfreader.com/xpdf-tools-win-4.06.zip

in mystic add an archiver:

Extension: PDF
OS: Windows (thought this should apply to linux with little effort) Description: PDF View Only
Pack Cmd: ~~~ BLANK! ~~~
Unpack Cmd: ~~~ BLANK! ~~~
View Cmd: c:\yourfolder\bin32\pdftotext.exe -simple "%1" "%3%2"

afterwards go in and try and view a PDF file. obviously simpler stuff will work better. you can try some of the layout parameters from pdftotext.exe:

-simple
-simple2
-layout
-table

the linux package you would find this in is titled 'poppler' !

i don't know how to teach it any better than that..

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/25 (Windows/32)
* Origin: cold fusion - cfbbs.net - grand rapids, mi (21:1/616)

included in the xpdf tools collection is pdftotext.exe which as the name suggests can convert pdf files to a plain text format.

https://dl.xpdfreader.com/xpdf-tools-win-4.06.zip

in mystic add an archiver:

Extension: PDF OS: Windows (thought this should apply to linux with
little effort) Description: PDF View Only Pack Cmd: ~~~ BLANK!
~~~ Unpack Cmd: ~~~ BLANK! ~~~ View Cmd:
c:\yourfolder\bin32\pdftotext.exe -simple "%1" "%3%2"

I want to add this for elebbs. What are the varuous variables short for?

afterwards go in and try and view a PDF file. obviously simpler stuff will work better. you can try some of the layout parameters from pdftotext.exe:

-simple -simple2 -layout -table

the linux package you would find this in is titled 'poppler' !

i don't know how to teach it any better than that..

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/25 (Windows/32) * Origin: cold
fusion - cfbbs.net - grand rapids, mi (21:1/616)

--
Shurato, Sysop Shurato's Heavenly Sphere (ssh, telnet, pop3, ftp,nntp,
,wss) (Ports 22,23,110,21,119,999)


*** THE READER V4.50 [freeware]
---
* Origin: Shurato's Heavenly Sphere telnet://shsbbs.net (21:2/148)

On 04 Mar 2026, Shurato said the following...

I want to add this for elebbs. What are the varuous variables short for?

c:\yourfolder\bin32\pdftotext.exe -simple "%1" "%3%2"

%1 is the filename from the bbs
%3 is the output directory and..
%2 is the temporary filename mystic expects to read in and display to the user

the way the mystic archive viewer (old edition) works is it just provides a filename for you to redirect the output of a program to, which would be whichever program you use to list the files on the command line, and then after the program exits (and assuming the file was written) it just displays it.

if you really wanted to be tricky (and can safely expect sixel support) i bet you could figure out how to use pdftopng (in that same archive) + img2sixel to display the first few pages of the PDF instead :) but i'm not gonna figure that one out hehe

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/25 (Windows/32)
* Origin: cold fusion - cfbbs.net - grand rapids, mi (21:1/616)

On 04 Mar 2026, Shurato said the following...

I want to add this for elebbs. What are the varuous variables short

for?

c:\yourfolder\bin32\pdftotext.exe -simple "%1" "%3%2"

pdftotext.exe -simple @ c:\ele\node*N\ I don't know... I don't know how this would work with RA or Ele.

Does anyone know?

%1 is the filename from the bbs %3 is the output directory and.. %2
is the temporary filename mystic expects to read in and display to the user

the way the mystic archive viewer (old edition) works is it just provides a filename for you to redirect the output of a program to, which would be whichever program you use to list the files on the command line, and then after the program exits (and assuming the file was written) it just displays it.

if you really wanted to be tricky (and can safely expect sixel support) i bet you could figure out how to use pdftopng (in that same archive) + img2sixel to display the first few pages of the PDF instead :) but i'm not gonna figure that one out hehe

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/25 (Windows/32) * Origin: cold
fusion - cfbbs.net - grand rapids, mi (21:1/616)

--
Shurato, Sysop Shurato's Heavenly Sphere (ssh, telnet, pop3, ftp,nntp,
,wss) (Ports 22,23,110,21,119,999)


*** THE READER V4.50 [freeware]
---
* Origin: Shurato's Heavenly Sphere telnet://shsbbs.net (21:2/148)

On 04 Mar 2026, Shurato said the following...

On 04 Mar 2026, Shurato said the following...

I want to add this for elebbs. What are the varuous variables sh

for?

c:\yourfolder\bin32\pdftotext.exe -simple "%1" "%3%2"

pdftotext.exe -simple @ c:\ele\node*N\ I don't know... I don't know how this would work with RA or Ele.

Does anyone know?

do you have an example of how the other ones work? like the zip file viewer or something else?

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/25 (Windows/32)
* Origin: cold fusion - cfbbs.net - grand rapids, mi (21:1/616)

Re: rudimentary pdf viewing
By: fusion to All on Wed Mar 04 2026 03:24 am

included in the xpdf tools collection is pdftotext.exe which as the name suggests can convert pdf files to a plain text format.

I've used this. We have some work projects that make use of Poppler's pdftotext.exe tool.

afterwards go in and try and view a PDF file. obviously simpler stuff will work better. <snip>

Yes, this is very true. Most of the time, the text output doesn't resemble the PDF source at all, even if the PDF source is entirely text. PDF files made up entirely of embedded images won't work at all, as you'd likely guess.

It's really best suited for light data-scraping, and not much else.

|08──────────────────────────────┐
|15 ▄|07 ▄ |08▄ |11codefenix |08│
|15 █|07███|08█ |09ConstructiveChaos BBS |08│
|15 ▐|07▄█▄|08▌ |01conchaos.synchro.net |08│ |08──────────────────────────────┘
|07
--- SBBSecho 3.37-Win32
* Origin: -=[conchaos.synchro.net | ConstructiveChaos BBS]=- (21:4/141)

Re: Re: rudimentary pdf viewing
By: Shurato to fusion on Wed Mar 04 2026 09:06 pm

pdftotext.exe -simple @ c:\ele\node*N\ I don't know... I don't know how this would work with RA or Ele.

Does anyone know?

Not sure what your goals are, but if you're hoping to make PDF documents presentable on your BBS in a nice, viewable fashion, then I'm sorry to say, I think you're going to be disappointed.

Text extracted from PDFs using pdftotext.exe loses much of the presentation that the source PDF has. I use it at work for scraping data from PDF documents (i.e.: make a temporary text file from the tool and then parse the results), and we only do that in a very limited capacity.

It's not really meant for making permanent text renditions of PDF files for human consumption.

|08──────────────────────────────┐
|15 ▄|07 ▄ |08▄ |11codefenix |08│
|15 █|07███|08█ |09ConstructiveChaos BBS |08│
|15 ▐|07▄█▄|08▌ |01conchaos.synchro.net |08│ |08──────────────────────────────┘
|07
--- SBBSecho 3.37-Win32
* Origin: -=[conchaos.synchro.net | ConstructiveChaos BBS]=- (21:4/141)

r
* In a message originally to Shurato, fusion said:

On 04 Mar 2026, Shurato said the following...

On 04 Mar 2026, Shurato said the following...

I want to add this for elebbs. What are the varuous

variables sh

for?

c:\yourfolder\bin32\pdftotext.exe -simple "%1" "%3%2"

pdftotext.exe -simple @ c:\ele\node*N\ I don't know... I don't know

how

this would work with RA or Ele.

Does anyone know?

do you have an example of how the other ones work? like the zip file
viewer or something else?

They just have an @ for the filename, and use dos executables with fossil support.

--
Shurato, Sysop Shurato's Heavenly Sphere (ssh, telnet, pop3, ftp,nntp,
,wss) (Ports 22,23,110,21,119,999)


---
* Origin: Shurato's Heavenly Sphere telnet://shsbbs.net (21:2/148)