3) One image/page

This is the first method I recall using to look at .pdf files from the command prompt. Basicly, it simply uses Ghostscipt to convert a page into a graphic, and then view it with zgv, an SVGAlib based image viewing tool. When I rethought this through a few days ago, and set it up as the current script below, I modified it to handle more than one page, and in the process, studied capabilities of zgv I was only vaguely aware of.

Basicly, zgv has two modes of operation
• Browser Mode, capable of navigating and operating within the file system
• Viewer Mode
  The viewer mode has two self explanitory subdivisions
  • Single image mode
  • Slide show mode

Some of the key underdocumented commands. These are just the ones I think most important not in the help mode.
• ? - context sensitive (but incomplete) help mode
• u - create thumbnails for use in browse mode
• n/t - un/tag image files
• N/T - un/tag all image files
• ^I (TAB) - Kick into slide show of all tagged files
• Return - Go from browse mode to viewing mode for an individual image
• Escape - Go from viewer mode back to browse mode
• Alt-f - show number of image files and tagged image files in the current directory
• : - show details about image file cursor is on

zgv may not be the GIMP or Photoshop, but it has much more capability than to simply throw an image on a console screen. I call the script below pdfgsview.

---

#!/bin/bash  -


# ############## security pack ##############################

PATH='/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/X11R6/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/games:~/bin'  ;


hash -r  ;
#  -  Bash Cookbook, 1st ed.,, #14.5

ulimit  -H -c 0 --  ;
#  -  Bash Cookbook, 1st ed.,, #14.6

IFS=$' \t\n'  ;
#  -  Bash Cookbook, 1st ed.,, #14.7

UMASK='002'  ;
umask  $UMASK  ;
#  -  Bash Cookbook, 1st ed.,, #14.8

\unalias -a
#  -  Bash Cookbook, 1st ed.,, #14.4

# ############## security pack ##############################

set -e  ;
shopt -s  nocasematch    expand_aliases  ;

alias RM='/bin/rm -f  2> /dev/null '  ;
alias MKDIR='/bin/mkdir  2> /dev/null '  ;
alias LS='/bin/ls -A  2> /dev/null '  ;
alias WC='/usr/bin/wc -l  2> /dev/null '  ;
alias GS='/usr/bin/gs'  ;
alias EZGV='exec   /usr/bin/zgv'  ;

USAGE="$0  -h | file.pdf | file.ps"  ;

VERSION='$Id: pdfgsview,v 1.3 2008/07/08 11:22:38 dallas Exp dallas $'  ;

THEPDFFILE=${1}  ;

case  ${THEPDFFILE}  in
[-/][h?]* )
  echo ${USAGE}  ;
  exit  ;
  ;;
[-/]v* )
  echo ${VERSION}  ;
  exit  ;
  ;;
*.ps )
  THETAG=${THEPDFFILE%.ps}  ;
  ;;
*.pdf )
  THETAG=${THEPDFFILE%.pdf}  ;
  ;;
* )
  exit  ;
esac


if [ ! -f ${THEPDFFILE} ]  ; then
   echo 'File needed'  ;
   echo ${USAGE}  ;
   exit  ;
fi

if [[  ${THETAG} == */* ]] ; then
  THETAG=${THETAG##*/}  ;
  fi  ;

THEDIR1='/tmp/pdfgsimages'  ;
THEDIR2="${THEDIR1}/${THETAG}"  ;
THEFILES="${THEDIR2}/${THETAG}.%03d.png"  ;

for ii in ${!THEDIR*}
do
if [ ! -d ${!ii}  ] ; then
  RM      ${!ii}  ;
  MKDIR   ${!ii}  ;
fi  ;
done  ;

RM  ${THEDIR2}/*  ;

#  THETEMP="/tmp/${THETEMP##*/}"  ;
RM     ${THEDIR2}/*.png  ;

GS -SDEVICE=png16m -sOutputFile=${THEFILES} -  ${THEPDFFILE}    <<QUIT
QUIT

count=$( LS ${THEDIR2} | WC )  ;

case ${count}  in

1 )
  EZGV    ${THEDIR2}/*.png  ;
  ;;

* )
  EZGV     ${THEDIR2}/  ;
  ;;

esac  ;

exit  ;

---

The 'security pack' mentioned above are some suggested actions to improve script security mentioned in the O'Reilly 'bash Cookbook'. There are others in the book, but these I judged 'no-brainers', in that they can simply be included and don't seem to even require understanding or any modification to use.