If anyone from Altera reads this forum, can they
please email/call their 
manual writing & publishing department and complain from me that their 
stupid PDF manuals have occasional pages turned at 90 degrees, e.g. the 
Stratix4 Handbook, page 1-11. This is very annoying, as it means my 
reader displays all the other pages narrower than they would be. I'm 
getting on a bit now, my eyesight isn't what it was, and I'm too 
cantankerous to piss about with the magnifying glass tool. I'm perfectly 
capable of using the special rotate button that the reader provides for 
the odd occasion when the page needs to be turned, in the same way I 
used to be able to turn a book in the good old days. Those dumbasses 
(probably) wouldn't print a book with occasional pages sticking out, why 
do they feel the need to do it with their PDF manuals.

The stupid thing is, doing what they have done, doesn't make the table 
any easier to read on a computer screen than if they'd made the table 
smaller and printed it across the page. It just makes all the other 
pages harder to read. The only time it helps is if some bozo decides 
he's gonna print out 27MB of file, in which case they're probably a 
student and have good eyesight anyway.

This is the only reason stopping me from designing in Altera parts. 
Xilinx have nice PDF files.

Love, Syms.

p.s. There's no charge for this free advice.

On Feb 25, 6:04=A0am, Symon
<symon_bre...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> If anyone from Altera reads this forum, can they please email/call their
> manual writing & publishing department and complain from me that their
> stupid PDF manuals have occasional pages turned at 90 degrees, e.g. the
> Stratix4 Handbook, page 1-11. This is very annoying, as it means my
> reader displays all the other pages narrower than they would be. I'm
> getting on a bit now, my eyesight isn't what it was, and I'm too
> cantankerous to piss about with the magnifying glass tool. I'm perfectly
> capable of using the special rotate button that the reader provides for
> the odd occasion when the page needs to be turned, in the same way I
> used to be able to turn a book in the good old days. Those dumbasses
> (probably) wouldn't print a book with occasional pages sticking out, why
> do they feel the need to do it with their PDF manuals.
>
> The stupid thing is, doing what they have done, doesn't make the table
> any easier to read on a computer screen than if they'd made the table
> smaller and printed it across the page. It just makes all the other
> pages harder to read. The only time it helps is if some bozo decides
> he's gonna print out 27MB of file, in which case they're probably a
> student and have good eyesight anyway.
>
> This is the only reason stopping me from designing in Altera parts.
> Xilinx have nice PDF files.
>
> Love, Syms.
>
> p.s. There's no charge for this free advice.

Maybe you should instead complain to Adobe about their *stupid* PDF
reading software.  The only reason that the rotated pages are making
the others hard to view is because you are using "fit to page width"
for a magnification.  In lieu of getting either of these multi-
national corporations to change the way they do business, perhaps you
could do a very little leg work yourself.  One is to just view them
with a set magnification which will show all pages at the same zoom
level.  It's not really so hard to do.  You just type in a zoom level
that lets you view the first page to fit the width of the window.

The other method can only be done if Altera has not write or read
protected their data sheets.  You can use a PDF editing tool to
actually rotate the page in the document and then save it so it will
be forever fixed.  If you find that Altera's data sheets are write
protected, then you are screwed.  I have seen some data sheets that
are *read* protected, or more accurately, copy protected.  Yes, they
prevent you from using select, copy and paste to pull any information
out of the document.  I find that insane and it drives me pretty much
up a wall.  If I want to quote something from a data sheet, such as a
part number for ordering, I want to *COPY* it so as to eliminate the
possibility of a transcription error.  With part number containing
some 12 or more digits and letters, it is oh so easy to mess it up.
Even more interesting is when I find a document that is protected in
some way, but they forgot to password protect it, so I can turn off
the protection...  But I think you can use some third party tools to
get around the password protection.  After all, if you can read the
document so that it can be viewed, you can always copy and/or edit
it.  The "protection" is just a switch in the program you are reading
it with.

BTW, you can blame all of this on the community standardizing on a
proprietary document format instead of open source.  There seem to be
open source tools for PDF files now, but it has taken a long time and
most people don't know about them.

Rick

<big snip!>
>
>BTW, you can blame all of this on the community standardizing on a
>proprietary document format instead of open source.  There seem to be
>open source tools for PDF files now, but it has taken a long time and
>most people don't know about them.
>
>Rick
>

PDF is now a 'proper' standard: ISO 32000-1:2008.
	   
					
---------------------------------------		
Posted through http://www.FPGARelated.com

On 2/25/2010 12:56 PM, rickman wrote:
>
> Maybe you should instead complain to Adobe about their *stupid* PDF
> reading software.


As I use Foxit, that wouldn't help very much, would it?

On 2/25/2010 12:56 PM, rickman wrote:
>
> The other method can only be done if Altera has not write or read
> protected their data sheets.  You can use a PDF editing tool to
> actually rotate the page in the document and then save it so it will
> be forever fixed.

Actually, that provoked me. You need Acrobat professional. Which isn't free.


File-> Create PDF -> from file

Document -> Rotate Pages ->
     Counterclockwise 90 degrees
     Landscape pages

Lovely. Maybe I will use their parts after all. It's still dumb the way 
they publish the PDFs.

Syms.

"Symon" <s...@hotmail.com> wrote in message 
news:hm62ai$hlr$1...@news.eternal-september.org...
> On 2/25/2010 12:56 PM, rickman wrote:
>>
>> The other method can only be done if Altera has not write or read
>> protected their data sheets.  You can use a PDF editing tool to
>> actually rotate the page in the document and then save it so it will
>> be forever fixed.
>
> Actually, that provoked me. You need Acrobat professional. Which isn't 
> free.
>
>
> File-> Create PDF -> from file
>
> Document -> Rotate Pages ->
>     Counterclockwise 90 degrees
>     Landscape pages
>
> Lovely. Maybe I will use their parts after all. It's still dumb the way 
> they publish the PDFs.
>
> Syms.


If you are using the Foxit reader then load the doc, go to View => Rotate 
View => clock or anticlock as desired.

On 2/25/2010 5:32 PM, Phil Jessop wrote:
>
>
> If you are using the Foxit reader then load the doc, go to View =>  Rotate
> View =>  clock or anticlock as desired.
>
>
>
>
Did you even read my rant?

Load this:-

http://www.altera.com/literature/hb/stratix-iv/stx4_siv51001.pdf

Look at the small writing because of the stupid wasted grey bits at the 
sides of the page. (My Adobe reader only does the grey bits if you 
scroll down to page 11. But then it's stuck in dumbass mode.)



They can do it right sometimes.

http://www.altera.com/literature/hb/stratix-iv/stx4_5v4.pdf

No stupid grey bits, and bigger writing.

Grrrr.

Regards, Syms.

On 25/02/2010 13:56, rickman wrote:
> On Feb 25, 6:04 am, Symon<symon_bre...@hotmail.com>  wrote:
>> If anyone from Altera reads this forum, can they please email/call their
>> manual writing&  publishing department and complain from me that their
>> stupid PDF manuals have occasional pages turned at 90 degrees, e.g. the
>> Stratix4 Handbook, page 1-11. This is very annoying, as it means my
>> reader displays all the other pages narrower than they would be. I'm
>> getting on a bit now, my eyesight isn't what it was, and I'm too
>> cantankerous to piss about with the magnifying glass tool. I'm perfectly
>> capable of using the special rotate button that the reader provides for
>> the odd occasion when the page needs to be turned, in the same way I
>> used to be able to turn a book in the good old days. Those dumbasses
>> (probably) wouldn't print a book with occasional pages sticking out, why
>> do they feel the need to do it with their PDF manuals.
>>
>> The stupid thing is, doing what they have done, doesn't make the table
>> any easier to read on a computer screen than if they'd made the table
>> smaller and printed it across the page. It just makes all the other
>> pages harder to read. The only time it helps is if some bozo decides
>> he's gonna print out 27MB of file, in which case they're probably a
>> student and have good eyesight anyway.
>>
>> This is the only reason stopping me from designing in Altera parts.
>> Xilinx have nice PDF files.
>>
>> Love, Syms.
>>
>> p.s. There's no charge for this free advice.
>
> Maybe you should instead complain to Adobe about their *stupid* PDF
> reading software.  The only reason that the rotated pages are making
> the others hard to view is because you are using "fit to page width"
> for a magnification.  In lieu of getting either of these multi-

I can't see this effect with any pdf reader I've tried - Foxit which I 
normally use on Windows, evince on Ubuntu, or Acrobat Reader 8 on 
Windows.  Maybe you are using an old version of Acrobat Reader?

It makes sense to complain to Adobe about how they have managed to make 
such an insecure file reader, or to ask why they have allowed executable 
javascript and plugins by default, or why their software is orders of 
magnitude bigger, slower, and more ram-hungry than alternatives such as 
Foxit.  But I am totally failing to replicate these viewing problems.

> national corporations to change the way they do business, perhaps you
> could do a very little leg work yourself.  One is to just view them
> with a set magnification which will show all pages at the same zoom
> level.  It's not really so hard to do.  You just type in a zoom level
> that lets you view the first page to fit the width of the window.
>
> The other method can only be done if Altera has not write or read
> protected their data sheets.  You can use a PDF editing tool to
> actually rotate the page in the document and then save it so it will
> be forever fixed.  If you find that Altera's data sheets are write
> protected, then you are screwed.  I have seen some data sheets that
> are *read* protected, or more accurately, copy protected.  Yes, they
> prevent you from using select, copy and paste to pull any information
> out of the document.  I find that insane and it drives me pretty much
> up a wall.  If I want to quote something from a data sheet, such as a
> part number for ordering, I want to *COPY* it so as to eliminate the
> possibility of a transcription error.  With part number containing
> some 12 or more digits and letters, it is oh so easy to mess it up.
> Even more interesting is when I find a document that is protected in
> some way, but they forgot to password protect it, so I can turn off
> the protection...  But I think you can use some third party tools to
> get around the password protection.  After all, if you can read the
> document so that it can be viewed, you can always copy and/or edit
> it.  The "protection" is just a switch in the program you are reading
> it with.
>

Rather than going through all this effort, install a decent (free and 
open-source) pdf printer such as PDFCreator.  Then you can "print" your 
document to a new pdf file that has all the pages at the same 
orientation, and is certainly editable if you want.

> BTW, you can blame all of this on the community standardizing on a
> proprietary document format instead of open source.  There seem to be
> open source tools for PDF files now, but it has taken a long time and
> most people don't know about them.
>

PDF came from a proprietary source, but it is an ISO standard (at least, 
for some version of pdf format) now.  The format has been well known 
since it became popular, and there have been open source tools for PDF 
reading, generation, and editing for years - the xpdf viewer is at least 
14 years old, and pdfLatex for generating pdf files is at least 12 years 
old.  While the pdf standard could be more "open", it is pretty good as 
standards go.

On 25/02/2010 15:43, Symon wrote:
> On 2/25/2010 12:56 PM, rickman wrote:
>>
>> The other method can only be done if Altera has not write or read
>> protected their data sheets. You can use a PDF editing tool to
>> actually rotate the page in the document and then save it so it will
>> be forever fixed.
>
> Actually, that provoked me. You need Acrobat professional. Which isn't
> free.
>

Since you already use Foxit for reading, you should probably look at 
Foxit Editor rather than Acrobat Writer.  I've not used it myself, but 
considering how much better Foxit reader is than Acrobat reader, I'd 
look there first.

pdfedit is an alternative for Linux, but it's a bit slow, and it Foxit 
has trouble reading the files it produces (apparently it's a bug in 
Foxit, not pdfedit).


>
> File-> Create PDF -> from file
>
> Document -> Rotate Pages ->
> Counterclockwise 90 degrees
> Landscape pages
>
> Lovely. Maybe I will use their parts after all. It's still dumb the way
> they publish the PDFs.
>
> Syms.

On 2/26/2010 9:43 AM, David Brown wrote:

> Foxit. But I am totally failing to replicate these viewing problems.
>

Hi David,

I don't like to see failure.

I have Foxit 3.1.4.1125, which seems quite up-to-date.

I have set the default to show the pages at their biggest, i.e. 'fit 
width', because I am getting old and my eyes aren't like they used to 
be. When I load :-

http://www.altera.com/literature/hb/stratix-iv/stx4_siv51001.pdf

The portrait pages in it, e.g. pg 1-1, no longer 'fit width', because 
there are pages like 1-11 that, and this is my complaint, are included 
in landscape mode. The reader's rotate button doesn't help, 'cos it 
rotates every page. The solution is to publish documents with all pages 
portrait and draw the tables across the page.

This is 'totally' driving me bonkers, and is why I keep clogging up the 
useful discourse on CAF with these ridiculous posts.

If you don't see this effect, please, for God's sake, put me out of my 
misery, and let me know what you did.

Thanks, Syms.

p.s. A similar thing happens in my old version 7 Adobe viewer, but only 
after the viewer has 'seen' a landscape page.