View a PDF from TCC

[Joe Caverly]

Instead of opening Adobe Acrobat to view the content of a .PDF file, I use the following Alias;

alias pdf2txt=`tpipe /input=%1 /simple=76 | view`

While formatting from the PDF is lost, it still allows me to view the contents of the PDF from TCC.

Joe

 

[Rodolfo]

Instead of opening Adobe Acrobat to view the content of a .PDF file, I use the following Alias;

alias pdf2txt=`tpipe /input=%1 /simple=76 | view`

While formatting from the PDF is lost, it still allows me to view the contents of the PDF from TCC.

Joe

This is very interesting.
Do You know if I can trust this method to see the content of a suspect .pdf file before opening it with Adobe?
We receive some strange .pdf files that then are good ones, so for example I am not allowed to send them to virustotal site.

Thank You very much and regards

Rodolfo Giovanninetti

 

[Joe Caverly]

Do You know if I can trust this method to see the content of a suspect .pdf file before opening it with Adobe?

That is a question that Rex will have to answer.

If a PDF is composed of graphics, this results in no text being displayed, which is to be expected.

As I deal with mostly text-based PDF files, this works quite well for me.

Joe

 

[AnrDaemon]

Do You know if I can trust this method to see the content of a suspect .pdf file before opening it with Adobe?

Of course not. Every PDF render could have bugs.
If you don't update your PDF viewer and just hope it would not break after some meddling with file contents, that's just silly.
Especially the "before opening" part.

 

[Rick Reinckens]

Do You know if I can trust this method to see the content of a suspect .pdf file before opening it with Adobe?
We receive some strange .pdf files that then are good ones, so for example I am not allowed to send them to virustotal site.

Thank You very much and regards

Rodolfo Giovanninetti

Try opening them in GIMP. It should open them as images, which won't run any code. Other image editing programs such as Corel PaintShop Pro can also open them. Those won't open protected files.

 

[AnrDaemon]

It should open them as images, which won't run any code.

Except it uses a PostScript interpreter to convert PDF to images.
"Not run any code" indeed.

 

[samintz]

TakeCommand's own VIEW command will view the file in a raw format. Do you know what you are looking for? How do you know if it is a valid file vs. a malicious file?

 

[Rodolfo]

Thanks to everybody for the help.
What I meant is if these methods/tools have been validated from the security point of view.
I know/believe that Adobe Reader has NOT been validated, or not enough according to my taste.
So, I would like to use a more robust tool at least to see the text that is inside a pdf file that we receive.
If for example the text is "do you want to be friends" I choose it is spam and discard it.
If the text is an invoice and comes from a company that we know then I dare to open the pdf to print it.
Sometimes a trusted company uses an external system to send these files, so the sender mail is not enough to choose.

Thank You and regards
Rodolfo Giovanninetti