I have a script that is converting .doc files to .pdf. This is probably a somewhat different process than just your average document conversion process and i'll explain why.
I have document files that use a font family called "Myriad Pro". This has caused an extreme amount of issues but can't be changed unfortunately. The only way to convert this doc to PDF and have the PDF keep the text as SELECTABLE text not a bitmap image AND keep the font is to print as pdf. I ended up selecting a program called Bullzip which acts as pdf printer instead of using the Microsoft PDF printer. I had to do this because bullzip allows you to suppress almost every notification including the save as prompt. That was the main problem with Microsoft PDF printer.
All that works perfectly..When I run in the powershell ISE. Here's the kicker. If i set this as a scheduled task and run with the option selected "Run whether the user is logged in or not". This script runs with the default font. Therein lies my problem. Why is this happening? I can't understand this for the life of me. If I run this as a scheduled task with the option selected "Run only when the user is logged in". Everything works perfectly..
This is a very rare problem to have so I understand not a lot of people have experienced, but if anyone has please help.
Related
I have an app I developed and made a GUI for. In one of the directories I have a log.txt file.
I have a strip menu option meant to display the log file to the user. I'm wondering what would be the best method for displaying this log file?
Right now I'm just using
notepad log.txt
Which technically works but doesn't seem to be the most efficient or professional way.
I'm guessing it is probably just opening another form with a large read only text box but on the off chance someone has something that works even better I'll appreciate the suggestion.
Info displayed in log is:
Version
Description
Date
I have been given a task that involves downloading a single file every day from a website. Let's call it "https://test.example.com". I have credentials that allow me to login to the site, where a Flash interface then presents the files that are available for download. After the file is downloaded, it is then processed in a variety of ways. I have already put together the Powershell that handles all that, I am just having a hard time with automating the actual download of the file.
I used the Flash interface to download a few files while watching the network activity, and found that it is actually pulling the file from this URL:
https://test.example.com/link/EBDB7F67EF3B28XX99NCAD9920160423/file.zip
Therefore, I was able to put this together in order to automatically get the file via my PS script:
$url = 'https://test.example.com/link/EBDB7F67EF3B28XX99NCAD9920160423/file.zip'
$output = "C:\Downloads\file.zip"
Invoke-WebRequest -Uri $url -OutFile $output
However, the long string of numbers in the URL changes every day. The only discernible pattern I can find is that the last eight digits are always the date on which that particular file is posted.
Is there a good way to approach this? I've been experimenting with wildcards and patterns, as well as checking the HTML for elements that I can filter, but I am having a hard time finding the correct solution.
This is very hard to automate. You can't drive Flash from the script unless it is specifically designed for that. As I see it now your only options are:
Contact site devs if possible, maybe they can give you a details on function that generates link. This gives me an idea - perhaps you can reverse engineer Flash code to find that function details yourself. Use flash decompiler for this.
Simulate the user browsing the flash site. This can be done in one of the following ways:
Autohotkey - you can record mouse clicking relative to the browser window and execute the script again. Unless flash interface is too dynamic and unpredictive it will work.
Sikuli - another automation language which relies on picture segment recognition.
All above 2.* methods produce fragile automation code as they depend on browser settings (zoom, theme) and even OS settings. For this reason you need to dedicate one machine for that in all probability (virtual machine ofc). Decompiling flash code and re-implementing the url generting code in powershell will make it a reliable 100%.
As somebody said in comments this is not a powershell queestion but browser automation question.
I think a student of mine renamed a PNG a Word document and intentionally submitted a corrupted file to buy more time (or something) on an assignment. The student denies everything and claims it was a computer malfunction. Before I submit an honor code violation I want to be sure that there's no explanation that does not involve cheating that I'm somehow overlooking.
Basically, I'm a TA and a student submitted a paper, let's say it was Smith.docx. When I was working on grading and went to open Smith.docx Word wouldn't open it and said that it was corrupted. I eventually had the idea of opening it in a text editor and there it was a massive jumbled file of all sorts of odd characters (total file size: 180kb for what was supposed to be a 5 page paper).
I noticed, though, that the first few characters of the file were:
‰PNG
I renamed the file Smith.png and it opened. Bizarrely, it was an image of the first page of a Word document. More specifically, it looks like a screenshot of a Word doc cropped so as to show just the page. What makes it seem like a screenshot is that the cursor thingy (the vertical bar marking where you're typing) shows up next to the title.
An additional interesting bit of data is that if I scroll further down in the file (opened in notepad) I come to this:
XML:com.adobe.xmp <x:xmpmeta xmlns:x="adobe:ns:meta/" x:xmptk="XMP Core 5.4.0">
<rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#">
<rdf:Description rdf:about=""
xmlns:exif="http://ns.adobe.com/exif/1.0/">
<exif:PixelXDimension>996</exif:PixelXDimension>
<exif:PixelYDimension>1286</exif:PixelYDimension>
</rdf:Description>
</rdf:RDF>
</x:xmpmeta>
I'm not sure what all that means but 1286x996 are the dimensions of the png image. The rest suggests to me that the file was created in some Adobe program but I'm not sure if that's right and how to figure out more about that.
So, my actual question: Is there any conceivable explanation of any kind for how I would come to have a file called Smith.docx that is a perfectly functioning png of what sure looks like a screenshot of the first page of a Word document other than that the student did it on purpose? The student claimed that their computer was "corrupting" files and that they had to take it into the Apple for service. I find this incredibly implausible (student has also not provided the receipt for this, which I requested).
Additionally, other than the case I laid out here, is there any positive evidence for my theory (that it was a straightforward case of cheating) that I can present to strengthen my case? eg, is the data from the file that I posted above a smoking gun that it was created in an Adobe program or is there any conceivable way that could come out of a Word document or other sort of corrupted file?
Also, is there anything else I can look for in the PNG file that would be a smoking gun?
Thanks in advance for any help you might be able to offer!
just rename the file with .png at the end instead of .docx and if it was a png then it should open just fine as a png
The key is that you see the cursor in the screenshot, there is no way Word would export (somehow) a docx file as a png AND draw the cursor for typing. Also, any tool that could do that would save the file as png not docx, only the user could deliberately change the file extension.
Also, does the screenshot show an empty document? or it looks like the final document your student delivered at the end?
Short answer:
The student is lying and is in fact a cheater (in my opinion).
Also, even if they were telling the truth, it is still their responsibility to have their work done, ready, and fully functional on time. Your computer is corrupting your files? Tough cookies. No one cares. You should have done your work on another computer. In the real world, excuses don't get you anywhere and they shouldn't get you anywhere in school either.
Lastly, it is very easy to re-name an extension of another file type and claim it's corrupt and very unlikely that a computer is just creating corrupted files. If their computer would otherwise create corrupted files, I would imagine it would be nearly impossible to get the computer to boot. In other words, they probably wouldn't have been able to turn on their "corrupted" computer to create "corrupted" files in the first place.
I have no background in programming, and am new to Google Scripts and Stack Overflow.
I'd like to create a Google script which automatically sends an email when the word "No" is added to a specific column in Google Sheets.
I have already created and tested the script which sends an email if "No" is added to my spreadsheet, however, I need this process to be automated so that my co-workers must not manually run the script each time.
I would be extremely grateful if anyone would be willing to write the code, or guide me in the right direction.
Set up an 'On Edit' or 'Time Driven' trigger and that should automate it... No code needed.
Use the clock with a pointer icon to the left of the 'Run' icon in the script editor to access the trigger.
Not sure this is the right stackexchange site but seems to be the place with the most question about Alfresco I can find so here goes.
Have Alfresco Community Edition 4.2.d installed on a RHEL5 64bit box (mainly default install bar using MySQL as a database locally). Uploading PDFs to the documentLibrary is fine and thumbnail previews and flash previews are generating. If the PDF has been processed by ABBYY OCR (which we have running on a separate server and is used to OCR scanned PDFs) then the flash preview generates fine but the thumbnail is incredibly dark and looks as if it has been attacked by a can of spray paint.
I initially thought it could be a ghostscript issue but have updated that to 9.14 and still getting this issue. I have also tried playing around with ImageMagik but I can't get a nice clear thumbnail to generate. I am guessing it is a switch in the convert command that Alfresco is using but I am struggling to work out a combination of switches that will work and then where Alfresco would store these parameters. Or indeed what switches are currently being used.
I was wondering if anyone had seen this behaviour before with ImageMagik previews in Alfresco 4.2.d? It seems something unique to PDFs that have been through the OCR process so I am guessing I will need to create a separate transformation for them at a later stage.
EDIT: So it was suggested that a later version of ImageMagick and GS should resolve it. I have therefore installed GS 9.14 and IM 6.8.9-0 (both compiled form source). Running the following from a command line:
convert /root/test1.pdf[0] /root/test1.png
results in a crystal clear image thumbnail preview. Thinking I was on to a winner I have amended the following lines in alfresco-global.properties to point to the system location of GS and IM:
img.root=/usr
img.dyn=${img.root}/lib
img.exe=${img.root}/bin/convert
img.gslib = /usr/local/share/ghostscript/9.14/lib/
and alfresco loads. However the thumbnail preview generated by Alfresco using the new version of IM and GS does not result in nice clean previews.
I am guessing that Alfresco is passing some command line switch during the conversion that is undoing the good work of the later versions of these programs. Does anyone know where the switches for thumbnail creation might be stored in Alfresco?
I guess it's related to transparency and default background black. I didn't find an easy way to add the required parameters to the script except to register a new transformer supporting more parameters like:
-fill white -opaque none