March 9, 2024

Reducing the size of single or multiple PDF documents in GNU/Linux Bash and Python

Abstract: Compression of PDF documents is a useful technique to reduce the space occupied by these files and facilitate their transmission and storage. In this article, starting from a page devoted to compressing single PDFs, I present two methods for compressing multiple PDF documents. The reference page is as follows: “Linux shell script to reduce PDF file size (simple verification required to enter) and allows you to operate on single PDFs in command-line bash code in the GNU/Linux terminal. Based on the previous one, I tried to extend the procedure to operate on multiple PDFs. In the end I present a simple application in Python with graphical interface. I admit that I asked for some help from ChatGPT and Copilot.

February 11, 2024

Using Visual Studio Code to write scores in LilyPond.

Abstract: Visual Studio Code is an excellent integrated environment for writing programming codes, but can it also be used as an editor for the LilyPond language dedicated to writing music?

1. Previous articles on editors for LilyPond.

On the subject of writing musical scores using LilyPond, a markup language equivalent to LaTeX for lyrics, I recall my previous articles devoted to Emacs and Vim, respectively:

January 8, 2024

Automatic generation of hyperlinks in LaTeX environment, using Vim's Regular Expressions, between PDF documents.

Vim is an editor with endless capabilities. It can also generate hyperlinks in LaTeX language to other locally stored documents, thanks to its built-in Regular Expressions. For lawyers, this means linking a legal document with its related evidentiary materials. This is the analysis of the procedure.

1. Subject of this article.

Sometimes it is necessary to include in a main PDF document a list of documents to be retrieved with specific hyperlinks dedicated to each item in the list.

November 27, 2023

From Text Objects in Vim to Text Blocks in Gutenberg for WordPress.

About Vim and Gutenberg.

Vim is a command-line editor. Gutenberg for WordPress is a visual editor.

Vim was created in 1987, as an evolution from the earlier Vi. Gutenberg has become the default editor for WordPress since version 5.0 of the CMS, released on November 27, 2018.

They are chronologically and structurally very distant writing tools.

But despite the differences, there are also some similarities.

Vim allows writing by treating text as an “object.” Gutenberg allows writing by treating text as a “block.”

October 22, 2023

Linux: rename, rename.ul, prename, perl-rename: what a confusion!

Summary of this article.

In this article I report some observations on how to rename documents in GNU/Linux using text commands, clarifying some differences between various distributions.

The rename command does not, in fact, have unique behavior in distributions derived from Debian versus those derived from Fedora and Arch.

I will try to clarify the content of different commands and the different behavior of commands that have the same name.

September 21, 2023

Two open-source solutions for framing images

What is the topic of this article?

In this article, I describe two simple methods for decorating both single and multiple images with an outline frame, using two open-source resources in the GNU/Linux operating environment.

The first solution uses a graphics application. The second, on the other hand, is command-line.

Adding a frame to images is very useful in excerpts of documents published on sites and blogs.

In these cases, in fact, adding a border serves to “detach” documents published as images from the base document in which they are published.