If you’ve ever wanted to publish a PDF in SWF (flash) form then read on: GPDF2SWF is a free tool that can do this very easily. GPDF2SWF is the graphical user interface for a tool called PDF2SWF, and is part of SWFTOOLS, a collection of SWF related command line executables.
This program can load up a PDF file then save it as a flash SWF file. It can do this for all pages in the PDF document or for selected pages, or it can save each page in the PDF document as its own SWF file.
GPDF2SWF optionally embeds a convenient flash player/viewer into the resulting SWF document which makes it easy to view and control the resulting flash file from any browser. It also outputs an HTML file with a little code that can load up and display the SWF file in a web page.
While PDFs are the standard for electronic document publishing on the web, there are times when you might want to convert your content from PDF to SWF. This would enable you to display your PDF document interactively within a media player in a presentation-style format.
Here are some notes on this program:
- Very easy to use: load your PDF and save it as SWF
- Three viewers to choose from: from a simple viewer with arrows for previous/next, to a more sophisticated one with zooming and scrolling. You also have the option to output your SWF without a viewer. Click on the screenshot to the right, above, to see the standard player in action.
- Outputs SWF, HTML both: double click the HTML file to open in the default browser, or you can use the HTML code to embed the SWF in a web page. HTML output is optional.
- Tweaking the output: you can specify image and font quality, as well as whether to convert the various elements to polygons or bitmaps. Or you can forgo this and go with the default, which is pretty good.
- Page selection: select all odd pages, all even pages, or CTRL+click on the individual pages you want.
The verdict: excellent free software that delivers. GPDF2SWF does the job quickly and easily and offers a good degree of flexibility along the way.
Version Tested: 0.9.1
Compatibility: Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7.
Note that GPDF2SWF is part of SWFTOOLS, a collection of command-line based SWF-related utilities. GPDF2SWF is a graphical user interface for a tool called PDF2SWF.
Go to the program home page to download the latest version of SWFTOOLS (approx 14 megs). Once installed, a shortcut to GPDF2SWF will be placed on your desktop.
