More explicitly:
How should I [who has *ability* to hyperfocus mitigated by distractibility {cf ADHD}] ask questions in this particular forum?
Why do I ask?
In my read with PDF related questions, my responses were essentially "Why
are you trying to do?" rather than an answer to to a narrowly focused question.
Now I have to relearn how to extract specific content from spreadsheets. Something I haven't done in close to two decades.
Why do I ask?
In my read with PDF related questions, my responses were essentially "Why
are you trying to do?" rather than an answer to to a narrowly
focused question.
A correct, but skew answer, could have been "to gain dietary information to
lower probability of another heart attack". Nutritionists had given me
answers that more a set of intermediary goals than actual things I could
apply to daily life.
But *THE* question remains.
How to ask narrowly focused questions which will get answers in this forum?
What I usually ended up doing was opening the spreadsheet in Libre Office, then saving it as a "CSV" (comma-separated values) file. I'm not aware
of any way to do that purely from the command line.
"GW" == Greg Wooledge <[email protected]> writes:
What I usually ended up doing was opening the spreadsheet in Libre Office, then saving it as a "CSV" (comma-separated values) file. I'm not aware
of any way to do that purely from the command line.
More explicitly:
How should I [who has *ability* to hyperfocus mitigated by
distractibility {cf ADHD}] ask questions in this particular forum?
Why do I ask?
In my read with PDF related questions, my responses were essentially
"Why are you trying to do?" rather than an answer to to a narrowly
focused question.
A correct, but skew answer, could have been "to gain dietary information
to lower probability of another heart attack". Nutritionists had given
me answers that more a set of intermediary goals than actual things I
could apply to daily life.
I had discovered a USDA document[1] that came close to being useful and
was trying to think of a presentation format that would meet multiple
goals. I hadn't yet determined that format, thus could not answer
questions being asked.
In the meantime [GRIN]
I have discovered the source documents[2][3] used in preparing the
above. Now I have to relearn how to extract specific content from spreadsheets. Something I haven't done in close to two decades.
But *THE* question remains.
How to ask narrowly focused questions which will get answers in this forum?
TIA
[1] Specifically Table A4.14 of _Thrifty Food Plan, 2021_ https://fns-prod.azureedge.us/sites/default/files/resource-files/
TFP2021.pdf
[2] https://fns-prod.azureedge.us/sites/default/files/media/file/ TFP_2021_Online_Supplement.xlsx
[3] https://fns-prod.azureedge.us/sites/default/files/media/file/ TFP-2021-Disaggregated-Market-Basket.xlsx
On Sun, Jul 27, 2025 at 07:33:36 -0500, Richard Owlett wrote:
Now I have to relearn how to extract specific content from spreadsheets. Something I haven't done in close to two decades.
What I usually ended up doing was opening the spreadsheet in Libre Office, then saving it as a "CSV" (comma-separated values) file. I'm not aware
of any way to do that purely from the command line.
How should I [who has *ability* to hyperfocus mitigated by distractibility {cf ADHD}] ask questions in this particular forum?
In my read with PDF related questions, my responses were essentially "Why
are you trying to do?" rather than an answer to to a narrowly focused question.
More explicitly:
How should I [who has *ability* to hyperfocus mitigated by
distractibility {cf ADHD}] ask questions in this particular forum?
Why do I ask?
In my read with PDF related questions, my responses were essentially
"Why are you trying to do?" rather than an answer to to a narrowly
focused question.
A correct, but skew answer, could have been "to gain dietary
information to lower probability of another heart attack".
Nutritionists had given me answers that more a set of intermediary
goals than actual things I could apply to daily life.
I had discovered a USDA document[1] that came close to being useful
and was trying to think of a presentation format that would meet
multiple goals. I hadn't yet determined that format, thus could not
answer questions being asked.
In the meantime [GRIN]
I have discovered the source documents[2][3] used in preparing the
above. Now I have to relearn how to extract specific content from spreadsheets. Something I haven't done in close to two decades.
But *THE* question remains.
How to ask narrowly focused questions which will get answers in this
forum?
More explicitly:
How should I [who has *ability* to hyperfocus mitigated by
distractibility {cf ADHD}] ask questions in this particular forum?
Why do I ask?
In my read with PDF related questions, my responses were essentially
"Why are you trying to do?" rather than an answer to to a narrowly
focused question.
A correct, but skew answer, could have been "to gain dietary information
to lower probability of another heart attack". Nutritionists had given
me answers that more a set of intermediary goals than actual things I
could apply to daily life.
I had discovered a USDA document[1] that came close to being useful and
was trying to think of a presentation format that would meet multiple
goals. I hadn't yet determined that format, thus could not answer
questions being asked.
In the meantime [GRIN]
I have discovered the source documents[2][3] used in preparing the
above. Now I have to relearn how to extract specific content from spreadsheets. Something I haven't done in close to two decades.
But *THE* question remains.
How to ask narrowly focused questions which will get answers in this forum?
TIA
[1] Specifically Table A4.14 of _Thrifty Food Plan, 2021_ https://fns-prod.azureedge.us/sites/default/files/resource-files/TFP2021.pdf
[2] https://fns-prod.azureedge.us/sites/default/files/media/file/TFP_2021_Online_Supplement.xlsx
[3] https://fns-prod.azureedge.us/sites/default/files/media/file/TFP-2021-Disaggregated-Market-Basket.xlsx
Why do I ask?
In my read with PDF related questions, my responses were essentially "Why
are you trying to do?" rather than an answer to to a narrowly
focused question.
Sometimes the "Why" you might get in return is misguided
(e.g. paternalistic), but I think in the present case it's because
depending on what kind of editing you want to do, different tools need
to be used.
A correct, but skew answer, could have been "to gain dietary information to >> lower probability of another heart attack". Nutritionists had given me >> answers that more a set of intermediary goals than actual things I could >> apply to daily life.
Maybe it would be correct, but it would probably not help since the
issue is likely unrelated to the semantics of the PDF's contents but rather to its shape (does it contain just text? tables? a scanned document? diagram? ... what kind of "editing" do you plan to do on it? Add text?
Add annotations? Remove elements? ...).
Then again, maybe it would help because someone might point you to
a completely different document which contains just what you want.
But if so, it would be pure luck to bump into that info in a Debian mailing-list.
But *THE* question remains.
How to ask narrowly focused questions which will get answers in this forum?
Try and avoid generic terms like "editing" (which doesn't convey much
more info than "changing")?
But if you knew what are the elements you need to put into the question,
you could probably find the answer via search engines. So embrace it
rather than fight it: telling you which kind of info we need to
answer your question, *is* a way to help you find the answer.
Stefan
Hi Richard,
On Sun, Jul 27, 2025 at 07:33:36AM -0500, Richard Owlett wrote:
More explicitly:
How should I [who has *ability* to hyperfocus mitigated by distractibility >> {cf ADHD}] ask questions in this particular forum?
Asking good questions is not easy. You've got to wrap your brains around those of your potential responders, and try to be aware of all the context you have that they don't. It is a pedagogical task, as always with
(genuine) communication.
Why do I ask?
In my read with PDF related questions, my responses were essentially "Why
are you trying to do?" rather than an answer to to a narrowly focused
question.
The confused reactions should be a giveaway to you that something might
need adjustments on your part:
it is an iterative process. Be as patient
with others as you wish them to be with you, then it'll eventually work
out.
A (cursory) description of your "whole" problem sometimes helps others
to visualize what you're trying to do (and creates opportunities to
find "lateral" solutions, a.k.a. stave off X-Y problems).
Human communications take time. Enjoy the journey.
Cheers
On Sun, Jul 27, 2025 at 07:33:36 -0500, Richard Owlett wrote:
Now I have to relearn how to extract specific content from spreadsheets.
Something I haven't done in close to two decades.
What I usually ended up doing was opening the spreadsheet in Libre Office, then saving it as a "CSV" (comma-separated values) file. I'm not aware
of any way to do that purely from the command line.
Once you have a CSV file, there are a plethora of tools you can use
to extract pieces of it. CSV is a set of plain text formats with some punctuation characters serving as field and record delimiters. The
exact punctuation characters in use will vary, so you will need to
examine the file manually at first, to see what you're dealing with.
There are also settings you can use within Libre Office, or whatever
program you used to produce the CSV file, to select your preferred delimiters.
If you give us the URL of a spreadsheet (or a CSV file) and tell us
precisely what parts of it you want to extract, I'm certain someone
here will be able to cobble together a program to do it, in some
programming language, possibly even one you've already got installed.
All of this will be *significantly* easier than unspecified PDF file manipulations.
On 7/27/25 7:53 AM, [email protected] wrote:
Hi Richard,
The confused reactions should be a giveaway to you that something might need adjustments on your part:
Agreed. That prompted my post.
it is an iterative process. Be as patient
with others as you wish them to be with you, then it'll eventually work out.
A (cursory) description of your "whole" problem sometimes helps others
to visualize what you're trying to do (and creates opportunities to
find "lateral" solutions, a.k.a. stave off X-Y problems).
I've also seen skew answers prompt a multi-sub-thread response in which a reply explicitly answers my question ;}
Ooops, meant to send to (or at least include) list:
---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Michael Paoli <[email protected]>
Date: Sun, Jul 27, 2025 at 3:25 PM
Subject: Re: How to ask a question?
To: Richard Owlett <[email protected]>
Why of course ask the smart way!
http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
Uhm, yeah, strongly recommended reading - and mostly still highly relevant.
On Sun, Jul 27, 2025 at 5:39 PM Richard Owlett <[email protected]> wrote:
More explicitly:
How should I [who has *ability* to hyperfocus mitigated by
distractibility {cf ADHD}] ask questions in this particular forum?
Why do I ask?
In my read with PDF related questions, my responses were essentially
"Why are you trying to do?" rather than an answer to to a narrowly
focused question.
A correct, but skew answer, could have been "to gain dietary information
to lower probability of another heart attack". Nutritionists had given
me answers that more a set of intermediary goals than actual things I
could apply to daily life.
I had discovered a USDA document[1] that came close to being useful and
was trying to think of a presentation format that would meet multiple
goals. I hadn't yet determined that format, thus could not answer
questions being asked.
In the meantime [GRIN]
I have discovered the source documents[2][3] used in preparing the
above. Now I have to relearn how to extract specific content from
spreadsheets. Something I haven't done in close to two decades.
But *THE* question remains.
How to ask narrowly focused questions which will get answers in this forum?
The Debian user mailing list is one of the worse examples in my
(limited) experience. Every question gets non-answered by a bunch of
people who don't really know about your exact situation, but think
they have some valuable input. Often the same bunch of people who then
ends up talking to each other. Comparing with for example the OpenBSD
user mailing list is like night and day.
For specific questions it may be better to try the stack exchange
network, which is designed for that purpose - weed out the "just my
two cents" people. It's easier to ignore non-answers, and people can't
keep adding on to them. There are of course different problems with
stack exchange, which is pretty bad when you just want advice or when
you don't know where to start looking.
It's really time for a change here.
This, precisely. They are only talking to themselves, as I have noted previously (maybe Max N., who seems interested in this kind of
foolishness, can verify the date stamps). Every question is non-answered
by an intimate clan of aging men with toxic attitudes and enormous anal-retention, who believe everyone should be using mutt or gnus like
them and don't know or give a shit about anything else.
It's really time for a change here.
His question isn't complex, though. He has *this* PDF from which he
wants to extract *that* data so that it is readily exploitable, legible, presentable, etc. If that isn't it, then the fault lies with him, not us.
To be frank, given the question, he'd be significantly better off just
asking one of the robots, where you can upload PDFs, than here, where
people go off in any direction and seem to have permanent chips on
their shoulders.
On Mon, Jul 28, 2025 at 01:18:22PM -0000, Greg wrote:
His question isn't complex, though. He has *this* PDF from which he
wants to extract *that* data so that it is readily exploitable, legible,
presentable, etc. If that isn't it, then the fault lies with him, not us.
Oh boy, you have just described a problem space that keeps lots of
experts occupied in their jobs for years. Just getting "data" from an basically unstructured PDF and turning them into something a statistics program or database can make sense of is a whole job of its own.
To be frank, given the question, he'd be significantly better off just
asking one of the robots, where you can upload PDFs, than here, where
people go off in any direction and seem to have permanent chips on
their shoulders.
Your understanding of this problem space and mine differ. I think this
is complex. I think there are no easy shortcuts to this. Asking a LLM
might actually a good idea, but probably not a 100% solution.
/ralph
On 2025-07-27, Anders Andersson <[email protected]> wrote:
The Debian user mailing list is one of the worse examples in my
(limited) experience. Every question gets non-answered by a bunch of
people who don't really know about your exact situation, but think
they have some valuable input. Often the same bunch of people who
then ends up talking to each other. Comparing with for example the
OpenBSD user mailing list is like night and day.
This, precisely. They are only talking to themselves, as I have noted previously (maybe Max N., who seems interested in this kind of
foolishness, can verify the date stamps). Every question is
non-answered by an intimate clan of aging men with toxic attitudes
and enormous anal-retention, who believe everyone should be using
mutt or gnus like them and don't know or give a shit about anything
else.
It's really time for a change here.
On Mon, 28 Jul 2025 14:39:21 -0000 (UTC)
Greg <[email protected]> wrote:
On 2025-07-27, Anders Andersson <[email protected]> wrote:
The Debian user mailing list is one of the worse examples in my
(limited) experience. Every question gets non-answered by a bunch of
people who don't really know about your exact situation, but think
they have some valuable input. Often the same bunch of people who
then ends up talking to each other. Comparing with for example the
OpenBSD user mailing list is like night and day.
This, precisely. They are only talking to themselves, as I have noted
previously (maybe Max N., who seems interested in this kind of
foolishness, can verify the date stamps). Every question is
non-answered by an intimate clan of aging men with toxic attitudes
and enormous anal-retention, who believe everyone should be using
mutt or gnus like them and don't know or give a shit about anything
else.
It's really time for a change here.
So possibly it's time for someone to come up with a few pennies to pay someone really knowledgeable, such as a couple of Debian developers, to
sit in here now and then to give precise answers (to precise questions,
of course).
You seem to be missing the points that nobody here is getting paid, and
of course the topic of this thread implies that the questions asked are
not always well-formed. Quite simply, if the question is precise and to
the point, then a search engine will probably produce the correct
answer, and do so fairly quickly.
Mr Owlett has just asked another question, about spreadsheets. Would
you say that his question was precise and to the point, and that it has
a single, precise and definite answer? Did *you* give him this correct answer, and if not, why not? You presumably are the exact opposite of
the kind of person you describe, so you must be ideally suited to doing
a better job than we can.
He hasn't yet explained in detail exactly what he wishes to do with this data.
What if what he wants to do is insanely difficult in a
spreadsheet, and could be done much more simply with a database.
Are we
allowed to point this out, or does he have to find out for himself the
hard way?
On 7/28/25 1:26 PM, Joe wrote:
On Mon, 28 Jul 2025 14:39:21 -0000 (UTC)
Greg <[email protected]> wrote:
On 2025-07-27, Anders Andersson <[email protected]> wrote:
The Debian user mailing list is one of the worse examples in my
(limited) experience. Every question gets non-answered by a bunch
of people who don't really know about your exact situation, but
think they have some valuable input. Often the same bunch of
people who then ends up talking to each other. Comparing with for
example the OpenBSD user mailing list is like night and day.
This, precisely. They are only talking to themselves, as I have
noted previously (maybe Max N., who seems interested in this kind
of foolishness, can verify the date stamps). Every question is
non-answered by an intimate clan of aging men with toxic attitudes
and enormous anal-retention, who believe everyone should be using
mutt or gnus like them and don't know or give a shit about anything
else.
It's really time for a change here.
So possibly it's time for someone to come up with a few pennies to
pay someone really knowledgeable, such as a couple of Debian
developers, to sit in here now and then to give precise answers (to
precise questions, of course).
You seem to be missing the points that nobody here is getting paid,
and of course the topic of this thread implies that the questions
asked are not always well-formed. Quite simply, if the question is
precise and to the point, then a search engine will probably
produce the correct answer, and do so fairly quickly.
Mr Owlett has just asked another question, about spreadsheets. Would
you say that his question was precise and to the point, and that it
has a single, precise and definite answer? Did *you* give him this
correct answer, and if not, why not? You presumably are the exact
opposite of the kind of person you describe, so you must be ideally
suited to doing a better job than we can.
He hasn't yet explained in detail exactly what he wishes to do with
this data.
Have a grocery list based on a balanced diet to reduce likelihood of
more cardiac bypasses.
What if what he wants to do is insanely difficult in a
spreadsheet, and could be done much more simply with a database.
Output as a spreadsheet would have been one of the possible outcomes
of editing the PDF. But I later discovered the spreadsheet that the
PDF had been based on ;}
Are we
allowed to point this out, or does he have to find out for himself
the hard way?
I'm quite comfortable with both spreadsheets and databases.
IIRC there is a Linux version of TECO. Back in 70's when working at
DEC I was surrounded by TECO fanatics showing what it could do. I
learned to do some simple stuff with it. Now that I'm retired it
could be fun.
On 2025-07-29, [email protected] <[email protected]> wrote:
On 2025-07-28, Richard Owlett <[email protected]> wrote:
The problem has become *MOOT*.
No, it hasn't, and that's not what moot means.
See the 2nd definition.
I did. Why would extracting information from, or converting a PDF to a spreadsheet format, suddenly be subject to debate, or of no practical importance, just because Owlett in his particular case
led us on yet another wild goose chase?
| Sysop: | Keyop |
|---|---|
| Location: | Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, UK |
| Users: | 715 |
| Nodes: | 16 (0 / 16) |
| Uptime: | 168:31:13 |
| Calls: | 12,097 |
| Calls today: | 5 |
| Files: | 15,003 |
| Messages: | 6,517,823 |