Moodle plugins directory: pdf2submission | Moodle.org
pdf2submission
Blocks ::: block_pdf2submission
Maintained by 
Toshihiro KITA
pdf2submission is a plugin to automatically accept hand-written or hand-drawn documents (scanned image PDF) as Moodle assignment submissions (There is no need for each learner to upload the file to Moodle).
Latest release:
13 sites
5 fans
Current versions available: 1
== pdf2submission plugin version 2 ==
pdf2submission is a plugin to automatically accept handwritten or hand drawn documents (scanned image PDF) as Moodle assignment submissions (There is no need for each learner to upload the fi
le to Moodle).
Please note that this versin of pdf2submission works only for Assignment2.3 (not for previous type of Assignment).
This package includes FPDI and TCPDF in the subdirectories. See the license description in each subdirectory. Except these subdirectories, pdf2submission is licensed under GPL v3 or later.
http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
How to install:
Basically, pdf2submission plugin is intended to run on Linux servers (some external commands are used in processing PDF files).
1) Install required external commands if they are not yet available on your Moodle server.
The required external commands are pdftk, ImageMagick convert, ghostscript, zbarimg.
On CentOS 6, the following yum command will install all except zbarimg command:
# yum install pdftk ImageMagick ImageMagick-devel ghostscript
pdftk is found also at
http://pkgs.repoforge.org/pdftk/
For zbarimg command, get the source code from http://sourceforge.net/projects/zb
ar/ and make install like:
wget http://sourceforge.net/projects/zbar/files/zbar/0.10/zbar-0.10.tar.bz2/download
bunzip2 zbar-0.10.tar.bz2
tar xvf zbar-0.10.tar
./configure --with-x=no --enable-video=no --with-python=no --with-gtk=no --with-qt=no
make
make install
2) unzip pdf2submission.zip and move pdf2submission folder into Moodle blocks/ folder, and as admin click 'Site administration - Notifications' to let Moodle install pdf2submission block (like a typical block installation).
3) 'inputfolder' specified in pdfscan.php (where scanned image PDF files are put) must be writable by pdf2submission cron job, so you need to set write permission by a command like 'chgrp apache /home/pdf2moodle/pdfs; chmod g+w /home/pdf2moodle/pdfs'.
KITA Toshihiro
http://tkita.net/
pdf2submission is a plugin to automatically accept handwritten or hand drawn documents (scanned image PDF) as Moodle assignment submissions (There is no need for each learner to upload the fi
le to Moodle).
Please note that this versin of pdf2submission works only for Assignment2.3 (not for previous type of Assignment).
This package includes FPDI and TCPDF in the subdirectories. See the license description in each subdirectory. Except these subdirectories, pdf2submission is licensed under GPL v3 or later.
http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
How to install:
Basically, pdf2submission plugin is intended to run on Linux servers (some external commands are used in processing PDF files).
1) Install required external commands if they are not yet available on your Moodle server.
The required external commands are pdftk, ImageMagick convert, ghostscript, zbarimg.
On CentOS 6, the following yum command will install all except zbarimg command:
# yum install pdftk ImageMagick ImageMagick-devel ghostscript
pdftk is found also at
http://pkgs.repoforge.org/pdftk/
For zbarimg command, get the source code from http://sourceforge.net/projects/zb
ar/ and make install like:
wget http://sourceforge.net/projects/zbar/files/zbar/0.10/zbar-0.10.tar.bz2/download
bunzip2 zbar-0.10.tar.bz2
tar xvf zbar-0.10.tar
./configure --with-x=no --enable-video=no --with-python=no --with-gtk=no --with-qt=no
make
make install
2) unzip pdf2submission.zip and move pdf2submission folder into Moodle blocks/ folder, and as admin click 'Site administration - Notifications' to let Moodle install pdf2submission block (like a typical block installation).
3) 'inputfolder' specified in pdfscan.php (where scanned image PDF files are put) must be writable by pdf2submission cron job, so you need to set write permission by a command like 'chgrp apache /home/pdf2moodle/pdfs; chmod g+w /home/pdf2moodle/pdfs'.
KITA Toshihiro
http://tkita.net/
Screenshots
Contributors
Toshihiro KITA (Lead maintainer)
Please login to view contributors details and/or to contact them
Comments 
Comments
Please login to post comments
I've looked at it and i've these points about others who may try to use it:
- pdfgen.php uses lookups into mod_assign tables directly, it might be better to use mod_assign's functions from lib.php if possible so it keeps up with upgrades (DB etc) within mod_assign.
- pdfscan.php has some hardcoded paths to executables. it would be better to have these as settings for non-programmers to be able to use this plugin.
- generally there are non-unix OS users who won't be able to use this easily. Have you tried and do you have any advice for them? (ie: windows users)
It seems generally that this might be better placed as a sub-plugin for mod_assign as it seems specific to it.
once again thanks for your plugin.
We do need some of the url fields filled in which will help in this plugin feedback and maintenance:
- perhaps website url could be http://tkita.net ?
- documentation url
- tracker url for issues.
see here for the URL fields - http://moodle.org/plugins/edit.php?plugin=block_pdf2submission
https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=313989
i wish to put the new version here in this directory when i have time..
https://github.com/kita-toshihiro/pdf2submission
This was tested on Moodle 3.2.