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pdf is a document format. there are occasions where I find it easier to work with one large document rather than several single documents (most recently, while working with several spec sheets for electronic components), the following command will join two or more *.pdfs into a single document using ghostscript.

gs -dBATCH -dNOPAUSE -q -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -sOutputFile=OUTPUT.pdf INPUT01.pdf INPUT02.pdf ...

-dBATCH - exit after last file
-dNOPAUSE - no pause after page
-q - “quiet”, fewer messages
-sDEVICE=<devname> - select device, in this case the pdf writer
-sOutputFile=<file> - select output file

the following were not, but could be, included:
-g<width>x<height> - page size in pixels
-r<res> - pixels/inch resolution

an example of the cloth and wind effects available in Blender 2.45

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Blender just keeps getting better…

declaring the variables:

	int A;
	int *pA;
	int B;
	int *pB;

at this point, A is a container for an integer, and B is a container for a pointer to an integer.

in the body of the code, a “*” can be seen as “the value pointed to by”, and “&” can be seen as “the address of”, as in (using the above delarations):

	A = 100; //directly sets the value of A
	pA = &A; //now pA contains the address of A
	pB = pA; //now pB contains the value of pA, which is the address of A
	B = *pB; //now B contains the value that is pointed to by pB

now both A and Bcontain “100″, and both pA and pB contain the location of A.

	cout << "A:  " << A << endl;    //displays value in A
	cout << "B:  " << B << endl;    //displays value in B
	cout << "pA: " << pA << endl;   //displays address in pA
	cout << "pB: " << pB << endl;   //displays address in pB
	cout << "*pA: " << *pA << endl; //displays value pointed to by pA
	cout << "*pB: " << *pB << endl; //displays value pointed to by pB
	cout << endl;

would show something like the following (note that [ADDRESS] would actually be a memory location):

A:  100
B:  100
pA: 0x[ADDRESS]
pB: 0x[ADDRESS]
*pA: 100
*pB: 100

 
at this point, setting the value held by A could be done in any of the following ways:

	A = 200;
	*pA = 200;
	*pB = 200;

*pB can be used to set the value of A because pB contains the address of A.

note that B contains the same value as is in A, but is now independant of it. in the above example, A was set, then pA was set to it’s address, then pB was set to the contents of pA, then B was set the the value pointed to by pB.

pdf is a document format. on the occasion where it is easier to reference an image rather than the full document, the following command will convert the pdf.

convert -density 96x96 -trim INPUTFILE.pdf OUTPUTFILE.jpg

-density is the image density in pixels per square inch
-trim will trim the image edges

the output will be in the form of OUTPUTFILE-#.jpg, where # is an increasing “page” number.
this command will also work for OUTPUTFILE.png, OUTPUTFILE.gif, et. al..

also, imagemagick uses ghostscript to convert, so the quality of the final images will only be as good as ghostscript can provide.