I was given a 41-page pdf document (+ .docx) with some text/tables/pictures. Upon some audit, just 2 sentences must be changed in the document.
1. When I open it with openoffice (.docx) - the structure of the document really goes wrong. The document is too long to edit it manually to make it look as it's supposed to look.
2. When I open it with softmaker office 2010 (beta!) it crashes every time.

3. Could I edit just the relevant pages of .docx, export them to pdf and REPLACE just the two pages in the pdf file?

Or is there any other solution without involving Windows?

Thanks

Actually, I should have done more googling before I asked the question
It seems there are some tools to manipulate pdf in linux.
I'm going to install them at home first and then, if it works fine, on the client's computer.

No expert here, but since docx is just a zip file, one thing you might try is to unzip the document, find the subfile that contains the string(s) you want, and alter that with a text editor. Then just re-zip and rename. As long as you're just making minor modifications to a text string and not changing anything in the xml display elements, it might work.

Go-oo supports docx, so you could try that too if you can't find where to edit the files inside the zip. Then just export to pdf.

(or use the Ubuntu Software Center and search for pdf edit)

This tool is not very comfortable to use but if it is just about changing some sentences it will fit your needs!

cheers,
talla

I'll be honest with you. I am still in my client's place (=it's actually my friend's business). I've tried pdfedit and pdftk. I gave up and did it on his windows laptop. Unfortunately, it was very easy (the pdf plugin to office 2007). He is not a very computer-minded person, but he likes the idea of open-source, that's why I persuaded him to run most of the stuff on linux in the first place. He doesn't complain but his members of staff are quite frustrated about regular emails from other companies in .docx. It does break stuff when there are some tables or graphics. I feel bad when I receive phone calls almost every day complaining that some documents don't look like they're supposed to

that is annoying..they might think about buying an office licence and install it on linux?

I have office 07 running on wine (crossover) without any problems.. exactly because of the same problem. I want to be able to read .docx files!

Cheers,
talla