Linux PDF editors
 

What Linux PDF editors (not viewers) do you use? Do you have particular recommendations? I've found "PDFedit" but not much else. I don't need to edit PDFs often but when I do, I must switch to Windows. I'd like to do so in Linux.

Pretty much any linux word processing program should work...I use Abiword. Open office also works well. There are others. Be aware, though, that most of the word processing programs do not like to open .pdfs. You may have to copy the text from your original .pdf into open office/other, and save two copies: one .pdf, and one native format, for later editing.

Are you sure
 

bcwagne: OpenOffice can edit PDF? I don't find that function anywhere in OO. Are you sure?

Yes, there is a new plugin for openoffice.

Also consider pdftk.

A few commercial tools are also available in Linux

Other than abiword and pdftk.....does anyone else know of Linux pdf editors (that could be installed via synaptic)?

FYI:
http://www.oooninja.com/2008/06/pdf-...ension-30.html

Did you bother to google for it?
from google

Did you bother to search LQ for this (you will find suggestions from me to the exact same question in old LQ threads)?
from LQ

I tried
 

I tried google with little luck...perhaps I did a bad search...but I should have looked into older threads...thanks for the reminder.

Is there a plugin
 

I just installed abiword...but I don't see anything in its menu regarding PDF editing. Is there a plugin it requires? I did a quick google but couldn't find much. What a really need is something that will let me

a) convert one data format (word, spreadsheet, webpage, etc) into PDF
b) merge PDF documents and rearrange the order in PDF with multiple pages
c) if I could "type in text" in a PDF that would be great too, but it wouldn't be required

I have the Adobe pdf maker for Windows. I doubt there is anything as comprehensive as that for linux but that is how I meet my current PDF demands.

I am trying to find pdftk on my k menu...I installed it too. Maybe I overlooked it.

If you think you are going to edit a PDF like you do a document in Word or abiword, you are mistaken. There is no "formatting" in a PDF. It already rendered, and only gives locations where images and text is stored within boundaries. When you inserted text, all text is not re-"flowed", rather the best that you get is text squishing to allow room in the current chunk. PDF was NEVER designed to be edited in this fashion. The process from doc -> PDF is not a reversible one completely.

That does help
 

Thank you. That does help somewhat. I suspected I would not be able to edit a pdf as I would a word document, spreadsheet, etc. What about simple tasks such as merging pdf, rearranging pages in a pdf, etc? If I could get away with that, then it would suffice.

Re-ordering pages and merging is no problem - PDFs are page oriented.

I've been using Acrobat for a long time, and it is a simple drag-n-drop operation. I'm sure the free PDF readers/writers do likewise.

PDFEdit? Why don't you use Synaptic? Just look under Edit > Search and type in any term that is of interest to you.

It's a CLI application. Try man pdftk.

I use pdftex. And I always keep the ASCII text version and tex files handy.

I too have had the same problems with trying to edit PDF files. After reading all the sites i can think of i looked at the "add/removed" in Ubuntu (Gnome 8.04), and i have found an app that can edit PDF, Its basic function but i can fill out forms and re-save them back to a normal PDF file.

The app is called FLPSED. The ubuntu depo's have it. I think the command line is something like this

sudo apt-get install flpsed

or ....

you can go to the add and remove and look for it in there. It worked for me ..... well it dose what i need it to do.

Hope this helps.

PKFtk - strange screenshots
 

I decided to revisit this thread I started many weeks ago.

I am trying to put a GUI front end on PDFtk.

The website:

http://www.pdfhacks.com/pdftk/

states that it is possible by referring you here:

http://www.paehl.de/pdf/

So, I went there I found I have a choice: either "binary" or "source" but with source I have to use the "Lazarus complier"

Question # 1:

Which should I select: "binary" or "source"

Screenshot: http://img191.imageshack.us/img191/8...ryorsource.jpg

Look at the very top of the picture and you will see to what I am referring.

I downloaded both "binary" and "source" and "un-zipped" them. However, when I extracted the "binary" (tar) version, I received what appears to be a Windows exe file.

Question # 2:
Is this a Windows exe file? It sure looks like it.

Screenshot: http://img151.imageshack.us/img151/6...owsexefile.jpg

Look at the upper left, you will see the red / white file. It shows as "exe" when I put my mouse on it.

Any thoughts? These 2 questions stumped me.

Look properly

There is .zip file for Linux (binary)

you will get an executable guipdftk

#cd <directory incl file>
#./guipdftk

How do I "use" it?
 

amani,

Or anyone else reading....

I have that exe file. How do I "use" it? I have no idea where to begin. Could you kindly tell me how to do so, or point me to a website that could better explain it?

Thank you!

Where you unpacked it you can run "./guipdftk" from a terminal window or else reference it with the full path "/usr/local/bin/guipdftk" if you for example extracted it to /usr/local/bin.

unSpawn,

Must I do so as root? I assume yes.

So if I understand correctly, I would type:

./guipdftk

in terminal, correct?

Thanks for the tip.

If you want to install into root-owned directory /usr/local/bin, yes. After extraction set the ownership and access rights to root and executable by all with 'f=/usr/local/bin/guipdftk; chown root.root $f; chmod 0755 $f'. Switching back to your unprivileged user account (you do use one, right?) you are able to run it as plain "guipdftk" from the terminal window or "run" command as long as /usr/local/bin is in your path. Else prefix the full path.