Yeah but it’s pretty limited and personally I could never get it to work, it couldn’t handle larger files. Had to pirate some other program to do anything serious.
LibreOffice Draw is the best in my experience. I edit a lot of pdfs for work and was tired of using an online solution which gave you two free document edits per hour. This was often enough but sometimes it wasn’t, and that was annoying. So I tried four or five different offline software solutions for it, and I settled on LibreOffice Draw.
Inkscape can also kinda work depending on the PDF? I think libreoffice tends to be better still because inkscape treats text from an imported PDF weirdly iirc
pdf is a compiled format for typeset text, so you need a pdf compiler. i use latex + tectonic. pandoc is also a popular alternative. “converting for editing” is like decompiling a program, you’re not guaranteed to get the same thing back as was put in. i never do that, i recompile instead. if i need text from a pdf i use pdftotext and cross my fingers because the formatting ain’t coming back out. any program that does replicate formatting just does a best guess.
I’ve yet to find one. Pdf24 is free but not Foss and decent for certain tasks, but it’s not a great editor. After using the paid version of xchange for as long as I have, using free options just leaves me disappointed.
What’s kind of weird is that there seems to be no other program coming close to Xchange’s range. I’ve tried a bunch of them and they’re basically toys compared to it. There evidently is some demand, but just one company meeting it fully? Is editing PDFs particularly technically difficult?
Try to open a text PDF with LibreOffice and you might see why is so difficult to work with them. You can find that all the text is spread in one field for each line, not a unique text box.
And the one company won’t release a Linux version either. Sure, Wine exists, but it’s not nearly as good as native support.
No clue how complicated PDFs, with all of its different versions are. Especially if some software make PDFs that don’t even comply with official spec (not sure how often happens though).
You can in libreoffice draw for sure.
Yeah but it’s pretty limited and personally I could never get it to work, it couldn’t handle larger files. Had to pirate some other program to do anything serious.
Are there any good free pdf editors anyway? I’ve always had to use a premium product in the end 😔
LibreOffice Draw is the best in my experience. I edit a lot of pdfs for work and was tired of using an online solution which gave you two free document edits per hour. This was often enough but sometimes it wasn’t, and that was annoying. So I tried four or five different offline software solutions for it, and I settled on LibreOffice Draw.
Yeah, similar experience, I’ve also settled on draw. Works fine enough 🤷♀️
Sometimes I use my organization’s ms and adobe products and I just get a little ui envy…
Edit(sometimes I have to)
Inkscape can also kinda work depending on the PDF? I think libreoffice tends to be better still because inkscape treats text from an imported PDF weirdly iirc
i mean, pdf’s shouldn’t be edited. that’s the point of pdfs.
If pdfs weren’t supposed to be edited, they shouldn’t have mistakes that require editing.
this is why everything should be in plain text until it has been finalized
I’m sure they thought it was finalized when they put it out.
then complain
Why, when it takes like a second to just fix it and I don’t even know who made it?
I’ll let everyone know
i really wish i could.
editable pdfs would like a word
non-standard extension. should die in a fire.
That word is “bloat”.
It’s a file on my computer, I’ll do with it whatever I want.
then convert it to a proper format until you’re ready. editing a pdf is like decompiling and editing an exe file.
What program do you use to convert PDFs, what format do you convert them into for editing?
pdf is a compiled format for typeset text, so you need a pdf compiler. i use latex + tectonic. pandoc is also a popular alternative. “converting for editing” is like decompiling a program, you’re not guaranteed to get the same thing back as was put in. i never do that, i recompile instead. if i need text from a pdf i use pdftotext and cross my fingers because the formatting ain’t coming back out. any program that does replicate formatting just does a best guess.
I’m not sure if I’m following you - a compiler can be used to edit an existing PDF?
It doesn’t have every tool but I’ve been self hosting Stirling PDF and it suits most of my needs.
I’ve yet to find one. Pdf24 is free but not Foss and decent for certain tasks, but it’s not a great editor. After using the paid version of xchange for as long as I have, using free options just leaves me disappointed.
What’s kind of weird is that there seems to be no other program coming close to Xchange’s range. I’ve tried a bunch of them and they’re basically toys compared to it. There evidently is some demand, but just one company meeting it fully? Is editing PDFs particularly technically difficult?
Try to open a text PDF with LibreOffice and you might see why is so difficult to work with them. You can find that all the text is spread in one field for each line, not a unique text box.
And the one company won’t release a Linux version either. Sure, Wine exists, but it’s not nearly as good as native support.
No clue how complicated PDFs, with all of its different versions are. Especially if some software make PDFs that don’t even comply with official spec (not sure how often happens though).
PDF Xchange Editor is cool. Thanks to it I haven’t had a need for Adobe software on my PC in years.