Open Source PDF editing?

Steel Angel

So my workplace needs to make a whole bunch of fliers/coupons from a PDF that the main office sent us and I'm trying to look into a way to edit the actual file itself instead of using paper and glue to insert the office phone number instead of the placeholder number on there right now. I looked at one of the open office distributions that has pdf editing built in, but it freaked out when it opened the file and made it look like a ransom note. Anyone have any suggestions before we go back to the paper and glue method?

mcdermott

Steel Angel wrote: »

So my workplace needs to make a whole bunch of fliers/coupons from a PDF that the main office sent us and I'm trying to look into a way to edit the actual file itself instead of using paper and glue to insert the office phone number instead of the placeholder number on there right now. I looked at one of the open office distributions that has pdf editing built in, but it freaked out when it opened the file and made it look like a ransom note. Anyone have any suggestions before we go back to the paper and glue method?

I laughed my ass off at the bolded.

Any reason you can't just use something to print it out to a file (I believe MS Office allows you to print out to .TIF, there are other open-source options) at a nice high resolution then edit the file? Probably a little higher-tech than paper and glue, even if it's still not quite what you want.

ronya

Yeah, converting it to an image and then adding the number is probably the easiest route here.

While there are indeed PDF editors, I can't think of any worth installing just to add a phone number.

mspencer

I know OpenOffice lets you save to PDF. It might open from PDF as well. It's worth a try.

ronya

He tried it already and said that OpenOffice "freaked"...

SkyCaptain

PrintScreen to take a screenshot and then paste it into GIMP. Add text and you're done.

mcdermott

SkyCaptain wrote: »

PrintScreen to take a screenshot and then paste it into GIMP. Add text and you're done.

Well, depending on his needs he may want higher resolution that that (which I why I recommended a decent DPI print to an image format, such as .TIF).

Then again, if Plan B involves glue and paper, then maybe this is good enough.

GothicLargo

What's IN the PDF? Text or a picture of text?

It can be either and there's a big difference.

Aldo

I believe Foxit has a PDF Writer with a free trial available. It should be able to do the job. Alternatively: call HQ and ask for a .doc/docx or .gif/jpg/png/bmp version of the file.

Richard M. Nixon

Try using PDF Xchange Viewer (http://www.docu-track.com/downloads/users/) It's not open source but I think you're after free and it is free. You can cover up the existing number with a white square and then type in a new number over top.

I am not exactly sure of the terms of their license as it applies to commercial work so it'd be best to check that out.

Dalboz

Can you just contact the main office and ask for the original files the flier was created from, telling them you need to change the phone number? Then print to PDF. I use CutePDF, which is a freeware program that basically installs as a printer, but it prints to PDF instead of to a physical printer.

Zampanov

Here ya go:

http://www.pdfhammer.com/project.php?id=88e8ea094aad79616d214ec566e24b9daa122799

Free web based PDF editing. Same company also has a pdf to word converter:

http://www.pdftoword.com/

I've had my users utilize both once or twice, and they seem to work just fine.