OpenOffice now can edit PDF [Archive]

racoq

June 15th, 2008, 01:51 AM

Quite handy this new plugin from sun. it allows you to import PDF's and edit them directly in writer, a description follows next:

The PDF Import Extension allows modifying existing PDF files for which the original source files do not exist anymore. PDF documents are imported in Draw and Impress to preserve the layout and to allow basic editing. It is the perfect solution for changing dates, numbers or small portions of text. Native PDF forms are not yet imported.

(...)

This is just a beta version and it requires the OpenOffice.org 3.0 beta 2 to work. Please help us to optimize this Extension, any feedback is important for us. Find details about the preferred channel in this
GullFOSS article.

Please test the plugin and report possible bugs, for improving this great feature.

Link:

http://extensions.services.openoffice.org/project/pdfimport

Acglaphotis

June 15th, 2008, 01:56 AM

Awesome, i had to use PDFedit for this until now.

zmjjmz

June 15th, 2008, 02:18 AM

Needs OOo3, I hope it will be included by default for that.

phrostbyte

June 15th, 2008, 02:55 AM

Needs OOo3, I hope it will be included by default for that.

From what I hear PDF editing is one of the planned features of OOo 3.

racoq

June 15th, 2008, 03:18 AM

From what I hear PDF editing is one of the planned features of OOo 3.

The beta is availalabe, and for a beta is quite usable. So we have no excuse to start testing this since it will be a "plus" for any user, IMO the great feature of the next Openoffice release, and eventually may promote user switch from MS Word, at least until next Office release (which i believe will enable edit and save PDF Files) .

The propose of my thread is for the large comunity of Ubuntu, to test this important feature. Then people can't say, "it's a memory Hog" , "its slow and can't render well" , as it is said about other software. I won't say the name of that software, "coofffffirefox", "cough", "cough".

klange

June 15th, 2008, 03:20 AM

It says it requires beta 2, which doesn't come out until July 1st.
Lies?

zmjjmz

June 15th, 2008, 03:20 AM

3 seems to be a big number for the popular OSS :-k
Does anyone know if this is built-in to MS Office?

klange

June 15th, 2008, 03:23 AM

3 seems to be a big number for the popular OSS :-k
Does anyone know if this is built-in to MS Office?

MS Office has no capabilities when it comes to PDF.

Mateo

June 15th, 2008, 03:25 AM

I actually don't like this. PDF's are not meant to be editted. Oh well.

zmjjmz

June 15th, 2008, 03:25 AM

Then this will be instrumental in getting my mom to switch to OOo.

racoq

June 15th, 2008, 03:47 AM

It says it requires beta 2, which doesn't come out until July 1st.
Lies?

I haven't test it yet, althought you have a point there. You can however test it using one of the latest OpenOffice 3.0 snapshots, it will certanly work, see the following link:

http://download.openoffice.org/680/ (http://download.openoffice.org/680/)

71CH

June 15th, 2008, 04:50 AM

So how do I install this after I download it?

kevin11951

June 15th, 2008, 06:46 AM

So how do I install this after I download it?

cd /the/folder/where/it/is

sudo dpkg -i *.deb

RiceMonster

June 15th, 2008, 06:53 AM

you can also simply double click on it in Nautilus if it's a .deb

kevin11951

June 15th, 2008, 07:42 AM

you can also simply double click on it in Nautilus if it's a .deb

well, the open office app, comes in core.deb, math.deb, writer.deb, impress.deb, calc.deb, base.deb, draw.deb, etc...

so to install it, you need to do a *.deb

ad_267

June 15th, 2008, 07:49 AM

Yeah I was under the impression that you weren't supposed to be able to edit a pdf once it was created, but this would be a useful feature.

This explains why there is no PDF support in MS Office natively: http://www.cio.com/article/22058/Adobe_Speaks_Out_on_Microsoft_PDF_Battle
Adobe was a afraid of Microsoft's Embrace, Extent, Extinguish method and fair enough. PDF export is available as a downloaded extra for MS Office.

hartl_vienna

June 15th, 2008, 07:50 AM

Wow, it works great with OO 3 beta. This is a "killer feature" for OpenOffice! :KS

kaboodle_fish

June 15th, 2008, 08:05 AM

So how do I install this after I download it?

In OO Beta 3 select Tools - Extension Manager then navigate to where you saved the file and Add

bash

June 15th, 2008, 11:42 AM

Here is an article about it:

http://www.oooninja.com/2008/06/pdf-import-hybrid-odf-pdfs-extension-30.html

The Hybrid PDF options sounds especially interesting. Really seems like an amazingly clever idea.

guraknugen

June 17th, 2008, 06:28 PM

I actually don't like this. PDF's are not meant to be editted. Oh well.

I have a couple of PDFs which I downloaded from some places. They are like forms, so you can enter things in fields. With the usual PDF readers, such as Adobe Reader, Evince and whatever, you can fill those fields with text and print it out, but when you save it, everything you filled in is gone. So what's the point with that form thing, if it's not possible to save it?

”Editing a pdf” means, of course, more than that, but at least being able to fill in a ”PDF form” and then saving it should be possible. Why not?

rudihawk

June 17th, 2008, 06:58 PM

I actually don't like this. PDF's are not meant to be editted. Oh well.

Not actually. PDF is just a standard so that documents can be read and transported everywhere. Its just another format, e.g like .doc, .odt. Only difference is, up until now the software to edit it has been out of reach of most people.

and MS Office 07 does have 0 capabilities with regard to PDF. In my books = fail. I submit most of my work in .pdf format:guitar:

ssam

June 17th, 2008, 07:34 PM

Mateo

June 17th, 2008, 07:46 PM

I have a couple of PDFs which I downloaded from some places. They are like forms, so you can enter things in fields. With the usual PDF readers, such as Adobe Reader, Evince and whatever, you can fill those fields with text and print it out, but when you save it, everything you filled in is gone. So what's the point with that form thing, if it's not possible to save it?

”Editing a pdf” means, of course, more than that, but at least being able to fill in a ”PDF form” and then saving it should be possible. Why not?

But, for that problem, "editing a pdf" is just a way to hack around Adobe's design flaw. It doesn't fix the problem. The solution is for Adobe to design a way to save the form data to another file.

Another hack around the problem that I'd suggest for you is to print the form and then scan it back to PDF. Not ideal but better than messing with a binary document.

guraknugen

June 18th, 2008, 04:50 PM

Another hack around the problem that I'd suggest for you is to print the form and then scan it back to PDF.

Since that copy will not be editalbe anyway, a better solution should be to Print as PDF (which doesn't require any additional software anyway, since it's installed with Ubuntu by default these days). No scanning necessary, which is good since there are no Linux drivers for my scanner anyway.

Methuselah

June 18th, 2008, 04:54 PM

Why are people saying PDf documents aren't 'meant' to be edited?
How do you think they get created in the first place?

guraknugen

June 18th, 2008, 06:05 PM

the PDF format is not designed with editing in mind.

think of the difference of saying: here is a few thousand words of text, at size X, on A4 pages, when you hit the end of a page, flow onto the next.

and: here is a word, it goes at coordinates x,y on page z. here is another word it goes at ...

now compare the work needed to change those instructions when someone adds a paragraph to the middle, or changes the font size.

to usefully edit PDF, the software has to do a lot of work to convert the information back into a usable format.

Yes, I know that. However, now and then I look for some kind of form that I need to fill in and send to some kind of authority. Their home page often tells me to download the form, print it out, fill it in (using a pen), and send it somewhere with ”snail mail”. Of course I can do that, but I just think it would be nice to fill it in BEFORE printing it out, which indeed is possible in most cases, but I also want to save a copy on my HDD, so if I just could save my filled in form, that would be so nice.

Of course, no one would be happier than me if I first could convert the PDF to an ODF, THEN fill it in, print it out and save it.

But my point is something like ”No, maybe a PDF is not supposed to be edited, but it wouldn't hurt anyone if I could, or at least convert it to a more editable format, preferably ODF”

shanek

January 2nd, 2009, 06:41 AM

pp.

January 2nd, 2009, 09:29 AM

... download the form, print it out, fill it in (using a pen), and send it somewhere with ”snail mail”. Of course I can do that, but I just think it would be nice to fill it in BEFORE printing it out, which indeed is possible in most cases, but I also want to save a copy on my HDD, so if I just could save my filled in form, that would be so nice.

Of course, no one would be happier than me if I first could convert the PDF to an ODF, THEN fill it in, print it out and save it.

If the job is properly done, you can fill in fields in a PDF document, save that document to disk and mail or print later at your leisure.

zika

January 2nd, 2009, 10:47 AM

By the way, if you install openoffice 3 using this repository:
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/openoffice-pkgs/ubuntu intrepid mainThe PDF import plugin is in this repository.
sudo apt-get install openoffice.org-pdfimportCheers

I've installed openoffice.org-pdfimport through Synaptic and when I File->Open .pdf file in OoWriter I just get garbage ... what am I doing wrong?

Update: I should have used OpenDocument in Office.org ... ;) it takes for ages ...

OldBitByter

February 12th, 2009, 08:50 PM

I actually don't like this. PDF's are not meant to be editted. Oh well.

Maybe people shouldn't save things that need editing in PDF's then.:P

guraknugen

February 12th, 2009, 09:17 PM

PDF's are not meant to be editted.

And Compact Cassettes (remember those?) were not originally meant for music.

Heard of the word ”development”?

llamabr

March 21st, 2009, 07:33 PM

I actually don't like this. PDF's are not meant to be editted. Oh well.

I guess don't like sunglasses either, as your nose wasn't "meant" to hold them up.

Ridiculous.

Regarding the design of pdf's, they're "meant" to be a format to make documents portable, across systems and architecture.

That you were previously unable to easily edit them doesn't mean that the rest of us have not been doing so the entire time, nor that doing so is in some way inconsistent with their "nature". I happen to not like putting movies on DVD, since that's not what they're "meant" for. Oh well.

undoIT

July 3rd, 2009, 05:57 PM

I just installed this for Jaunty with the following repository:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/openoffice-pkgs/ubuntu jaunty main

This plugin works fantastically well. I don't have any need for Adobe Acrobat anymore :)

PGScooter

July 29th, 2009, 06:47 AM

that did it for me as well (I also added the key, just google the ppa for instructions on that). Everything installed fine, I had to restart, and then when I opened a pdf it automatically imported it (ie no "import" thing in the file menu, just open it!).

jmjohn

October 25th, 2009, 10:07 PM

RichardLinx

October 26th, 2009, 02:23 AM

Everyone,

Editing PDFs is a normal activity and can be performed by the proprietary Adobe Acrobat software.

The idea the PDFs can't be edited is a misconception. It is good that openoffice allows editing PDFs in Linux.

This thread was started in 2008, and the last post was three months ago...
I don't think there's a misconception that PDF's can't be edited, it was talking about the fact that OpenOffice now supports the editing of PDF which was a feature a lot of people wanted/needed (myself included).

And of course it can be edited by the proprietary Adobe Acrobat Software, Adobe's the company that invented the format in the first place.

jmjohn

November 2nd, 2009, 05:08 AM

Good point.

:)

jmuggins

February 6th, 2010, 01:26 AM

I guess don't like sunglasses either, as your nose wasn't "meant" to hold them up.

Ridiculous.

Regarding the design of pdf's, they're "meant" to be a format to make documents portable, across systems and architecture.

That you were previously unable to easily edit them doesn't mean that the rest of us have not been doing so the entire time, nor that doing so is in some way inconsistent with their "nature". I happen to not like putting movies on DVD, since that's not what they're "meant" for. Oh well.

That may be true, but in some PDFs I use as reference material, it would be nice to reformat a page or two that are landscape instead of portrait.

MHO...

jmuggins

February 6th, 2010, 01:27 AM

mrvaio

February 8th, 2010, 10:54 AM

I have tested it and it doesn't work for me.
Every row in the pdf is inside a container and there is no way to edit them all in once.

I really interested in this feature but it is not so mature to be used in production.

Anyway, thanks.

AbdRahim

May 6th, 2010, 08:35 PM

Did not work for me either. Tried opening pdf w/ OO writer and presentation. Then tried inserting it as OLE object from file. All cases produced an input/output error.:guitar::guitar:

gcbzzzz

July 19th, 2010, 03:03 AM

opens as slides. and misses most of the images.

using version 1.0+OOo3.2

kevin11951

July 19th, 2010, 04:43 AM

opens as slides. and misses most of the images.

using version 1.0+OOo3.2

If its not sensitive, can you post the PDF here?

gauravm

July 27th, 2010, 05:44 PM

If all you wish to do is add to a pdf file (as in filling a form) then the best software I have found for that purpose is xournal. You can open a pdf via "File --> Annotate PDF" and then add to it whatever you choose and then "File --> Export To PDF" or "File --> Print"

This is awesome with a tablet because essentially it has negated my need to ever print anything that I need to then scan back to email! Good for trees!

SeraMea

September 21st, 2010, 11:30 AM

I have used Xournal and like it, but when i'm workin with heavy documents i kind'a need the list (on the left side listing pages and topics) im used to from adobe.
I'm using a tablet, so that list would be really helpfull.

So my question is: how/what app do i use to work with hevy documnets and still manage to take notes with my tablet pen?? And of course a app that will provide me with such a list. It makes it easier to jump from one place to another in a document containing several hundred pages....

Thanks :)