PDF editors for Linux (free or paid)

[Wrichik Basu]

I need a good pdf editor for Linux. It can be free or paid. My budget is USD 70. Preferably a perpetual licence. It would be great if the software has a trial version, which will enable me to determine whether it suits my needs.

It should have the following capabilities:

• insert/edit text
• OCR

I have already tried the following:

• LibreOffice Draw: Not very helpful. Can't open a simple 30 MB pdf; Ubuntu shows ANR and I have to force quit the application.
• Foxit PhantomPDF: Not available for Linux. Can be installed via wine, but may not work. (But the Foxit Reader is a great alternative to Evince)
• Master PDF editor: I don't like the GUI. In addition, inserting text actually overwrites text.

Any other recommendations?

 

[pbuk]

Haven't used any myself, but based on the technology I should think Sejda is worth a look. Or there are the web-based ones e.g. PDF Candy.

 

[mathman]

CNET and snapfiles have lists both free and paid.

 

[Wrichik Basu]

Haven't used any myself, but based on the technology I should think Sejda is worth a look. Or there are the web-based ones e.g. PDF Candy.

I tried Sejda online, as well as PDF candy, but none of them actually worked. I uploaded the file, clicked on a position to edit the text, and typed something, but that text was not inserted in that position. Instead, it was just written on top of other text.

 

[pbuk]

That's likely to be due to a limitation of the particular PDF document. PDF documents are not designed to be edited, and generally if you only have access to a PDF file and not the source that generated it, it is because the creator doesn't want you to have access to the source.

You can always work around it by inserting an opaque background with your changed text, but if you don't have the right font or you need to reflow a whole section it isn't going to work.

Why do you want to edit someone else's PDF?

 

[Wrichik Basu]

Why do you want to edit someone else's PDF?

I don't need it too often, but when I do, I always find it is worth investing if a perpetual license is available. Recently, one of our professors sent us some notes. It has a lot of typing errors, but he is least interested in correcting them (he is giving out the same notes for years). I can type it out in LaTeX, but that will take quite some time, which I do not have at the moment. A pdf editor would have helped me to simply edit those typos.

 

[anorlunda]

Recently, one of our professors sent us some notes.

Wouldn't it be easier to ask him to re-send the notes in an editable format?

 

[Wrichik Basu]

Wouldn't it be easier to ask him to re-send the notes in an editable format?

Already tried. He won't.

Another reason why I want to buy an editor: Often, I like to scan (using Android apps like Adobe Scan) a few chapters of books that I use a lot, so that I can refer to them on the go (please don't take it otherwise — I never share the scans and thereby create pirated copies of the books). If the pdf editor had OCR capabilities, it would become very easy to search for something in the text.

 

[anorlunda]

If the pdf editor had OCR capabilities, it would become very easy to search for something in the text.

It seems that you sometimes go out of your way to make things difficult for yourself.

Print them, scan the printed pages, use the scanner's OCR. For graphics figures, use screen capture to put each in the clipboard, then paste that into the document you're working on.

Your copyright conscience is up to you. As an author, I would not consider several chapters as fair use. As a PF reader of your posts, I would prefer to not read about your handling of copyrighted information.

 

[PeterDonis]

As an author, I would not consider several chapters as fair use.

Does fair use even apply if a person makes copies that they never share with anyone else?

 

[anorlunda]

Does fair use even apply if a person makes copies that they never share with anyone else?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use

Read that article and you'll find a mind numbing list of maybe yes, maybe no circumstances. It sounds like a mess. Copying chapters from a book, or taking a video of scenes from a live stage performance sound similar on the surface, but are likely to be treated differently in law and in social norms.

But the best practice I think is to not discuss the details of what you copy on PF, unless it is necessary. If someone complains, the mentors have to make a decision about possible violation of PF guidelines. Far better that it's not mentioned in the first place if it is not central to the topic.

 

[PeterDonis]

Read that article and you'll find a mind numbing list of maybe yes, maybe no circumstances. It sounds like a mess.

The general state of copyright law and jurisprudence is certainly a mess, yes. But there does appear to be a general underlying assumption in all of the factors mentioned that the "use" in "fair use" means a copy is made and shared with someone.

best practice I think is to not discuss the details of what you copy on PF, unless it is necessary

I would agree with this.

 

[fluidistic]

I have had luck with Inkscape. Opened documents one page at a time, made any modification, saved the file of the page. Then used a 1 punch knock out command line to assemble each pages into the final modified PDF.

 

[jedishrfu]

And from google I found this list

https://itsfoss.com/pdf-editors-linux/

 

[jedishrfu]

Another approach is to convert pdf to some other format like markdown format or an openoffice document format..

google search can show some possible tools. I saw one site where you simply drop a pdf on it and it converts it to markdown. I never tried it and don’t know how good it is. It says it does it via JavaScript locally but being web based that’s hard to say And for some pdf files one might not want to go that route.

 

[Wrichik Basu]

And from google I found this list

https://itsfoss.com/pdf-editors-linux/

Already tried the ones on that list many days back. Some of them actually can't edit pdf files in the strict sense of the term; they are only for highlighting/putting comments.

 

[Vanadium 50]

Can we close this thread?

The OP doesn't want a "PDF Editor". He wants something that converts PDF back to the word processing source file from whence it came - for under $70. As has been stated, such a thing really doesn't exist. Acrobat Pro comes closest, but costs 6x what the OP is willing to pay. It will convert PDF to Word, but it doesn't exactly do a brilliant job at it, especially if the source word processor wasn't Word. (And this still leaves the OP wih the second part of the problem - going back to PDF)

 

[Wrichik Basu]

Fine. Close it.

 

[berkeman]

Fine. Close it.

Done. Thank you all for participating.