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Complex non-user tool

There are no FOSS programs that really let you edit the base content of a PDF, it seems. Not even any free programs. The PDF format is so complex that it is really almost impossible to manipulate, despite being in theory an open format. The content is mostly ASCII, but the structure is so complicated that does not do you much good. A tool like pdftk lets you "uncompress" the pdf to a more pure ASCII. Notepad doesn't like the line endings, but it looks good in Wordpad. In theory, you could now edit with a binary editor -- if only you could understand the structure. PDFedit is 3MB, and easy to unzip. But it depends on cygwin, which is very complicated -- unless you already have experience with cygwin, it is not worth trying this. First install base cygwin, then get X windows working, then add the QT3 and QT3-bin options of cygwin. Now overlay the unpacked PDFedit on top of cygwin, according the the PDFedit readme at the top of the structure tree. Now if you are very lucky and get PATH working right etc run startwxin.bat (or whatever is the proper way to start X) and maybe you can start pdfedit and then be able to load a pdf file. But even after all that, my displayed text font was invisible. More to the point, PDFedit is a power tool for extreme experts. All it does is give you access to the internal PDF file structure. Which is so complex, you will not actually be able to do anything. -69.87.202.45 01:20, 21 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You misunderstand PDF: It is not meant to be editable.--Oneiros 15:57, 21 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Which would be exactly what makes this program so important. And so frustrating, at this point in it's development, because it is such a great challenge to use. -69.87.204.80 00:49, 3 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

LiveCD?

Does any liveCD contain PDFedit? This would be the easiest way to try it. -69.87.202.45 01:20, 21 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It appears that Custom NimbleX DIY Linux allows easily building a livecd that includes pdfedit. http://www.howtoforge.com/editing_pdf_files_pdfedit_ubuntu_feisty looks like a good how-to, with a good demo sequence of actually using pdfedit - very important because this is such a technical tool. -69.87.204.80 19:48, 2 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The latest SAM Linux livecd includes PDFedit. -69.87.204.80 00:45, 3 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The latest Sam Linux livecd 2007.1test1 is 700MB that does indeed include PDFedit. But it seems to be an old 0.2.3 version, and crashes quickly every time I try to actually use it. -69.87.203.112 00:45, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]