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The lack of a good PDF editor in Linux has always seemed strange to me, considering the relative frequency of "fiddle with a PDF" tasks like splicing pages and

The lack of a good PDF editor in Linux has always seemed strange to me, considering the relative frequency of "fiddle with a PDF" tasks like splicing pages and so on. Sure you can do it with Pdftk (or stapler these days), and a mish-mash of pdfinfo, Imagemagick and so on but the GUI programs mostly seem pretty bad offerings considering they're a fairly thin shell around library operations.

scrollaway 3y ago
I use masterpdfeditor, but it’s not free nor open source. It’s still an amazing piece of software though.
- rendx 3y ago
  +1
nip 3y ago
Have a look at https://simplePDF.eu https://simplePDF.eu – online like PDFTool.org and with local processing as well. It’s free and does not require an account (I don’t like websites that force you to sign up to do anything) Disclosure: I’m the solo developer behind it
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- laydn 3y ago
  It does say "edit PDF", but it doesn't really seem to allow editing any text on any PDF files.
  - nip 3y ago
    “Editor” is that people Google and look for. You can add (“merge”), remove, delete pages, which is technically editing. You can annotate the document by adding text, pictures, signatures, checkboxes as well as fill PDF form fields: unfortunately as you noticed you cannot “edit” existing text. (I initially used the term annotator but it confused people so much that I changed it for edit and editor)
ghgr 3y ago
I've been using pdfarranger for years without issue. It's even available in the Debian (and probably Ubuntu) repositories (sudo apt-get install pdfarranger)
knallfrosch 3y ago
There's a lack of good PDF editing in general. Adobes OCR can't handle a simple black-white tax document. To say nothing of OCRing scans. God help you if one text field wasn't recognized, because you sure as hell can't add the missing field. And handy functions like "combine two PDF pages into one" (for example, combining front and back scan of something) are always easier to do by Googling than by using any software, even when you pay for it.
- totoglazer 3y ago
  Preview.app is surprisingly good at a lot of this. Someone should clone it for Linux/Windows.
  - yunohn 3y ago
    That’s odd, people keep saying this, but Preview doesn’t work on a lot of PDFs for me. Do you have a good explainer of what it can do?
    - wildrhythms 3y ago
      What do you mean it 'doesn't work'? I use Preview to delete pages, convert to black and white, annotate (redact, add signature, circle, highlight) on PDFs weekly.
      - yunohn 3y ago
        Ah I see what you mean, I was talking more about “editing” in the sense being able to fill all kinds of form entry and edit them and other text. For example, I want to have a “check” in a form by clicking, not by dragging an “X” onto the box.
    - JKCalhoun 3y ago
      Curious if you have some sample PDFs that are problematic. I'm not doubting you, it's just that I would love to forward them on the the team at Apple that maintain Preview so they can determine what the issue is and address it. Since CoreGraphics on MacOS has fairly rich PDF support, Preview can do some degree of PDF manipulation: reorder pages, delete pages, insert pages, rotate, crop, annotate, etc.
nemoniac 3y ago
xournal++ https://xournalpp.github.io/ https://xournalpp.github.io/
lighttower 3y ago
qoppa PDF studio. we're happy paying customers 7 years. biggest obstacle to using it widely is that people are used to Adobe Suite.
KeplerBoy 3y ago
ms-edge is surprisingly good for quick pdf annotations and my preferred PDF reader on Linux. It's a crazy timeline we're on.
nolok 3y ago
If you want to add page, remove page, split, merge, reorder, re-orient all or individual pages, ... May I recommend the glorious NAPS2 [1] ? It's meant as a scanning tool but works just fine without scanning just drag and drop a pdf on it. It doesn't do in-page editing or annotation, it's "one layer above" that. [1] https://www.naps2.com/ https://www.naps2.com/
camel-cdr 3y ago
These days inkscape has pretty good pdf editing support.
blfr 3y ago
I have been using LibreOffice Draw to fill out forms, not interactive ones but those they expect you to print and pen in.
mmwelt 3y ago
My solution has been to use PDF-XChange Editor in Wine. Yes, this isn't a Linux native solution, but it works really well.
spacebeer 3y ago
Pdfsam and Masterpdf have native linux versions. Both are quite good. Though I use(d) Flexipdf via wine
dwrodri 3y ago
IMO the reason PDF tools are bad on linux has a lot to do with history. Per Wikipedia, PDF is a standard that was originally developed by Adobe. It was a proprietary standard for ~15 years before it became an open standard. Nowadays, the relationship between Adobe and PDF is like Google and Chromium. Other PDF tools are playing catch up, but it’s en enormous amount of tedious work that mist would only do for a good paycheck, which is hard to find outside of Adobe.

scrollaway 3y ago

I use masterpdfeditor, but it’s not free nor open source. It’s still an amazing piece of software though.

rendx 3y ago
+1

nip 3y ago

Have a look at https://simplePDF.eu https://simplePDF.eu – online like PDFTool.org and with local processing as well. It’s free and does not require an account (I don’t like websites that force you to sign up to do anything) Disclosure: I’m the solo developer behind it

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
laydn 3y ago
It does say "edit PDF", but it doesn't really seem to allow editing any text on any PDF files.
- nip 3y ago
  “Editor” is that people Google and look for. You can add (“merge”), remove, delete pages, which is technically editing. You can annotate the document by adding text, pictures, signatures, checkboxes as well as fill PDF form fields: unfortunately as you noticed you cannot “edit” existing text. (I initially used the term annotator but it confused people so much that I changed it for edit and editor)

ghgr 3y ago

I've been using pdfarranger for years without issue. It's even available in the Debian (and probably Ubuntu) repositories (sudo apt-get install pdfarranger)

knallfrosch 3y ago

There's a lack of good PDF editing in general. Adobes OCR can't handle a simple black-white tax document. To say nothing of OCRing scans. God help you if one text field wasn't recognized, because you sure as hell can't add the missing field. And handy functions like "combine two PDF pages into one" (for example, combining front and back scan of something) are always easier to do by Googling than by using any software, even when you pay for it.

totoglazer 3y ago
Preview.app is surprisingly good at a lot of this. Someone should clone it for Linux/Windows.
- yunohn 3y ago
  That’s odd, people keep saying this, but Preview doesn’t work on a lot of PDFs for me. Do you have a good explainer of what it can do?
  - wildrhythms 3y ago
    What do you mean it 'doesn't work'? I use Preview to delete pages, convert to black and white, annotate (redact, add signature, circle, highlight) on PDFs weekly.
    - yunohn 3y ago
      Ah I see what you mean, I was talking more about “editing” in the sense being able to fill all kinds of form entry and edit them and other text. For example, I want to have a “check” in a form by clicking, not by dragging an “X” onto the box.
  - JKCalhoun 3y ago
    Curious if you have some sample PDFs that are problematic. I'm not doubting you, it's just that I would love to forward them on the the team at Apple that maintain Preview so they can determine what the issue is and address it. Since CoreGraphics on MacOS has fairly rich PDF support, Preview can do some degree of PDF manipulation: reorder pages, delete pages, insert pages, rotate, crop, annotate, etc.

nemoniac 3y ago

xournal++ https://xournalpp.github.io/ https://xournalpp.github.io/

lighttower 3y ago

qoppa PDF studio. we're happy paying customers 7 years. biggest obstacle to using it widely is that people are used to Adobe Suite.

KeplerBoy 3y ago

ms-edge is surprisingly good for quick pdf annotations and my preferred PDF reader on Linux. It's a crazy timeline we're on.

nolok 3y ago

If you want to add page, remove page, split, merge, reorder, re-orient all or individual pages, ... May I recommend the glorious NAPS2 [1] ? It's meant as a scanning tool but works just fine without scanning just drag and drop a pdf on it. It doesn't do in-page editing or annotation, it's "one layer above" that. [1] https://www.naps2.com/ https://www.naps2.com/

camel-cdr 3y ago

These days inkscape has pretty good pdf editing support.

blfr 3y ago

I have been using LibreOffice Draw to fill out forms, not interactive ones but those they expect you to print and pen in.

mmwelt 3y ago

My solution has been to use PDF-XChange Editor in Wine. Yes, this isn't a Linux native solution, but it works really well.

spacebeer 3y ago

Pdfsam and Masterpdf have native linux versions. Both are quite good. Though I use(d) Flexipdf via wine

dwrodri 3y ago

IMO the reason PDF tools are bad on linux has a lot to do with history. Per Wikipedia, PDF is a standard that was originally developed by Adobe. It was a proprietary standard for ~15 years before it became an open standard. Nowadays, the relationship between Adobe and PDF is like Google and Chromium. Other PDF tools are playing catch up, but it’s en enormous amount of tedious work that mist would only do for a good paycheck, which is hard to find outside of Adobe.