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PDF manipulation is IMHO a niche application. If one really has to do that at scale, it would be probably better to fix the problem upstream to generate it corr
by samus 3y ago
PDF manipulation is IMHO a niche application. If one really has to do that at scale, it would be probably better to fix the problem upstream to generate it correctly in the first place, or to layer the changes on top of the existing PDF and sign it.
- dahart 3y agoThat’s like saying image, audio, or video editing is niche. The number of PDF editing apps online suggests you might have formed an opinion before doing any research? Apparently lots and lots of people want to edit PDF files, enough that there’s a ton of competition. Why do you assume editing a PDF means the file is somehow incorrect, or that there exists any viable upstream solution? It’s more likely the edits are intended to make a new version, and don’t even belong upstream, and that editors have no access to upstream anyway. In addition to editing, there’s a whole industry of scraping PDF publications for data.
- samus 3y agoYeah, I admit this was a risky statement :-) Editing the PDF just seems like the wrong place to place the edit since it is a format intended for interchange and archivation. Layering changes on top makes total sense. Changing existing objects seems fragile. But maybe I feel that way because the format is known for being so complicated and bespoke that only Adobe's tools can edit it reliably. Just about any document format which can be converted to PDF is easier to edit, therefore it would make more sense to apply changes before conversion to PDF, if at all possible. I agree that reading and scraping PDFs on scale is a very common operation.
- dahart 3y agoIt is easier & better to edit before baking to PDF, that is true.