Subject: Re: [Techtalk] Editing a PDF file

Dan Shearer dan at shearer.org
Tue Jun 29 21:19:23 EST 2004


On Tue, Jun 29, 2004 at 12:09:19AM +1000, raen7 at ihug.com.au wrote:

> As Isabelle notes, you can "print" the PDF file to a PS file. (Most 
> Linux programs that can print allow you to "print to a file," which 
> means saving in a file the PostScript instructions that would normally 
> be sent to the printer.)

Ghostscript comes with a utility called 'pdf2ps' which might have the
same effect. It also might not -- I find it is always good to have
multiple tools for dealing with Postscript because in between the many
combination of generators, readers and processors lies any number of
misunderstandings :-)

> PostScript is an open format. You can open it with a text editor and 
> read it if you like! A good PostScript programmer might amuse himself by 
> coding the answers by hand. However, most of us would prefer to open the 
> PostScript file in a graphics editor to write your answers to the questions.
> 
> Uh, does anyone know of such a graphics editor? 

Someone I know in OSS recently concluded that PDF editing is about the
one thing that closed source can do and OSS just can't. Maybe someone
here can prove this is not so!

http://www.verypdf.com/ for example, all Windows tools and quite
impressive.

Or you can compare the free and payware tools at
http://www.planetpdf.com/mainpage.asp?MenuID=193&WebPageID=612

> Does anyone know of a graphics editor that allows you to 
> modify and save a PostScript file?

Not really. http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Network/1958/pstoedit
can save to various editable formats, after a fashion. That link goes to
a site with a bandwidth limit (maybe someone could mirror it; its
blocked for the moment as I type this.)

There are Windows programs that convert PDF to formats such as Word.

-- 
Dan Shearer
dan at shearer.org


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