Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays

From	Marion <marion@facts.com>
Newsgroups	alt.comp.os.windows-11, comp.editors, comp.text.pdf, alt.comp.os.windows-10
Subject	Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays
Date	2025-03-04 23:53 +0000
Organization	BWH Usenet Archive (https://usenet.blueworldhosting.com)
Message-ID	<vq83pv$22l5$1@nnrp.usenet.blueworldhosting.com> (permalink)
References	<vpt55o$2p5o$1@nnrp.usenet.blueworldhosting.com> <20250304191333.f90739d2d79fb5db23232350@g{oogle}mail.com>

Cross-posted to 4 groups.

Show all headers | View raw

On Tue, 4 Mar 2025 19:13:33 +0300, Anton Shepelev wrote :


>> [?] Print book format PDF (FinePrint payware)
> 
> I believe LaTeX has packages for that.  I have produced PDF
> booklets from Postscrpt, with psbook and psnup.  The
> incoming PostScipt was mine, from either LaTeX or GNU Troff.

Thanks for that suggestion as, in the past, I printed booklets.

Printing a booklet requires arranging both sides of the pages in a specific 
order so that when the 8.5x11-inch printed sheets are folded in half, the 
pages appear in the correct sequence as if they were in a booklet.

>> [x] Convert PDF to MSWord or any epub format & vice versa (Calibre)
>> [x] Edit PDF existing text (Adobe Reader commenting, Acrobat payware)
>> [x] Globally search & replace PDF text (Libre Office)
> 
> PDF is meant to be a final format not meant for editing.
> Keep it so.

Understood. But sometimes you want to make minor edits when all you have is 
the PDF and not the original document. This happens a lot, it turns out.

However, back to the printing of booklets, that's one thing I had trouble 
finding free (as in no cost) software as printing a booklet from folded 
8.5x11-inch paper is more complex than standard printing, especially when 
dealing with double-sided printing and odd numbers of pages & title pages.

I'm aware of "pdfbook", but, alas, that requires Python (aurgh!, again!) 
on Windows, but luckily, pdfbook should be easier to use on Linux & Mac.
 <https://pdfbook.readthedocs.io/en/latest/Installation.html>

Unfortunately, the "examples" provided are, um, shall we say underwhelming?
 <https://pdfbook.readthedocs.io/en/latest/Examples.html>

Digging a bit, I think something like this pdfbook command may work:
 pdfbook input.pdf --paper letter --outfile output-booklet.pdf

Supposedly that pdfbook command will consider the number of pages in the 
input.pdf to then automatically order the pages so that when folded, the 
pages are in the correct order.

Can someone with Python installed test it out on a sample PDF for us?

>> [x] Extract images (PDF Exchange Viewer, PDF Shaper)
> 
> SumatraPDF

Thanks for that suggestion. Googling it, apparently SumatraPDF can 
*manually* copy an image which you can then paste into an image editor.

It turns out, I think, based on what I found anyway, that SumatraPDF uses 
an underlying MuPDF library to extract images, so as a result of your 
advice, I'll add muPDF to the line for extracting images.

While I was looking that up, I found that the free (no cost) PDF-XChange 
Editor also can extract images from a PDF, so I'll add that too.

I think I'm going to have to give up on keeping it one line per item.
[x] Extract images (PDF Exchange Editor, PDF Shaper, PDFgear, poppler, muPDF)

>> [x] Reorder pages (mutool)
>> [x] Rotate pages (Acrobat Reader)
> 
> pdftk of course.

Thanks for that suggestion. Checking rotate first, it seems that the 
pdftoolkit rotation of 180 degrees is a great suggestion. Much appreciated.
 pdftk input.pdf cat 1-endsouth output output.pdf

Looking that up, I found that mutool can also rotate, e.g., for 180 degrees
 mutool convert -R 180 input.pdf output.pdf

I found out in that search that the GUIs for PDF-XChange Editor (free) and 
PDF Arranger (free) can also rotate pages and save to a new PDF file.

Apparently Acrobat READER can only rotate the view, but it can't SAVE the 
rotated results, so I'll remove Acrobat Reader from that rotation line.
[x] Rotate pages (pdftk, mutool, PDF-XChange Editor, PDF Arranger)

Now looking at the reordering of pages (which is really a duplicate of 
inserting and deleting pages, isn't it?) the same programs can re-order 
pages, but (as above) the latter two do it graphically, and pdftk is better 
at it than mutool is, but all of them can reorder pages nonetheless.

For example, to flip the order of page 2 and 3 in a pdf using pdftk:
 pdftk input.pdf cat 1 3 2 4-end output output.pdf
But it turned out to be difficult with mutool (possible but difficult).
So I removed muTool because it's just too complicated to reorder with it.
 [x] Reorder pages (pdftk, PDF-XChange Editor, PDF Arranger)
 
Thanks for pointing out the omissions.

>> What are your suggestions (so that everyone benefits from
>> your knowledge)?
> 
> The obvious one -- typsetting software for producing PDFs
> from text, e.g.: LaTeX, (GNU) Troff.

LaTeX seems to be what we have to fall back on when, for example, pdfbook 
primarily focuses on the page reordering aspect of booklet creation 
(although I'm confused since I saw mention that pdfbook is in the pdfjam 
package, which can be installed within a TeX distribution so maybe it can 
all be put together for everyone to easily output booket-style PDFs?).

As noted, LaTeX has sophisticated built-in features to analyze the content 
of the PDF to more intelligently handle page breaks to avoid splitting 
images or creating an awkward text flow.

Digging a bit into LaTeX (which I've never used myself), MiKTeX & TeX Live 
seem to be free (no cost) Windows, Linux & Mac "modern" TeX distributions.
 <https://miktex.org/howto/install-miktex>
 <https://math.asu.edu/resources/computer-resources/texlive-windows>

Also TeXstudio or TeXworks appear to be free (no cost) LaTeX editors.
 <https://www.texstudio.org/>
 <https://www.tug.org/texworks/>
 
Since the expensive cost of free (no cost) software is in the trials and 
tribulations to find the best ones that work, does anyone have experience 
with any of the distributions above for creating a booklet style PDF?

Back to alt.comp.os.windows-11 | Previous | Next — Previous in thread | Find similar

Thread

What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Marion <marion@facts.com> - 2025-02-28 20:09 +0000
  Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-02-28 21:00 +0000
    Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Marion <marion@facts.com> - 2025-02-28 23:56 +0000
      Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Marion <marion@facts.com> - 2025-03-01 00:21 +0000
      Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-03-01 02:53 +0000
        Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Marion <marion@facts.com> - 2025-03-01 06:24 +0000
          Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Marion <marion@facts.com> - 2025-03-01 06:49 +0000
            Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Marion <marion@facts.com> - 2025-03-01 07:21 +0000
              Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-03-01 20:23 +0000
                Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Marion <marion@facts.com> - 2025-03-02 03:18 +0000
                Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Peter Flynn <peter@silmaril.ie> - 2025-03-03 21:38 +0000
                Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-03-03 23:35 +0000
                Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Marion <marion@facts.com> - 2025-03-04 02:35 +0000
                Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-03-04 03:13 +0000
                Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Marion <marion@facts.com> - 2025-03-04 03:31 +0000
                Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays "Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2025-03-04 20:18 +0100
                Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Peter Flynn <peter@silmaril.ie> - 2025-03-04 22:32 +0000
                Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-03-04 23:32 +0000
                Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Peter Flynn <peter@silmaril.ie> - 2025-03-05 22:08 +0000
          Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-03-01 20:17 +0000
            Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Marion <marion@facts.com> - 2025-03-02 03:02 +0000
          Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-03-02 22:03 +0000
            Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Marion <marion@facts.com> - 2025-03-03 03:17 +0000
              Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays G <g@nowhere.invalid> - 2025-03-03 09:19 +0000
                Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Marion <marion@facts.com> - 2025-03-03 17:01 +0000
                Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays G <g@nowhere.invalid> - 2025-03-03 19:08 +0000
                Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Marion <marion@facts.com> - 2025-03-04 03:52 +0000
                Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-03-04 04:41 +0000
                Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Tim Slattery <TimSlattery@utexas.edu> - 2025-03-04 10:23 -0500
                Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Peter Flynn <peter@silmaril.ie> - 2025-03-04 22:39 +0000
                Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Don_from_AZ <djatechNOSPAM@comcast.net.invalid> - 2025-03-04 21:28 -0700
                Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> - 2025-03-05 01:39 -0500
                Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Daniel70 <daniel47@eternal-september.org> - 2025-03-05 20:48 +1100
                Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-03-06 02:18 +0000
                Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Daniel70 <daniel47@eternal-september.org> - 2025-03-06 18:12 +1100
                Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Philip Herlihy <nothing@invalid.com> - 2025-03-06 12:22 +0000
                Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Frank Slootweg <this@ddress.is.invalid> - 2025-03-06 10:45 +0000
                Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays "Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2025-03-06 12:50 +0100
                Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Peter Flynn <peter@silmaril.ie> - 2025-03-07 22:36 +0000
                Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-03-08 01:04 +0000
                Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays "Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2025-03-05 13:26 +0100
                Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> - 2025-03-05 09:04 -0500
                Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> - 2025-03-05 09:33 -0500
                Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays "Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2025-03-05 21:11 +0100
                Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Frank Slootweg <this@ddress.is.invalid> - 2025-03-05 14:39 +0000
                Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> - 2025-03-05 14:59 -0500
                Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Marion <marion@facts.com> - 2025-03-05 21:24 +0000
                Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> - 2025-03-06 00:45 -0500
                Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Frank Slootweg <this@ddress.is.invalid> - 2025-03-06 10:54 +0000
                Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays "Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2025-03-05 21:12 +0100
  Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Anton Shepelev <anton.txt@g{oogle}mail.com> - 2025-03-04 19:13 +0300
    Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Peter Flynn <peter@silmaril.ie> - 2025-03-04 22:43 +0000
      Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-03-04 23:34 +0000
    Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Marion <marion@facts.com> - 2025-03-04 23:58 +0000
      Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Wolf Greenblatt <wolf@greenblatt.net> - 2025-03-04 19:11 -0500
      Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Anton Shepelev <anton.txt@g{oogle}mail.com> - 2025-03-05 12:50 +0300
        Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Zaidy036 <Zaidy036@air.isp.spam> - 2025-03-05 16:50 -0500
    Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Marion <marion@facts.com> - 2025-03-04 23:24 +0000
      Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Peter Flynn <peter@silmaril.ie> - 2025-03-05 22:39 +0000
        Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Philip Herlihy <nothing@invalid.com> - 2025-03-06 12:17 +0000
          Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays "Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2025-03-06 13:33 +0100
          Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Peter Flynn <peter@silmaril.ie> - 2025-03-07 22:43 +0000
    Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Marion <marion@facts.com> - 2025-03-04 23:53 +0000

csiph-web