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	2025-03-01 06:49 +0000
Organization	BWH Usenet Archive (https://usenet.blueworldhosting.com)
Message-ID	<vpuame$14bh$1@nnrp.usenet.blueworldhosting.com> (permalink)
References	<vpt55o$2p5o$1@nnrp.usenet.blueworldhosting.com> <vpt865$3r2n0$5@dont-email.me> <vptifl$gqq$1@nnrp.usenet.blueworldhosting.com> <vptss4$3ud2o$3@dont-email.me> <vpu972$gvk$1@nnrp.usenet.blueworldhosting.com>

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On Sat, 1 Mar 2025 06:24:35 -0000 (UTC), Marion wrote :


> A more readily available program to remove metadata might be LibreOffice.
> Also PDFgear online/offline tools <https://www.pdfgear.com/> 
> Also PDF24 online tools <https://tools.pdf24.org/en/remove-pdf-metadata>
> Also Sejda online tools <https://www.sejda.com/edit-pdf-metadata>
> 
> This is getting long so let's break off a tangent for metadata removal.
> Suffice to say that removal of metadata is critically important, which
> means it behooves us to find an easy way for everyone to be able to do it.

My goal, always, is to help everyone with every post, so this post will
delve into details since I'm all about solving the problem for everyone.

Let's break into a tangent for the removal of metadata, which is critically
important for privacy, where let's just state what can be in PDF metadata.

Some of the basic information hidden in PDF metadata can be:
 Title: The name of the document.  
 Author: The person or entity who created the document.  
 Subject: A brief description of the document's content.  
 Keywords: Terms that describe the document's content, used for searching.  
 Creation Date: The date and time when the PDF was created.  
 Modification Date: The date and time when the PDF was last modified.  
 Creator: The application used to create the PDF.  
 Producer: The application used to convert the document to PDF.

While more advanced hidden information in PDF metadata might be:
 XMP Metadata: More extensive and customizable metadata
 Rights Management: Information related to copyright and usage permissions.  
 Security Settings: Details about encryption and access restrictions.  
 Accessibility Metadata: Assistive technologies to help interpret the PDF.  
 Embedded File Metadata: Embedded files (like images) have metadata too!

What irks me on metadata is that in my Adobe Acrobat version 6 payware, I
can't remove my PC username in the PDF metadata, which stinks for privacy.

However, what also is an issue are online metadata-removal tools, where,
well, having grown up during the Cold War where I had to duck and cover, I
am leery of anything online, especially an online privacy protection tool.

So if I discount the following online tools for removal of metadata
 [x]PDFgear online tools <https://www.pdfgear.com/> 
 [x]PDF24 online tools <https://tools.pdf24.org/en/remove-pdf-metadata>
 [x]Sejda online tools <https://www.sejda.com/edit-pdf-metadata>

That's leaves us, currently, with the following for metadata removal:
 LibreOffice <https://www.libreoffice.org/download/download-libreoffice/>
 PDFGear <https://www.pdfgear.com/pdfgear-for-windows/>

I don't need to delve into LibreOffice for most of the people here.
So let's take up how PDFGear does the removal of PDF metadata.
 <https://downloadfiles.pdfgear.com/releases/windows/pdfgear_setup_v2.1.12.exe>
 Name: pdfgear_setup_v2.1.12.exe
 Size: 136412680 bytes (130 MiB)
 SHA256: C8A19A4A06FB8D28812916FF1735CD4DC0F82BF16FBC5100BBEB71A44F32CCF9
 Defaults to: C:\Program Files\PDFgear 

Upon launching, PDFGear phones home via the default browser (e.g., TOR):
 <https://www.pdfgear.com/congrats/?action=install>

Wow. I mean wow. This is kind of like Calibre, upon first inspection.
Just wow. It does a lot. Pretty much PDF to anything (e.g., PDF to Word).
[Of course, with varying levels of "doing something" but that's for later.]

Let's just figure out how to use PDFGear, offline, for metadata removal.
This is getting long in the tooth, so let's close this article with that.

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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

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