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Groups > alt.comp.os.windows-10 > #182637 > unrolled thread
| Started by | Marion <marion@facts.com> |
|---|---|
| First post | 2025-02-28 20:09 +0000 |
| Last post | 2025-03-06 16:19 +0100 |
| Articles | 20 on this page of 64 — 15 participants |
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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
Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Michael Logies <logies@t-online.de> - 2025-03-06 16:19 +0100
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| From | Marion <marion@facts.com> |
|---|---|
| Date | 2025-02-28 20:09 +0000 |
| Subject | What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays |
| Message-ID | <vpt55o$2p5o$1@nnrp.usenet.blueworldhosting.com> |
In a recent thread, the perennial topic came up, which needs updating: *Software for creating and editing PDFs* <https://www.novabbs.com/computers/article-flat.php?id=9874&group=alt.comp.os.windows-11#9874> Funny story: Decades ago, in the Silicon Valley, I asked my company IT department to consider PDFs and they wrote back vehemently that they researched what PDF was (as it was brand new, but they knew about PostScript) and they wrote a scathing denial email saying emphatically that they do NOT want to "support yet another standard" (Microsoft Office being their standard at that time). Heh heh heh... I wish I saved that email... It has been a few years... I think collectively we need to update this chart of the single best freeware for the stated PDF editing needs... [?] Print book format PDF (FinePrint payware) [x] Add or concatenate pages (pdftk, acrobat payware) [x] Add signature (Adobe Reader Fill-and-sign sign-yourself tool) [x] Archive sites (wkhtmltopdf, Acrobat payware,fastone scroll capture) [x] Convert PDF to MSWord or any epub format & vice versa (Calibre) [x] Create PDF new text (Irfanview or Paint.NET plugins + Ghostscript) [x] Edit PDF existing text (Adobe Reader commenting, Acrobat payware) [x] Extract images (PDF Exchange Viewer, PDF Shaper) [x] Fast PDF reader: (Sumatra or Foxit) [x] Globally search & replace PDF text (Libre Office) [x] Merge PDFs (pdfsam, pdftk) [x] OCR, PDF-Xchange, freeOCR (paperfile.net), GOCR (jocr.sourceforge.net) [x] Online shrink PDF https://www.adobe.com/acrobat/online/compress-pdf.html [x] PDF text to audio file (Balabolka) [x] Print sans username in the properties (Libre Office Writer) [x] Remove pages (pdfsam, pdftk) [x] Remove restrictions (Ghostscript & Ghostview with ps2edit & pdfwrite or pdf2djvu) [x] Renumber pages (Acrobat Reader) [x] Reorder pages (mutool) [x] Rotate pages (Acrobat Reader) [x] Shrink PDFs (ImageMagick or Acrobat payware or rlvision shareware) [x] Tile PDFs (i.e., to print large posters) (Posterazor) [?] What other tasks do you do to edit or modify a PDF file? What are your suggestions (so that everyone benefits from your knowledge)?
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| From | Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> |
|---|---|
| Date | 2025-02-28 21:00 +0000 |
| Message-ID | <vpt865$3r2n0$5@dont-email.me> |
| In reply to | #182637 |
On Fri, 28 Feb 2025 20:09:29 -0000 (UTC), Marion wrote: > ... I think collectively we need to update this > chart of the single best freeware for the stated PDF editing needs... I prefer Free software to freeware, myself. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeware> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software>
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| From | Marion <marion@facts.com> |
|---|---|
| Date | 2025-02-28 23:56 +0000 |
| Message-ID | <vptifl$gqq$1@nnrp.usenet.blueworldhosting.com> |
| In reply to | #182638 |
On Fri, 28 Feb 2025 21:00:53 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote : >> ... I think collectively we need to update this >> chart of the single best freeware for the stated PDF editing needs... > > I prefer Free software to freeware, myself. > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeware> > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software> Thanks for the clarification where I see, from your links, that "freeware" is about cost, while "free software" is about user rights and freedoms. While I appreciate the gentle word-use admonition, it's kind of like when I ask people to use "lend" as a verb vs "loan" as a noun; or when I notice people using "further" for "farther" in terms of distances; or when people use "less" instead of "fewer" for things that can be counted; or when people use "dirt" when they really mean "soil"; or when they call a "stone" a "rock" when all of these things are actually not what people think. But not many people know those distinctions, such as what it really means for two people to be "Platonic", although it's not as bad as when people say "I could care less" when what they mean is the exact opposite feeling. Taking your kind advice in hand, I see The key difference between "freeware" and "free software" lies in the concept of freedom, not just cost, in terms of who retains copyright and controls distribution and modification, specifically the freedom to run the program for any purpose, such as to study how the program works and to maybe change it, and maybe even redistribute modified versions. I accept your suggestion to keep in mind that free software is often available at no cost, not all software available at no cost is free software. With that taken care of to an appropriate level of clarification, what I ask the team at large to help out for, is to flesh out this table. What else is needed to be done with a PDF file & which programs do it? [?] Print book format PDF (FinePrint payware) [x] Add or concatenate pages (pdftk, acrobat payware) [x] Add signature (Adobe Reader Fill-and-sign sign-yourself tool) [x] Archive sites (wkhtmltopdf, Acrobat payware,fastone scroll capture) [x] Convert PDF to MSWord or any epub format & vice versa (Calibre) [x] Create PDF new text (Irfanview or Paint.NET plugins + Ghostscript) [x] Edit PDF existing text (Adobe Reader commenting, Acrobat payware) [x] Extract images (PDF Exchange Viewer, PDF Shaper) [x] Fast PDF reader: (Sumatra or Foxit) [x] Globally search & replace PDF text (Libre Office) [x] Merge PDFs (pdfsam, pdftk) [x] OCR, PDF-Xchange, freeOCR (paperfile.net), GOCR (jocr.sourceforge.net) [x] Online shrink PDF https://www.adobe.com/acrobat/online/compress-pdf.html [x] PDF text to audio file (Balabolka) [x] Print sans username in the properties (Libre Office Writer) [x] Remove pages (pdfsam, pdftk) [x] Remove restrictions (Ghostscript & Ghostview with ps2edit & pdfwrite or pdf2djvu) [x] Renumber pages (Acrobat Reader) [x] Reorder pages (mutool) [x] Rotate pages (Acrobat Reader) [x] Shrink PDFs (ImageMagick or Acrobat payware or rlvision shareware) [x] Tile PDFs (i.e., to print large posters) (Posterazor) [?] What other common tasks do you do to edit or modify a PDF file?
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| From | Marion <marion@facts.com> |
|---|---|
| Date | 2025-03-01 00:21 +0000 |
| Message-ID | <vptjun$2c0k$1@nnrp.usenet.blueworldhosting.com> |
| In reply to | #182647 |
On Fri, 28 Feb 2025 23:56:37 -0000 (UTC), Marion wrote : >> With that taken care of to an appropriate level of clarification, what I >> ask the team at large to help out for, is to flesh out this table. > Password protecting a .pdf file. Hi Rick, I've written tutorials on how to REMOVE PDF restrictions, but I never thought about *adding* PDF restrictions, such as password protection. So I've added to the chart of things people want to do with a PDF: [x] Offline encrypt PDF with a password (pdfencrypt) <https://pdfencrypt.net/> <https://pdfencrypt.net/files/setup.exe> Name: setup.exe Size: 5515925 bytes (5386 KiB) SHA256: 7D5B37F986EBC374772CB749FAA4B4DA39D466D14A03BEE76B13800E59131992 What else is needed to do with a PDF that we haven't discussed in the past?
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| From | Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> |
|---|---|
| Date | 2025-03-01 02:53 +0000 |
| Message-ID | <vptss4$3ud2o$3@dont-email.me> |
| In reply to | #182647 |
On Fri, 28 Feb 2025 23:56:37 -0000 (UTC), Marion wrote: > [x] Add or concatenate pages > [x] Merge PDFs > [x] Print sans username in the properties > [x] Remove pages > [x] Reorder pages Just note that the PikePDF toolkit is very handy for performing all these tasks from a Python script. As an example use of it, I wrote this command- line tool <https://gitlab.com/ldo/acrid>, which lets you examine and change/add/delete the metadata associated with a PDF file -- both the old- style format and the XMP format.
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| From | Marion <marion@facts.com> |
|---|---|
| Date | 2025-03-01 06:24 +0000 |
| Message-ID | <vpu972$gvk$1@nnrp.usenet.blueworldhosting.com> |
| In reply to | #182652 |
On Sat, 1 Mar 2025 02:53:56 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote : > Just note that the PikePDF toolkit is very handy for performing all these > tasks from a Python script. As an example use of it, I wrote this command- > line tool <https://gitlab.com/ldo/acrid>, which lets you examine and > change/add/delete the metadata associated with a PDF file -- both the old- > style format and the XMP format. Thanks for the suggestion of PikePDF, which I was wholly unaware of, since the list was taken from discussions on the windows newsgroups over time. I'm surprised I missed a mention of PDF-related freeware, so I searched. First, I searched the c.t.p & a.c.o.w-10 archives for mention of PikePDF: <https://groups.google.com/g/comp.text.pdf> <https://www.novabbs.com/computers/search.php?group=comp.text.pdf> <https://www.novabbs.com/computers/search.php?group=alt.comp.os.windows-10> The Google Groups c.t.p search returned zero hits for "PikePDF". The Nova BBS c.t.p search returned one hit. *How to remove a link in a PDF that is found in a thousand pages* <https://www.novabbs.com/computers/article-flat.php?id=363&group=comp.text.pdf#363> Likewise, the Nova BBS a.c.o.w-10 search returned that same hit. <https://www.novabbs.com/computers/article-flat.php?id=79154&group=alt.comp.os.windows-10#79154> The contents are (verbatim, in toto): Write a program using a PDF-manipulation toolkit. I have had good results writing Python code using pikepdf <https://github.com/pikepdf/pikepdf> At that web github location is the following description: PikePDF: A Python library for reading and writing PDF, powered by QPDF Documentation: <https://pikepdf.readthedocs.io/en/latest/> "pikepdf is a library intended for developers who want to create, manipulate, parse, repair, and abuse the PDF format. It supports reading and write PDFs, including creating from scratch. Thanks to QPDF, it supports linearizing PDFs and access to encrypted PDFs. It is a low level library that requires knowledge of PDF internals and some familiarity with the PDF specification. It does not provide a user interface of its own." First, I had to look up what "QPFD" was: <https://sourceforge.net/projects/qpdf/> "QPDF is a C++ library and set of programs that inspect & manipulate the structure of PDF files. It can encrypt and linearize files, expose the internals of a PDF file, and do many other operations useful to end users and PDF developers." Linearization, by the way, is optimizing (usually for the web). Apparently QPDF is intended to perform content-preserving transformations of PDF files by changing PDF structures without altering visual contents. The description of PikePDF provides the following examples of what it does: [x]Pikepdf would help you build apps that do things like: A cartoon sketch of a pike [x]Copy pages from one PDF into another [x]Split and merge PDFs [x]Extract content from a PDF such as images [x]Replace content such as replacing an image without altering the rest of the file [x]Repair, reformat or linearize PDFs [x]Change the size of pages and reposition content [x]Optimize PDFs similar to Acrobat's features by downsampling images, [x]deduplicating [x]Calculate charges for a scanning project based on the materials scanned [x]Alter a PDF to meet a target specification such as PDF/A or PDF/X [x]Add or modify PDF metadata [x]Add, remove, extract, and modify PDF attachments (i.e. embedded files) [x]Create well-formed but invalid PDFs for testing purposes Bingo! *Add or modify PDF metadata* OK. I've confirmed what you've explained to us, which is the combination of Python scripts, PikePDF and the underlying QPDF can remove PDF metadata. I appreciate your suggested site <https://gitlab.com/ldo/acrid>, which will help the programmers here who can take advantage of your kind offering. Even though I go back to the sixties and seventies in programming (COBOL, Fortran77 before there was a IV, IBM Assembly, Motorola 68701, etc.) I swore off programming at some point, so I can't make use of these tools. But others who know a lot more than I do about programming certainly can. I would like to add it to the summary chart but it may be too eclectic. 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.
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| From | Marion <marion@facts.com> |
|---|---|
| Date | 2025-03-01 06:49 +0000 |
| Message-ID | <vpuame$14bh$1@nnrp.usenet.blueworldhosting.com> |
| In reply to | #182656 |
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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| From | Marion <marion@facts.com> |
|---|---|
| Date | 2025-03-01 07:21 +0000 |
| Message-ID | <vpuci9$m8g$1@nnrp.usenet.blueworldhosting.com> |
| In reply to | #182657 |
On Sat, 1 Mar 2025 06:49:51 -0000 (UTC), Marion wrote : > Let's just figure out how to use PDFGear, offline, for metadata removal. Given everything I do is intended also for the benefit of everyone else, first I need a sample PDF that has metadata that everyone can access. Let's try this: <https://www.hekatron.de/fileadmin/user_upload/testfolder/Sample.pdf> Name: Sample.pdf Size: 37545 bytes (36 KiB) SHA256: 2534C7C146709BD2881BF2A791F44A3EFC31A7230EA0D400AA17E3E8FE5DE279 Good. In Adobe Acrobat 6 payware, there is metadata that we can test. Acrobat6:File > Document Properties > Description > Title: PDF Metadata Sample Author: Nigel Maddocks Subject: Test Document Created: 8/21/2015 1:42:21 AM <== harder to remove than you'd think Modified: 8/21/2015 1:45:31 AM Application: Acrobat PDFMaker 15 for Word <== harder to remove also etc. Since not everyone has Acrobat payware, I'll describe how to look at the metadata using PDFGear (so that everyone benefits from every action). Looking at the UserGuide, this appears to be the procedure (simplified): <https://www.pdfgear.com/windows-user-guide/introduction-pdfgear.htm> a. C:\Program Files\PDFgear\PDFLauncher.exe b. PDFgear:Open File > Sample.pdf c. PDFgear:Help > Document Properties d. You can manually remove some, but not all the document properties [x]Title [x]Author [x]Subject [x]Keywords [_]Creator [_]Producer [_]Created [_]Modified etc. e. Open in another tool to check if the metadata was removed. Given this worked (for some degree of "working") to remove the most egregious metadata, can I declare this a success for the team? [x] Metadata removal (LibreOffice Writer, PDFGear offline)
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| From | Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> |
|---|---|
| Date | 2025-03-01 20:23 +0000 |
| Message-ID | <vpvqbb$cd2j$2@dont-email.me> |
| In reply to | #182658 |
On Sat, 1 Mar 2025 07:21:46 -0000 (UTC), Marion wrote:
> Let's try this:
> <https://www.hekatron.de/fileadmin/user_upload/testfolder/Sample.pdf>
ldo> acrid showinfo Sample.pdf
{
"/ModDate": "D:20150821094531+01'00'",
"/Subject": "Test Document",
"/Title": "PDF Metadata Sample",
"/Comments": "",
"/Author": "Nigel Maddocks",
"/CreationDate": "D:20150821094221+01'00'",
"/Keywords": "12345678",
"/Producer": "Adobe PDF Library 15.0",
"/Creator": "Acrobat PDFMaker 15 for Word",
"/Company": "",
"/SourceModified": "D:20150821084155",
"Metadata": «see below»
}
ldo> acrid getxmp Sample.pdf
<?xpacket begin="" id="W5M0MpCehiHzreSzNTczkc9d"?>
<x:xmpmeta xmlns:x="adobe:ns:meta/" x:xmptk="Adobe XMP Core 5.6-c015 81.157285, 2014/12/12-00:43:15 ">
<rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#">
<rdf:Description rdf:about=""
xmlns:xmp="http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/"
xmlns:xmpMM="http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/mm/"
xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"
xmlns:pdf="http://ns.adobe.com/pdf/1.3/"
xmlns:pdfx="http://ns.adobe.com/pdfx/1.3/">
<xmp:ModifyDate>2015-08-21T09:45:31+01:00</xmp:ModifyDate>
<xmp:CreateDate>2015-08-21T09:42:21+01:00</xmp:CreateDate>
<xmp:MetadataDate>2015-08-21T09:45:31+01:00</xmp:MetadataDate>
<xmp:CreatorTool>Acrobat PDFMaker 15 for Word</xmp:CreatorTool>
<xmpMM:DocumentID>uuid:32f55d7c-7ef1-46ca-85c0-b5b91509ff82</xmpMM:DocumentID>
<xmpMM:InstanceID>uuid:4da38cf4-2b42-417c-b34e-f529c34ac6cc</xmpMM:InstanceID>
<xmpMM:subject>
<rdf:Seq>
<rdf:li>1</rdf:li>
</rdf:Seq>
</xmpMM:subject>
<dc:format>application/pdf</dc:format>
<dc:title>
<rdf:Alt>
<rdf:li xml:lang="x-default">PDF Metadata Sample</rdf:li>
</rdf:Alt>
</dc:title>
<dc:description>
<rdf:Alt>
<rdf:li xml:lang="x-default">Test Document</rdf:li>
</rdf:Alt>
</dc:description>
<dc:creator>
<rdf:Seq>
<rdf:li>Nigel Maddocks</rdf:li>
</rdf:Seq>
</dc:creator>
<dc:subject>
<rdf:Bag>
<rdf:li>12345678</rdf:li>
</rdf:Bag>
</dc:subject>
<pdf:Producer>Adobe PDF Library 15.0</pdf:Producer>
<pdf:Keywords>12345678</pdf:Keywords>
<pdfx:SourceModified>D:20150821084155</pdfx:SourceModified>
<pdfx:Company/>
<pdfx:Comments/>
</rdf:Description>
</rdf:RDF>
</x:xmpmeta>
<?xpacket end="w"?>"
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| From | Marion <marion@facts.com> |
|---|---|
| Date | 2025-03-02 03:18 +0000 |
| Message-ID | <vq0ilp$1lnp$1@nnrp.usenet.blueworldhosting.com> |
| In reply to | #182685 |
On Sat, 1 Mar 2025 20:23:08 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote : >> Let's try this: >> <https://www.hekatron.de/fileadmin/user_upload/testfolder/Sample.pdf> > > ldo> acrid showinfo Sample.pdf Definitely works nicely. I've added the suggestions that I think made sense as a general use chart for Windows users, whose current version is below. [?] Print book format PDF (FinePrint payware) [x] Add or concatenate pages (pdftk, acrobat payware) [x] Add signature (Adobe Reader Fill-and-sign sign-yourself tool) [x] Archive sites (wkhtmltopdf, Acrobat payware,fastone scroll capture) [x] Compress PDFs (ImageMagick, PDFgear, rlvision) [x] Convert PDF to MSOffice (PDFgear, Calibre for MS Word only) [x] Convert PDF to MSWord (Calibre, PDFgear) [x] Convert PDF to epub format (Calibre) [x] Convert PDF to PostScript (Calibre, Poppler) [x] Converts PDFs to HTML (poppler) [x] Converts PDFs to PNG, JPEG, etc (poppler) using Cairo graphics [x] Converts PDFs to PPM/PGM/PBM image formats (poppler) [x] Create PDF new text (Irfanview or Paint.NET plugins + Ghostscript) [x] Edit PDF existing text (Adobe Reader commenting, Acrobat payware) [x] Embeds files into a PDF as attachments (poppler) [x] Extract images (PDF Exchange Viewer, PDF Shaper, PDFgear, poppler) [x] Extract text (poppler) [x] Extracts embedded files (attachments) from a PDF (poppler) [x] Fastest PDF readers (Sumatra or Foxit) [x] Globally search & replace PDF text (Libre Office) [x] List fonts used in a PDF (poppler) [x] Merge PDFs (pdfsam, pdftk, PDFgear, Poppler) [x] Metadata display on command line (poppler) [x] Metadata removal (LibreOffice Writer, PDFgear offline) [x] OCR, PDF-Xchange, freeOCR (paperfile.net), GOCR (jocr.sourceforge.net) [x] Offline encrypt PDF with a password (pdfencrypt) [x] Online shrink PDF https://www.adobe.com/acrobat/online/compress-pdf.html [x] PDF text to audio file (Balabolka) [x] Remove pages (pdfsam, pdftk) [x] Remove restrictions (Ghostscript,Ghostview,ps2edit,pdfwrite,pdf2djvu) [x] Renumber pages (Acrobat Reader) [x] Reorder pages (mutool) [x] Rotate pages (Acrobat Reader) [x] Separates a PDF into individual pages (Poppler) [x] Split PDFs (PDFgear, Poppler) [x] Tile PDFs (i.e., to print large posters) (Posterazor) [?] What other tasks do you do to edit or modify a PDF file? I'm sure we're missing more important functionality than we have, but so far I think this takes into effect the suggestions to date.
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| From | Peter Flynn <peter@silmaril.ie> |
|---|---|
| Date | 2025-03-03 21:38 +0000 |
| Message-ID | <m2mlrgF6iifU1@mid.individual.net> |
| In reply to | #182701 |
On 02/03/2025 03:18, Marion wrote: > On Sat, 1 Mar 2025 20:23:08 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote : > >>> Let's try this: >>> <https://www.hekatron.de/fileadmin/user_upload/testfolder/Sample.pdf> >> >> ldo> acrid showinfo Sample.pdf > > Definitely works nicely. I've added the suggestions that I think made sense > as a general use chart for Windows users, whose current version is below. [snip] Thank you, this is a hugely useful list. The one tool missing seems to be LaTeX, for creating PDFs, but perhaps "create" in this context means "convert from some other typeset format" rather than "typeset directly to PDF" (in industry terms, "originate") Peter
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| From | Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> |
|---|---|
| Date | 2025-03-03 23:35 +0000 |
| Message-ID | <vq5ebr$1h3mg$9@dont-email.me> |
| In reply to | #182749 |
On Mon, 3 Mar 2025 21:38:56 +0000, Peter Flynn wrote: > The one tool missing seems to be LaTeX, for creating PDFs, but perhaps > "create" in this context means "convert from some other typeset format" > rather than "typeset directly to PDF" (in industry terms, "originate") Along those lines, is it also worth mentioning that the Cairo graphics library includes the option for rendering drawing to PDF, among its range of output surface types? <https://www.cairographics.org/manual/cairo-PDF-Surfaces.html>
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| From | Marion <marion@facts.com> |
|---|---|
| Date | 2025-03-04 02:35 +0000 |
| Message-ID | <vq5otq$2hk3$1@nnrp.usenet.blueworldhosting.com> |
| In reply to | #182750 |
On Mon, 3 Mar 2025 23:35:24 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote : >> The one tool missing seems to be LaTeX, for creating PDFs, but perhaps >> "create" in this context means "convert from some other typeset format" >> rather than "typeset directly to PDF" (in industry terms, "originate") > > Along those lines, is it also worth mentioning that the Cairo graphics > library includes the option for rendering drawing to PDF, among its range > of output surface types? > > <https://www.cairographics.org/manual/cairo-PDF-Surfaces.html> Regarding... x] Converts PDFs to PNG, JPEG, etc (poppler) using Cairo graphics Fist, I have to make two confessions to maintain my credibility. The first is: I cheat. I always use the ancient payware Adobe Acrobat version 6 whenever I need to convert a PDF into image formats - so I really don't know much about the concept of converting a PDF to raster or vector graphics images. The second confession is that I don't really know what other people want to do when they "say" they want to convert a PDF into an image format. But when I researched your poppler suggestion, I saw it did that well. I had never heard of Cairo until I dug into your suggestion of using it. Apparently poppler uses either the "Splash" or the "Cairo" graphics libs to translate PDF instructions into graphical drawing commands. Apparently Cairo drawing commands (i.e., pdftocairo) render the PDF onto something called a "surface" which itself can be either a raster image (PNG, JPEG, etc.) or a vector surface (DXF, SVG, etc.) for high quality. Since I use the payware, I don't know what other solutions exist, so I dug into the concept a bit to find that if you feed Inkscape a PDF, it attempts to interpret the vector elements (lines, shapes, text) to make them editable (which could be powerful for those changing PDF images). In addition, it seems Inkscape can trace a bitmap to vectorize raster images within a PDF into vector paths - which is useful for scaling. On the other hand, I found in my searches today that ImageMagick is apparently very good at converting PDFs into raster image formats (like PNG, JPEG, PPM & TIFF). Different from both Inkscape (vector) & ImageMagick (raster) is Ghostscript, which can rasterize PDFs, but using a command line (unless you combine it with GhostView) where Ghostscript splits & merges PDFs also. Having confused myself with what I said above, I should ask what people are trying to do with the image when they want to convert PDF to an image. And do they want vector images out of the PDF. Or raster? [x] Convert PDF to raster (Imagemagick,GhostScript,Poppler-pdftocairo) [x] Convert PDF to vector (Inkscape, Poppler-pdftocairo) Anything else (which is free to use)?
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| From | Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> |
|---|---|
| Date | 2025-03-04 03:13 +0000 |
| Message-ID | <vq5r3s$1j356$4@dont-email.me> |
| In reply to | #182752 |
On Tue, 4 Mar 2025 02:35:38 -0000 (UTC), Marion wrote: > Different from both Inkscape (vector) & ImageMagick (raster) is > Ghostscript, which can rasterize PDFs ... Yes. It is essentially a full-function PostScript interpreter, it just has lots of options for the output format. Rasterizing PDF was probably a relatively minor function to add on top of that.
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| From | Marion <marion@facts.com> |
|---|---|
| Date | 2025-03-04 03:31 +0000 |
| Message-ID | <vq5s5m$19ov$1@nnrp.usenet.blueworldhosting.com> |
| In reply to | #182749 |
On Mon, 3 Mar 2025 21:38:56 +0000, Peter Flynn wrote : > Thank you, this is a hugely useful list.' Thanks. It needs updating but it covers most of what I've needed to do. The hard part is keeping it to a single line per need, which necessitates excessive shortening of the descriptions. I think you're talking about this line item below: [x] Create PDF new text (Irfanview or Paint.NET plugins + Ghostscript) Where that's really about ADDING text to an existing PDF document. Given the confusion inherent in the lousy way I wrote it, I'll change it to [x] Add text to existing pdf (Irfanview or Paint.NET plugins + Ghostscript) Moving forward on your point below with LaTeX, I agree with you that we need a line item for creating PDFs from scratch using a markup language. > The one tool missing seems to be LaTeX, for creating PDFs, but perhaps > "create" in this context means "convert from some other typeset format" > rather than "typeset directly to PDF" (in industry terms, "originate") Given LaTeX is the de facto standard for creating mathematical and scientific documents, I agree with you that it belongs as a line item. [x] Generate complex PDF using markup language (LaTeX via pdfTeX or LuaTeX) When I researched what else that is no cost which generates PDFs, most were programming libraries, such as ReportLab, PDFKit, jsPDF & PDFSharp. Contrasting with those programming libraries (which require programming code), LaTeX is a markup language and typesetting system. We write the document's content and structure using LaTeX commands, and LaTeX handles the visual formatting to PDF. So I won't include the programming libraries in that new line, for now. Does that clarify the two lines better for 'creating' & 'generating' PDF? [x] Add text to existing pdf (Irfanview or Paint.NET plugins + Ghostscript) [x] Generate complex PDF using markup language (LaTeX via pdfTeX or LuaTeX)
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| From | "Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> |
|---|---|
| Date | 2025-03-04 20:18 +0100 |
| Message-ID | <j90k9lxhln.ln2@Telcontar.valinor> |
| In reply to | #182754 |
On 2025-03-04 04:31, Marion wrote: > Given LaTeX is the de facto standard for creating mathematical and > scientific documents, I agree with you that it belongs as a line item. > [x] Generate complex PDF using markup language (LaTeX via pdfTeX or LuaTeX) LyX is a visual editor (WYSIWYM, "what you see is what you mean" approach), that can generate PDFs and other formats. It is related to LaTeX but is not the same. Although it probably uses external libraries to do the actual conversion. Libre Office can also generate PDFs, including cryptographically signed documents, probably using libraries. It can also edit PDFs. -- Cheers, Carlos.
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| From | Peter Flynn <peter@silmaril.ie> |
|---|---|
| Date | 2025-03-04 22:32 +0000 |
| Message-ID | <m2pdbqFj0tlU1@mid.individual.net> |
| In reply to | #182754 |
On 04/03/2025 03:31, Marion wrote:
> On Mon, 3 Mar 2025 21:38:56 +0000, Peter Flynn wrote :
[snip]
> Given LaTeX is the de facto standard for creating mathematical and
> scientific documents, I agree with you that it belongs as a line item.
[...]> Contrasting with those programming libraries (which require
programming
> code), LaTeX is a markup language and typesetting system. We write the
> document's content and structure using LaTeX commands, and LaTeX handles
> the visual formatting to PDF.
There are two routes to PDF if you have XML documents (increasingly
common; and both Word and Libre Office are XML inside). Both use
Extensible Stylesheet Language (XSL) but in different ways
But these may be well outside the scope of your list as they are
two-stage processes.
• XSL-FO uses XSL to describe the transformation to Formatting Objects
(FO) and an FO processor converts that to PDF
• XSLT uses XSL to describe the transformation to any text format,
including LaTeX, which can then produce PDF.
XSL-FO is no longer being developed by the W3C; however both methods are
in common use in publishing.
> So I won't include the programming libraries in that new line, for now.
> Does that clarify the two lines better for 'creating' & 'generating' PDF?
>
> [x] Add text to existing pdf (Irfanview or Paint.NET plugins + Ghostscript)
> [x] Generate complex PDF using markup language (LaTeX via pdfTeX or LuaTeX)
Yes, that looks fine, thanks.
Peter
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| From | Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> |
|---|---|
| Date | 2025-03-04 23:32 +0000 |
| Message-ID | <vq82hf$232tl$8@dont-email.me> |
| In reply to | #182765 |
On Tue, 4 Mar 2025 22:32:26 +0000, Peter Flynn wrote: > There are two routes to PDF if you have XML documents (increasingly > common; and both Word and Libre Office are XML inside). Both use > Extensible Stylesheet Language (XSL) but in different ways Does anybody still use SGML? Remember, that gave birth to HTML.
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| From | Peter Flynn <peter@silmaril.ie> |
|---|---|
| Date | 2025-03-05 22:08 +0000 |
| Message-ID | <m2s0auFjseU1@mid.individual.net> |
| In reply to | #182768 |
On 04/03/2025 23:32, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote: > On Tue, 4 Mar 2025 22:32:26 +0000, Peter Flynn wrote: > >> There are two routes to PDF if you have XML documents (increasingly >> common; and both Word and Libre Office are XML inside). Both use >> Extensible Stylesheet Language (XSL) but in different ways > > Does anybody still use SGML? Remember, that gave birth to HTML. And TEI. And DocBook. And XML. And dozens of industrial vocabularies. I believe a very small number of projects still use SGML for specialist technical reasons, or possibly tied to obsolete software. Projects I was associated with moved to XML the moment viable processing software became available. But SGML still works, and so does the old software. Peter
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| From | Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> |
|---|---|
| Date | 2025-03-01 20:17 +0000 |
| Message-ID | <vpvq0p$cd2j$1@dont-email.me> |
| In reply to | #182656 |
On Sat, 1 Mar 2025 06:24:35 -0000 (UTC), Marion wrote: > Thanks for the suggestion of PikePDF, which I was wholly unaware of, > since the list was taken from discussions on the windows newsgroups over > time. Yes, there is a difference in mentality between a gaggle of users accustomed to isolated, monolithic applications versus one based on a cooperating ecosystem of interlocking toolkits. Here’s another PDF toolkit: Poppler. This is a more extensive one, that covers both the creation and rendering of PDF files. For example, Inkscape relies on Poppler when you ask it to import pages from a PDF file into your illustration.
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