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

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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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#182776

On 2025-03-05 07:39, Paul wrote:
> On Tue, 3/4/2025 11:28 PM, Don_from_AZ wrote:
>> Peter Flynn <peter@silmaril.ie> writes:
>>
>>> On 04/03/2025 15:23, Tim Slattery wrote:
>>> [snip]
>>>> A box of Hollerith (or IBM) cards held 2,000 cards. Each FORTRAN
>>>> statement would go on a separate card, so 2,000 FORTRAN  statements
>>>> is right. And if you dropped your box and spilled your cards, good
>>>> luck getting them back in the correct order!
>>>
>>> In my college, the computing centre had a card sorter, which was huge
>>> and stood on cast-iron lion's feet which someone had painted gold :-)
>>> But of course it only worked if your program statements or data lines
>>> (cards) were numbered. You only drop a box of cards once.
>>>
>>> (You may hear the voice of experience there :-)
>>>
>>> Peter
>>>
>> I worked for Honeywell at a WWMMCCS site (World-Wide Military Command
>> and Control System) at the Washington Navy Yard as a tech support
>> guy. This was about 1973. I created new boot decks for the Honeywell 635
>> as needed, with new patch cards or new configurations. I was carrying a
>> tray of punched cards to the computer room, one hand on each end of the
>> card tray. I tried to hook the door handle with my little finger to pull
>> it open and lost my grip on the tray; cards all over the floor!
>> Embarrasing to say the least, and I didn't even try to put them back in
>> order, just punched out a new deck.
>>
> 
> You could put numbers in column 72.
> 
> https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/58/FortranCardPROJ039.agr.jpg/960px-FortranCardPROJ039.agr.jpg

I can not read punched cards.

The lab at uni used them just the year before me. I never had to use 
cards or punched paper tape.

:-D

The trouble was, there were not enough terminals for all the students. I 
tried going somewhere where you could rent a computer by the hour. 
Finally I decided I needed a computer of my own, a PC clone. I was 
fortunate to have a family that could afford it.

-- 
Cheers, Carlos.

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#182778

On Wed, 3/5/2025 7:26 AM, Carlos E.R. wrote:
> 
> I can not read punched cards.
> 
> The lab at uni used them just the year before me. I never had to use cards or punched paper tape.
> 
> :-D
> 
> The trouble was, there were not enough terminals for all the students. I tried going somewhere where you could rent a computer by the hour. Finally I decided I needed a computer of my own, a PC clone. I was fortunate to have a family that could afford it.
> 

My hobby was self-financed as a student,
so everything had to be "cheep! cheep! cheep!" :-)

Real computers had to wait until I had a job.

   Paul

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#182779

On Wed, 3/5/2025 7:26 AM, Carlos E.R. wrote:

> 
> I can not read punched cards.
> 

This is a card from a Model 29. It has inked characters along the top,
so you could read the ASCII character equivalent of the 12 row Hollerith punch.

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/computinghistory/029-card.jpg

Not all card schemes, were that friendly.

You could compare the inked characters on the card, to your 132 column line printer output.

   Paul

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#182784

On 2025-03-05 15:33, Paul wrote:
> On Wed, 3/5/2025 7:26 AM, Carlos E.R. wrote:
> 
>>
>> I can not read punched cards.
>>
> 
> This is a card from a Model 29. It has inked characters along the top,
> so you could read the ASCII character equivalent of the 12 row Hollerith punch.
> 
> http://www.columbia.edu/cu/computinghistory/029-card.jpg

Yes, I have seen those (samples).

> 
> Not all card schemes, were that friendly.
> 
> You could compare the inked characters on the card, to your 132 column line printer output.
> 
>     Paul


-- 
Cheers, Carlos.

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#182780

Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
[...]
> I can not read punched cards.
> 
> The lab at uni used them just the year before me. I never had to use 
> cards or punched paper tape.
> 
> :-D

  I had colleagues who could - visually - read ASCII paper tapes. And
another one could visually read 9-track magtape, when the magnetzation
was made visible by some kind of fluid.

[...]

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#182782

On Wed, 3/5/2025 9:39 AM, Frank Slootweg wrote:
> Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
> [...]
>> I can not read punched cards.
>>
>> The lab at uni used them just the year before me. I never had to use 
>> cards or punched paper tape.
>>
>> :-D
> 
>   I had colleagues who could - visually - read ASCII paper tapes. And
> another one could visually read 9-track magtape, when the magnetzation
> was made visible by some kind of fluid.
> 
> [...]
> 
When you use paper tape regularly, you learn how to recognize
end of record marks. When a tape load reports a read error,
you can roll back a record and retry, which takes less time
than loading the paper tape all over again. Learning to do that,
is a "survival mechanism" :-)

   Paul

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#182786

On Wed, 5 Mar 2025 14:59:06 -0500, Paul wrote :


> When you use paper tape regularly, you learn how to recognize
> end of record marks. When a tape load reports a read error,
> you can roll back a record and retry, which takes less time
> than loading the paper tape all over again. Learning to do that,
> is a "survival mechanism" :-)

Speaking of such survival mechanisms, when I was burning EPROMs for the
Motorola 68701 (probably mid 80's time frame) that I wire wrapped myself, I
would write down the Assembly Language instructions, at first, on my own.

Then, after a while, it was a "survival mechanism" to just use the hex
instead, as what's the difference between "load accumulator A" (LDAA) and
the hex (86) or for extended addressing, (B6) for the same command.

It's not that big of a stretch to remember 86 versus LDAA, and it helps a
lot when it came to burning the EEPROMs (which the 68701 had internally).

Those days are over and gone, never to return.
I won't need that EEPROM burner any more than a dwellmeter & timing light.

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#182793

On Wed, 3/5/2025 4:24 PM, Marion wrote:
> On Wed, 5 Mar 2025 14:59:06 -0500, Paul wrote :
> 
> 
>> When you use paper tape regularly, you learn how to recognize
>> end of record marks. When a tape load reports a read error,
>> you can roll back a record and retry, which takes less time
>> than loading the paper tape all over again. Learning to do that,
>> is a "survival mechanism" :-)
> 
> Speaking of such survival mechanisms, when I was burning EPROMs for the
> Motorola 68701 (probably mid 80's time frame) that I wire wrapped myself, I
> would write down the Assembly Language instructions, at first, on my own.
> 
> Then, after a while, it was a "survival mechanism" to just use the hex
> instead, as what's the difference between "load accumulator A" (LDAA) and
> the hex (86) or for extended addressing, (B6) for the same command.
> 
> It's not that big of a stretch to remember 86 versus LDAA, and it helps a
> lot when it came to burning the EEPROMs (which the 68701 had internally).
> 
> Those days are over and gone, never to return.
> I won't need that EEPROM burner any more than a dwellmeter & timing light.

There are still EEPROMs. They're too convenient to throw away.

For example, you can store the program code for an FPGA
(Field Programmable Gate Array) inside an EEPROM.

Since they keep finding new uses for them, and they
keep going into different shaped packages, you'll never
really be rid of them.

   Paul

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#182797

Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> wrote:
> On Wed, 3/5/2025 9:39 AM, Frank Slootweg wrote:
> > Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
> > [...]
> >> I can not read punched cards.
> >>
> >> The lab at uni used them just the year before me. I never had to use 
> >> cards or punched paper tape.
> >>
> >> :-D
> > 
> >   I had colleagues who could - visually - read ASCII paper tapes. And
> > another one could visually read 9-track magtape, when the magnetzation
> > was made visible by some kind of fluid.
> > 
> > [...]
> > 
> When you use paper tape regularly, you learn how to recognize
> end of record marks. When a tape load reports a read error,
> you can roll back a record and retry, which takes less time
> than loading the paper tape all over again. Learning to do that,
> is a "survival mechanism" :-)

  Indeed! When we were 'generating' (installing) an HP RTE (Real Time
Executive) system, we needed to load dozens of paper tapes, each of
which came in a about 10x10cm box, so rather long papertapes. When you
got a 'checksum error', which you were nearly guaranteed to get, you
didn't want to start all over again.

  The system was installed *to* disk, but the (binaries) input came from
paper tape. Later we got disk drives with a fixed disk and a removable
diskpack, so we got 'Grandfather' diskpacks to generate a system,
instead of using papertape. Bliss!

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#182783

On 2025-03-05 15:39, Frank Slootweg wrote:
> Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
> [...]
>> I can not read punched cards.
>>
>> The lab at uni used them just the year before me. I never had to use
>> cards or punched paper tape.
>>
>> :-D
> 
>    I had colleagues who could - visually - read ASCII paper tapes. And
> another one could visually read 9-track magtape, when the magnetzation
> was made visible by some kind of fluid.

Wow.

> 
> [...]


-- 
Cheers, Carlos.

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#182762

Marion:

> 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)

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.

> [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.

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

SumatraPDF

> [x] Reorder pages (mutool)
> [x] Rotate pages (Acrobat Reader)

pdftk of course.

> 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.

-- 
()  ascii ribbon campaign -- against html e-mail
/\  www.asciiribbon.org   -- against proprietary attachments

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#182767

On 04/03/2025 16:13, Anton Shepelev wrote:
[snip]
> PDF is meant to be a final format not meant for editing.
> Keep it so.

Nevertheless, I have several times been able to make on-the-fly changes 
and even introduce additional material like running headers or 
paper-type change statements with

pdf2ps file.pdf | sed -e "<stuff>" | ps2pdf newfile.pdf

Peter

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#182769

On Tue, 4 Mar 2025 22:43:11 +0000, Peter Flynn wrote:

> On 04/03/2025 16:13, Anton Shepelev wrote:
>>
>> PDF is meant to be a final format not meant for editing.
>> Keep it so.
> 
> Nevertheless, I have several times been able to make on-the-fly changes
> and even introduce additional material like running headers or
> paper-type change statements with
> 
> pdf2ps file.pdf | sed -e "<stuff>" | ps2pdf newfile.pdf

Remember that a PDF file is not required to contain anything resembling 
readable text strings. If present, these are commonly stored separately 
from the rendered glyphs you seen on-screen, in a form designed for 
searching, together with an indication of which part of the page to 
highlight to represent a selection of that text. But this is all optional.

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#182770

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 the booklet style PDFs?

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#182771

On Tue, 4 Mar 2025 23:58:24 -0000 (UTC), Marion wrote:

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

I don't have Python but these are sample PDFs to run tests upon.
<https://sample-files.com/documents/pdf/>
<https://www.learningcontainer.com/sample-pdf-files-for-testing/>
<https://examplefile.com/document/pdf>
<https://getsamplefiles.com/sample-document-files/pdf>
<https://www.graydart.com/sample/documents/pdf>
<https://freetestdata.com/document-files/pdf/>
<https://onlinetestcase.com/pdf-file/>

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#182775

Marion:

> > 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..  [...]
> 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.

That's exactly what I did with psbook and psnup from
psutils.  I produced an A4 booklet from an A5 document with
sequential pages.  I printed my booklent by with a normal
single-sided printer, in two runs, without reordering the
sheaf in between.  All the rearrangement was taken care of
during the generation of the PDF.

Before *roff and *tex, I used to print such booklets in
whatever software I had at hand, including MS Word '97 and
Adobe PageMaker.  For Word, I had a simple Pascal program
that would generate two comma-spearated lists of page
numbers, ready to paste in into the Print window, for
printing the even and odd pages of the booklet.

The alrorithm is rather simple, IIRC.  After you append
empty pages to make the total a multiple of four, the
following invariant holds true for each side of any quatro:

          page_left + page_right = page_total + 1

For example, a twelve-page booklet will be printed on three
(12/4) sheets thusly:

                      even       odd
                      12 1 verso 2 11
                      10 3 verso 4  9
                       8 5 verso 6  7

So, you first print the odd pages in increasing order, and
then odd ones in decreasing order, to end up with a set of
sheats ready to fold (IIRC).  I still seem to have the ugly
ancient program in Pascal that I wrote in late school or
early University to perfrom that task:

  https://paste.sr.ht/~shepton/4d8374ec6e2c543fa8caad43709596b1cae5cd94

It should compile in FreePascal compiler.

> 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.

No, LaTeX and Troff are tools to author and typeset new
documents, rather than modify existing PDFs.

> Since the expensive cost of free (no cost) software is in
> the trials and tribulations to find the best ones that
> work,

Which is why I prefer to use time-honoured classics.

> does anyone have experience with any of the distributions
> above for creating the booklet style PDFs?

I have used this one a long time ago:

  https://ctan.org/pkg/booklet

And I have used psutils (with psbook and psnup) no so long
time ago:

  https://github.com/rrthomas/psutils

Generally, I have found *roff much easier than LaTeX.  I
have written several Groff macros myself, including those to
wrap text around images as shown in this newsletter:

  https://corewar.co.uk/coreops/coreops02.txt

Both Groff and LaTeX have great and helpful communities.

-- 
()  ascii ribbon campaign -- against html e-mail
/\  www.asciiribbon.org   -- against proprietary attachments

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#182789

On 3/5/2025 4:50 AM, Anton Shepelev wrote:
> Marion:
> 
>>> 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..  [...]
>> 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.
> 
> That's exactly what I did with psbook and psnup from
> psutils.  I produced an A4 booklet from an A5 document with
> sequential pages.  I printed my booklent by with a normal
> single-sided printer, in two runs, without reordering the
> sheaf in between.  All the rearrangement was taken care of
> during the generation of the PDF.
> 
> Before *roff and *tex, I used to print such booklets in
> whatever software I had at hand, including MS Word '97 and
> Adobe PageMaker.  For Word, I had a simple Pascal program
> that would generate two comma-spearated lists of page
> numbers, ready to paste in into the Print window, for
> printing the even and odd pages of the booklet.
> 
> The alrorithm is rather simple, IIRC.  After you append
> empty pages to make the total a multiple of four, the
> following invariant holds true for each side of any quatro:
> 
>            page_left + page_right = page_total + 1
> 
> For example, a twelve-page booklet will be printed on three
> (12/4) sheets thusly:
> 
>                        even       odd
>                        12 1 verso 2 11
>                        10 3 verso 4  9
>                         8 5 verso 6  7
> 
> So, you first print the odd pages in increasing order, and
> then odd ones in decreasing order, to end up with a set of
> sheats ready to fold (IIRC).  I still seem to have the ugly
> ancient program in Pascal that I wrote in late school or
> early University to perfrom that task:
> 
>    https://paste.sr.ht/~shepton/4d8374ec6e2c543fa8caad43709596b1cae5cd94
> 
> It should compile in FreePascal compiler.
> 
>> 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.
> 
> No, LaTeX and Troff are tools to author and typeset new
> documents, rather than modify existing PDFs.
> 
>> Since the expensive cost of free (no cost) software is in
>> the trials and tribulations to find the best ones that
>> work,
> 
> Which is why I prefer to use time-honoured classics.
> 
>> does anyone have experience with any of the distributions
>> above for creating the booklet style PDFs?
> 
> I have used this one a long time ago:
> 
>    https://ctan.org/pkg/booklet
> 
> And I have used psutils (with psbook and psnup) no so long
> time ago:
> 
>    https://github.com/rrthomas/psutils
> 
> Generally, I have found *roff much easier than LaTeX.  I
> have written several Groff macros myself, including those to
> wrap text around images as shown in this newsletter:
> 
>    https://corewar.co.uk/coreops/coreops02.txt
> 
> Both Groff and LaTeX have great and helpful communities.
> 
https://www.bookletcreator.com/how-it-works/

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#182787

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 booklet style PDFs?

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]

#182791

On 04/03/2025 23:24, Marion wrote:
[...]
> 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.

This is called "imposition". Printing a book means arranging the pages 
(usually) 16 (possibly 32) per side of a very large sheet (and therefore 
16 the other side) making a "signature", laid out so that when folded 
and folded and folded etc and trimmed, page 1 has page 2 on the back of 
it; then repeat for the next 32 (or 64) pages, and repeat, etc until all 
X00 pages are accounted for. Printed off a reel of paper (confusingly 
called a web) nowadays, and slit to sheets before folding. Then stacked 
together, the spines abraded and glued (or sewn with thread for fancy 
books), then draw on the cover (printed separately on board), glue it, 
and give it a final trim.

> 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.

And, domestically, having it all set up and running, and then the 
cheapass paper-handling mechanism in the printer feeds two sheets 
instead of one, and messes it all up.

> 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.

I don't think anyone doing this seriously would consider Windows at all.
There is a massive collection of free text-manipulation tools known 
collectively as "the Unix text tools" which work on Linux (including Mac 
OSX) but which cause endless compilation trouble on Windows.

> 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.

Correct. The canonical location is the TeX Users Group site (tug.org)

> Also TeXstudio or TeXworks appear to be free (no cost) LaTeX editors.

Both are excellent but there are lots of others, including (of course) 
Emacs. https://latex.silmaril.ie/formattinginformation/editdis.html

> 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 booklet style PDFs?

My typesetting business has used LaTeX and the Unix text tools for the 
last 30 years (mainly for books) without significant problems¹. There 
are some technical aspects, such as ensuring that the L–R adjustment of 
the text area on one page will correctly occupy the exact same space on 
the back of the next page when printed and bound, but this really only 
affects very large signatures where the thickness of the paper has to be 
taken into account when folder 3–4 times; this is not really relevant 
for booklets. Otherwise it's just a matter of using the right imposition 
scheme and the right page-rearrangement software to implement it.

Peter

----------
¹ The real problems are in the copyediting and proofreading of the text, 
and that's common to all systems. Maybe marginally easier in LaTeX 
because the master source is plain text, but the real difficulties come 
in dealing with semi-literate authors and technically ill-informed editors.

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#182799

In article <m2s253FjseU2@mid.individual.net>, peter@silmaril.ie says...
>This is called "imposition". Printing a book means arranging the pages 
>(usually) 16 (possibly 32) per side of a very large sheet (and therefore 
>16 the other side) making a "signature", laid out so that when folded 
>and folded and folded etc and trimmed, page 1 has page 2 on the back of 
>it; then repeat for the next 32 (or 64) pages, and repeat, etc until all 
>X00 pages are accounted for. Printed off a reel of paper (confusingly 
>called a web) nowadays, and slit to sheets before folding. Then stacked 
>together, the spines abraded and glued (or sewn with thread for fancy 
>books), then draw on the cover (printed separately on board), glue it, 
>and give it a final trim.
>
>
>

I don't know what the international availability of this is, but this is 
a BBC program detailing how hardback books are manufactured, with a good 
discussion of "imposition".

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0027f48/inside-the-factory-
series-9-5-hardback-books

(rejoin link with no whitespace)

-- 
--
Phil, London

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