I still think it’s crazy that, as a researcher who has to read a lot of PDFs, I can barely find any usable alternatives to Acrobat that have basic annotation features. This is especially true for Android platforms, where I do most of my reading.
I use various apps for editing PDFs.
- Firefox for quick and small edits
- Xournal++ for typing and drawing over the document to make a new document
- LibreOffice Draw, also for the above
You can now edit PDFs on Firefox
Or a handful of other, open source applications
Just so yall know, Firefox added a pdf editor.
Even Edge is a pretty good Windows default for viewing and editing PDFs.
So edge is the better app!
Was glad to see it. It’s a very basic start.
Just switched to Linux and this is one thing I haven’t found a good solution for yet.
My only real use case is the “fill and sign” features in Adobe Reader. That allows filling with text boxes wherever I want and importing my actual handwritten signature which looks indistinguishable from print > sign > scanned.
Check this: https://github.com/Stirling-Tools/Stirling-PDF
Since you are on Linux just Start it in a Docker container locally and you are golden :)
It’s garbage at CJK. Half the time your input characters disappear after saving and exiting
Only thing more pirated than Windows products are Adobe products. Smallest violin, etc etc
Firefox just added PDF editing to the native browser!
Let’s get this bread
Fuck PDF’s, all my homies hate PDF’s
They’re not inheritly bad. The idea is no matter what you open the PDF with, it will always look the same.
That doesn’t explain why they’re so annoying to edit, though
Because they weren’t designed to be edited, but somehow here we are
PDFxchange is good
PDF is not a format designed for editing. It’s an export format designed to be a middle ground between a word processor and a printer.
You can bastardise extra layers onto it, but that’s about it.
I mean, you can pretty much completely edit a pdf with Acrobat. Delete elements, move them around, edit text. It may not be designed for it, but it’s very much possible.
I gotta admit I’ve done it a few times because I was to lazy to recreate old, lost templates, so instead I just copied the pdf and edited it with new text and data.
But sometimes you need to edit it. Checking boxes. Signing things. Changing numbers so you can lie about things.
/c/yesyesyesno
What’s wrong with forgery?
It was designed for that but not really marketed to be used that way so it’s thought of as a lockable universally supported document format.
Money aside, Adobe tools for PDF have gotten worse. Ten years ago Adobe was much easier and robust.
All my opinion, of course.
It’s not just your opinion when it’s objectively true.
Haven’t used any Adobe programs for over a decade but I believe you. Almost everything’s getting worse, smaller (except when that’s desirable), less robust and more error prone while simultaneously getting much more expensive.
Shrinkshittififlation is the new bullshit norm.
I definitely agree that it’s getting harder to use. Working in print, I use it every day and every time they update the ui they find ways to slow down my work flow. My favourite is when they change or even remove keyboard shotcuts that have worked forever or hide certain tools because they’ve added a newer, worse way to do the same thing.
There is at least 1 issue a day with Adobe at my office. Its not 100% adobe’s fault but I side-eye those millions of services they install for their app suite.
Use ILovePDF, it’s online so it works for everyone, and it is free and easy to use
ILovePDF is wonderful. If your company needs to be HIPPA compliant their subscription w/desktop app is cheaper than most others.
I have something for you, kid: https://www.photopea.com/
Use GIMP or LibreOffice Draw
Inkscape
pdf24 is very neat.