Editing a pdf file ...

What you probably need is a program that can convert the document to "plain form". You can edit it, then reconvert to PDF.

Type "pdf converter" in Google. There's a lot of free PDF converters out there.

If necessary, you can send the edited material to me, and I'll do a PDF conversion. (Thanks for the warning about W7.)

Might try the free PDF-XChange reader from Tracker Software

I don't use the free one, myself (been using their "Pro" version for years) but it may have the ability to overlay existing content with a rectangle, which can match the page's background color, and then add comments over top of that, if desired. Then "print" the individual pages out to PDF format.

Also try the free Foxit reader. I believe that it also has commenting tools.

Free online PDF editor:

Free, but limited to 10MB files and 100 pages. There's also a problem with security as you have to upload the document to their web site in order for the editor to work online.

PDFedit:

Free, not simple, but should do whatever you might need:

The way I usually do it is to import the PDF document into MS Word (Office 2003), make the necessary changes, and save the document as a PDF using CutePDF.

This usually reformats the document, but that's fine as I now have more control over formatting in MS Word than I would in most PDF editor. It's also easier to modify graphics (i.e. schematics and diagrams) in an external editor (GIMP) than inside a PDF editor.

If you use LibreOffice (spinoff from Open Office), there is an extension to Writer (pdfimport) that will import the PDF. However, it's not a real editor as it imports the PDF into the Draw drawing program, and not into Writer. You can edit a few lines here and there, but that's about it. Export as PDF is also built in for saving the results.

What version of Acrobat? Acrobat Standard or Pro?

Looks like Acrobat 9 and later are compatible with Windoze 7.

I have Acrobat Pro 6 mostly running on Windoze 7 at a customers. I had to use "run in compatibility mode" to make it work: Make sure you are installing the program as an administrator. Right click on the setup file and select properties. Now click on compatibility tab. Under compatibility tab, check "Run this program in compatibility mode". From the drop down menu select Windows XP. Run the install.

Hi Rich. I have the 'free' version of the Pro PDF-XChange reader, but have not found anywhere in that one, that allows me to do a simple edit. I also downloaded Foxit that I was sure would have the feature, but again, not as far as I can see. It will do everything including scratching your arse for you, but define - select - cut ? Nope ... :-|

Arfa

I really did not want to have to mess around converting to other formats and importing and exporting to other progs etc. There will be quite a lot of iterations to achieve what I want, if I go the whole hog and add snipped graphics from elsewhere in the document. There is a lot of good work to come from these people, and it is worth spending some time to make the documentation more 'service friendly', but there is a limit to the amount of time I want to spend doing this ... Thanks for the offer of conversion help.

Arfa

Thanks Jeff. I'll look into it.

Arfa

You don't actually edit the existing text so much as stick a comment box over it so that the area to be "erased" is still there (under the box) but no longer visible. Print that page to a new PDF and voilà!

Sorry, bad URL. Try:

-- Jeff Liebermann snipped-for-privacy@cruzio.com

En el artículo , Arfa Daily escribió:

So run your existing version of Acrobat on an XP virtual machine within Win7. It's called XP Compatability Mode or something like that.

I actually don't have it any more. It was a fully registered version on a machine that I bought from an outfit that I did work for, when they packed it all in. The machine was a properly registered XP Pro one, and all updates to the Acrobat and OS were done on a regular basis. Then the machine was 'upgraded' to Win 7, and when I came to reinstall the Acrobat, it wouldn't have any of it. I'm sure I tried to install it under a compatibility mode as well, but it was having none of it. When I went to the Adobe site, expecting to be able to download some patch-pack, as it was a registered version, I discovered that there was no route to upgrading - only buying a new version, as Jeff has said. I didn't use the creation side of things enough to justify the expense, so I ended up just letting it go, and downloading the free Reader 9. The original drive that both the built application, and the original installation files was on, has since failed, and I don't think that I now have it anywhere else.

I've actually now managed to do the basic thing that I wanted. I ended up very carefully zooming the image (that was hard to do precisely, as the zoom bar wanted to 'snap' in 25% increments and didn't allow actual values to be typed in) until the bits that I didn't want were off the top and bottom of the screen, and the bit that I did want was centred. I then did a "print" and then "current view". Finally, I used the "Tile large sheets" option with the 'composite view' selected, and then used the print zoom to find the point where it just jumped up to two pages, and left an even border around the edge.

When it was printed off and joined, I made my notes by hand, with a draftsman's fine tip pen, which is good enough for this job. Some jobs are just too difficult, frustrating and time consuming to do on a computer, and this, I think, is one of them. Whilst cutting and pasting and manipulating and juggling images onto sheets, and annotating in pretty bubbles with perfect text, looks all very pretty and professional, the end result that I've achieved is just as practical from a repair-use point of view, and took probably a quarter or less of the time, ignoring of course, the time wasted on trying to find software that would do it ...

Arfa

En el artículo , Arfa Daily escribió:

There are a couple of good alternative PDF readers. I use Foxit Reader, which allows you to set a zoom down to three decimal places. Free.

Amen to that :-)

Reading between the lines, it appears that all you need is an efficient way of extracting a JPG out of a PDF file. No big deal:

The PDF-Xchange Viewer includes a *free* PDF to JPG converter. I'm usually lazy and just convert the entire document, which extracts a large number of JPG's, most of which I discard. There are other PDF to JPG converters, but this is the only free one that I found which actually worked.