@@meeponinthbit3466 Wait, they've patented editing PDFs? Then how come Master PDF and the likes able to deliver a similar experience to Adobe Acrobat Pro DC?
@@technomatic6285 oh yeah.... They patent every software feature, function, and the like they can think of, regardless how trivial it might seem to anybody in IT. Then they sue into oblivion anybody who violates their patents. Anybody making a decent product is probably paying licensing fees to him which is why you don't see any good free programs... If you do they're probably just so far under the radar Adobe hasn't found him yet. With PDFs being as old as they are a lot of them are expired at this point, but their lawyers know clever ways to upgrade and provide enhancements that basically renew things without providing any new real tech. The patents don't need to be good, they just need to be strong enough to scare somebody away who has enough money to actually go up against them?
I'm a Windows user who is dabling in Linux through Mint on an old laptop. Your videos have been an excellent resource. So thank you. If all of the games out there ran on Linux, I would probably use it as my main desktop. Alas, it is not so.
@@happygofishing Perhaps best to learn/phase to linux before that. There will be some Linux "personality" issues that are best encountered early to build up a repertoire of work-arounds and/or accommodations. An instant switch /may/ induce frustrations that would prematurely have you return to window$. Best wishes no matter what path you take.
@@happygofishing Like kychemclass5850 said, get familiar with it at least a month before switching completely, or else you in in for an entire world of frustration and confusion. I suggest dual booting, or setting up a VM, or installing Linux on an old backup computer, etc. Some way to try out and get used to it while still having Windows available as a plan B.
I created my signature in inkscape. I signed a piece of white paper and photographed it. Then I turned it into a vector graphic in inkscape. You only have to do it once and it will work for almost any form. Vector graphics can be made any size without degrading.
I really love this type of content of yours because one, its really helpful for not only beginners who don't know what applications to use to accomplish certain tasks in Linux, and two, the effort you put in to research, use and test those applications is really amazing 💓
Just about a month ago, I found out that Okular can open and display markdown files too. As someone who writes basically everything in markdown (or LaTeX), I make use of Okulars markdown capabilities all the time. Who needs a office suite if you have a Texteditor and markdowns am I right 😅.
I work a lot with pdf on linux and your suggestions are good: - pdf arranger is powerful and xournal++ too although the menus organisation is a nightmare - but both should permit to compress the result the best tool I found to compress is edited by itsfoss and called PDF-Compressor but the ergonomy is poor. The top would be a tool with an output file size parameter. Thank you for this great lesson over the certificates.
I find Master PDF to be the best PDF viewer and editor on Linux. I bought it for one year and was very happy with it. Formatting was perfect and it even opened government of Canada documents that specifically said they require Adobe Acrobat. No other program could open them. Master PDF is the winner for me.
In Spain digital signatures are a must if you are a company and optional for citizens. Once you're set up, no matter how difficult it were, you realise how convenient digital signatures are and often people stick to them. The Spanish Government keeps Autofirma as a multiplatform, Java-bassed signing application, but no editing tools are included. PDF is the de facto standard, as you guessed.
Thank you as always fantastic research on your behalf [and mine too!] has paid off. You answered many if not all my questions I didn't even know I needed to ask! Cheers ATB
Hey - somebody did his signing homework! As mentioned below - the most easy and usually not too bad viewer is your webbrowser. What I heared is that edge (uuuh) does a pretty good job here. The remaining issues like cluttered layout after import to tool XY is not a Linux specific problem. One has to deal with the same mess on Windows or MacOS. Usually the PDF source is the problem here. Text often is positioned letter by letter or even converted to curves. It all comes down to the engine used for creating the pdf file. At least the aera of full page bitmaps seems to be over. And if you want to extract Text from the PDF - the command line and poppler pdf2text is your best friend!
Sejda PDF (desktop or online) is a great tool. The free version limits the number of files you could work on per day, but the wide range of functionality is there...
For rearranging PDFs, change metadata (data of creation, for example), rotate pages, merge or split documents, etc., you also have PDF Mix Tool. And of course, for the command line enthusiasts there is also PDFtk.
Hi Nick, as a longtime Master PDF user I must orrect your comment about a one time payment. In reality the payment covers application updates for 1 year only, however by going into settings the user can turn off update searches. This is useful because if you update having just passed your years subscription you'll need to pay for a further year. Having said that I find Master PDF to be an excellent tool and recommend it.
@@TheLinuxEXP Thank you for your videos; they are well presented and informative. This morning Master PDF issued an update to their application, which talks of some useful changes and additional tools.
There is the possibility of using the free version of an outdated Master PDF (4.x). I don't know how kosher it is, but it's only using a free version they put out so I guess it's ok. If one does a search on MASTER PDF Free, the first item is what you want.
@@michaelwright2986 I've seen lot of those offering but have yet to find one that works. Just tried one - master-pdf-editor-4.3.89_qt5.amd64 - and sure enough it opened showing "Not Registered", which means limited functions and watermarking. (Note that by opening a watermarked file in a registered copy one can easily remove the watermarks). Actually, for the price I'd recommend it. The developers at code-industry have done a good job and provide good support, so let's support them.
@@jesuisjamaiscontent I agree about paying for it, and I must do that. But the version I'm using shows 4.3.89 "Not Registered. Free for non-commercial use," so I guess I'm not using it beyond their intentions, and I have not had any problems with watermarks. My use is fairly niche: I take PDFs of out-of-copyright books (mostly Latin texts) and chop them up into sections for use in on-line reading groups: definitely non-commercial use, but other people's mileage might vary considerably. I downloaded it from the Code Industry site, though it's not linked on the landing page.
I've used Foxit Phantom for many years on windows. Bought it before it was a subscription model it is works great. I'll have to look into it for linux now.
LibreDraw (LD) is a good tool. The biggest issue is, if you do not have the fonts installed on the system that are used in the PDF document, it can throw off the formatting (as alluded to in the OP). Documents created in Mac are the biggest headache because they often use mountains of bizarre unuseual fonts in a single document. As mentioned in the OP, paragraphs are presented as single lines, which is how PDF renders documents. Witih LD, you can select multiple lines and merge them into a single paragraph (text box). If you have the document fonts installed, you're golden, otherwise be prepared to do some tweeking.
One use case is if you want to do an image-only PDF (i.e. converting CBR or CBZ comic book to PDF to use on an e-reader device that doesn't accept those formats). In that case there's no easier solution than the CLI tool img2pdf which is quick and easy to find in apt. That and PDF Arranger can get you pretty well sorted out in that case.
I think it would have been helpful to focus on any proprietary tools for Linux, too. I'm a big fan of PDF Studio from Qoppa software - the UI is a bit clunky, but it Just Works. It covers almost every use case in the video in one app. Proprietary and paid software - but I think that we shouldn't expect all of our tools to be free, and there are benefits to showing that Linux users will pay for value.
Shouldn't expect all tools to be free (money wise), I agree. But proprietary is what it is, and it's perfectly reasonable to want to avoid them. The tools I've been the most happy to pay for have always been open-source. Games are the only kind of software I'm willing to pay for without being open-source, because they are not critical for anything else than my entertainment.
In Costa Rica, digitally signing documents with a certificate is something that you do need to do rather often, but thankfully there are tools to do that easily on Linux. I think they are adapted to our laws so I don't know if they would work on other countries that use digital signatures.
Try to save your PDFs from Libre Office as EMBEDDED ODF. Then you will be able to open them in LO, as a copy, in ODF, and edit that copy that can be saved with the same name or other. That is the way I manage my versions instead of using GIT, with dates and times on the tittle every time I save.
Digital signing by adding a picture with a signature makes me smile every time :) Maybe there are people who lock their houses by putting a picture of a lock
I use macs for laptops and Linux on the desktop and any time i've had to mess with PDFs, i've always just used my macbook. Preview is one of those included mac apps that is really nice and AFAIK, nothing like that is included out of the box on Windows either (although tbh, I haven't used Windows in a while thank goodness).
@@TheLinuxEXP i am conviced hard... and as i only have a lap in my home... my mom also uses it... and really liked more than windows of a few years ago
I agree this is video is a great help with PDFs. The format is indeed a great pain, and that's no accident: it's Adobe's mission in life to make useful stuff that is a pain if you step outside their system. I suppose that's what being proprietary means, so maybe we need an alternative to the PDF format? Well, I can dream.
I use qpdfview and it works well for filling forms, at least. I've also used Adobe Acrobat DC in wine when I needed full PDF editing capabilities. It seems to work just fine in wine.
In Latvia I've only used proper digital signing. We use edoc format, which is basically a regular document file inside a signed file. We can sign these either by using our specific program with our physical ID cards or sign them online using a mobile app to authorize signing. I'm not sure if having an image of your signature would work anywhere here.
If what you want is to mainly add words (sentences, marks. etc) on a PDF and maybe sign them with a signature picture or drawing, I found that Foxit Reader is the best on both Windows and Linux. Even though the Linux version is inferior is still gets the job done.
Please keep in mind that some PDF creation tools will only include font character glyphs that are actually present in the document. For longer documents that might not be an issue as you've increased the likelihood that all letters are used and thus present, but if you want to edit your single page flyer to announce that there will be free pizza, you might find a missing glyph symbol instead of a 'z'.
I do a lot of .pdf music sheet editing, and Gimp is the best tool I've found. The short coming is being able to view or hide a range of pages in a document with a large number of pages. You can only view the upper most non hidden page with Gimp. If you could view or hide a range of pages it would be a big help.
I found out that if you hold the shift Key down while clicking on the View Eye, GIMP will select that single page. Doing it again will return to all pages selected which you need to do to save all the pages in GIMP format or export in .pdf format.`
Regarding PDF signatures, of the eight forms I filled out for my Canadian immigration application, four of them just required me to type my name in the signature box, three of them required a “handwritten” signature, in which case an electronically scribbled one was fine, and only one of them had where I needed to click a “verify” button on the form which had me type my name then did some fancy work to add some sort of verification barcode to the form and “authorize” my signature. No electronic signature certificate or anything required, even for a government immigration application. Just a bunch of typing or scribbling my name in online forms.
Foxit for linux was unbelievably buggy. I use command line tools for my pdf work, quite successfully. The cpdf or Coherent PDF does most of what I need for splitting, merging, scaling, etc. True editing pdf is an issue, but if you convert from another format, so libreoffice, its a non-issue since you are not editing a pdf. Finally note that ANY application that can print can produce a pdf by using print to pdf. What makes PDF so useful is that it is essentially electronic paper. It views and prints exactly the same since it carries its own fonts with it and does not rely on the appearance of fonts on your system. Its so universal that most places, including print shops, prefer it instead of particular editor formats. Thus it has become the standard of document exchange.
It pains me to say this but the built in pdf viewer in edge is so damn good. The pdf editor is the only reason I have edge installed (even on linux). I had to work heavily with pdfs for two weeks and i just bounced between edge and LOdraw
Does anyone have any suggested applications for working with PDF accessibility? Acrobat is a nightmare to work with and I can't find any other software that allows editing of the tag structure which is an accessibility requirement.
Thanks... I already went for everything described in the video myself, sadly enough Windows is not different from it tho... and the major issue is usually the PDF Edition, since regardless of the paid option you choose usually the format is so tied to Adobe standards that you never see it 100% correct in some situations with others being Master PDF, FoxIT, NitroPDF, etc
Still can't digitally sign with a smart card on linux. Libre Office "lets" you do that but it changes it into a completely different format and does not have the simple remove features that exist on adobe acrobat.
Reminds me of the bad old days of Document Management System Administration that overlayed e-sigs on PDF's or even worse, editing ps files programmatically to complete forms on a VAX.
You need the certificate-signing in Romania, too. I had to use lots of signed pdf files and unfortunately the way I could mix my USB thumb drive key for the certificate + signing the pdf files was to dual boot in Windows (the only reason I keep it basically), where the basic Acrobat Reader can do the job for free. On Linux, I often use PDFSam (the paid version) to alternate mix scanned files, rotate, arrange, compress, decrypt, delete, add pages to my pdf files. I had some pdf files (apartment architecture plans) that are unusable on almost any PDV viewer on Linux, the only one that worked just fine (zooming, dragging) was Master PDF, which I might end up buying, but it is not cheap; this one brags to have all the features. I also met a fully featured editor (including the certificate signing) Java one (paid), but I don't remember the name now. I would use Libre Office Draw more often, but too many times it messes the formating of the contracts, and don't say those are something very complex, they are just text with some subtitles; the worst I think it comes from the fonts replacement, the text does not fit the page anymore in most cases.
Sorry I have just seen your video pdf vs linux. A bit late I guess. I was surprised you didn't mention the one FREE pdf reader with brilliant editing possibilities : FOXIT READER. As an ex MS user that is the pdf reader I used for years and years. But if you want to enjoy the brilliant functions of FOXIT you need MS windows. Then after watching your video I thought : but LINUX when installing mentions that you can enjoy MS apps ON linux by means of an app called WINE (cheers). One of my 2 linux pcs has WINE already installed so I gave it a go and installed FOXIT READER free WITH the windows installer (opened with WINE evidently). And guess what it worked like a charm. No problem at all. I run MINT. I did a little test on a pdf that I had to edit but from a web page directly. I downloaded it and started editing with FOXIT and it worked perfectly. It looks like all the brilliant functions of FOXIT are there. Voilà, I hope it will be of some use for anyone reading this comment. And thanks for all your efforts for promoting LINUX on YT. You do a great job
Modern Linux distro's support stylus based graphics tablets (e.g. my Linux Mint 21, Cinnammon). Huion, a major graphics tablet manufacturer, now provide Linux drivers for their modern graphics tablets. XP Pen tablets have provided Linux drivers for their tablets for years. Manually getting these to work can also be done by watching the excellent CZcams tutorial called "How to get XP-PEN working on Linux Mint Correct!" - works for non XP-PEN devices also.
working asa IT for a large employer i ran into merging PDFs, which for some reason i could not find in Acrobat. Finally found adobe has an online tool for merging them
JUST TO VIEW PDF'S I USE LLPP, IT'S AWESOME BECAUSE OF 3 REASONS: IT IS WAY FASTER THAN OTHERS BECAUSE IT USES MUPDF. IT CAN HANDLE ANNOTATIONS. IT IS KEBOARD DRIVEN WITH THE AWESOME AIR VIEW MODE.
Thanks for this video, it was really enlightening. One Question: Is there an OS that doesn't need an internet connection? only used for document editing. So, there is no need for dependency on multiple companies, and no need for IT security. A simple electronic typewriter for the private person. - copy you file to mem-stick and export it via some other system.
I have been in a situation boasting about how cool Linux is but when I gave my laptop to my brother for a pdf file editing, well...it definitely is not the platforms fault though. I learned the hardway that boasting is not a good thing😅
I've had tools on my linux desktop for years that can do things like merge, move pages around, etc. Granted, they're usually not pretty, and you couldn't actually edit text, but they were there. Unlike on my Windows desktop at work. From what I've seen on Windows, if you want to do *anything* with a PDF aside from view it, fill out a form, and sign it, it's going to require paid for tools. Part of our workflow involved merging different records from different apps into one PDF and posting it to an archive site. I had to request and get approved to have a proprietary app added to my machine to allow me to merge the documents to meet that requirement. Not even a standard part of the corporate desktop image. I remember thinking at the time, I could do this at home easily. Even generating the PDFs wasn't universally available. In that same corporate environment, we didn't usually worry about editing a PDF. That job would go back to the author, who'd pull the original (usually Word) document and edit that. Then the PDF would be regenerated by the assigned person. As to the use case for digitally signing documents, that's an extremely common case in gov't work. Signed using a certificate from an ID card, requiring a card reader as well. At least, that's how it was in my last years working for a defense contractor before I retired.
Are there any free (as in cost free) software that allows to select multiple pdfs/imgs, right click and merge them, a la Adobe Acrobat ? PDFSam enhanced does this, but it's not free
Hey, Nick! I think you're selling Scribus a bit short for PDF editing. Working with some complex PDFs, Scribus has blown both Draw and InkScape out of the water for me.
10:59 I have a Wacom drawing tablet with stylus that supposedly only works with Window$ 8+ and MacOS X Leopard. In Window$ it didn't even get recognized and I had to manually download a driver to use it. In anu Ubuntu-based Linux (which it officially doesn't work with!) I just connected it via Bluetooth and it immediately worked, no setup required.
@@TheLinuxEXP What I really like is that the Wacom settings are actually well-integrated into the Gnome Settings and into the settings menu Linux Mint and Ubuntu Unity use.
What pdf editor in linux type acrobat PRO that is reliable, free and virus free do you recommend? I need to put photos to a pdf and edit their dimensions. Save and if you can add a watermark (that's optional, more with ambition)
I really hope this is not all you can do OCR-wise on Linux. The least I expected was adding an invisible text layer to the PDF file, that makes the text selectable roughly at the position where the original text is and lets you find the document on your hard drive.
I really really want to be Windows-free. Although it's a slightly different use-case, I used scribus to produce a local community magazine. I've just changed to using Serif's Affinity Publisher for this purpose. My toolset for managing pdfs in Linux was Scribus, Inkscape and Gimp. My problem is that artwork for the magazine arrives, and it may or may not render correctly in Scribus (although it is supposed to handle transparency, it doesn't, in my experience). So I'm forced into using pdf v1.3. This causes problems with "white lines" appearing across various bits of artwork in most pdf viewers (as a result of their anti-aliassing algorithms at the edges of tiles in an image). Gimp is pretty good at converting such a pdf to a bitmap, and that was my fallback solution. I spent literally hours per edition messing around to find which combination of these open-source tools could produce both a print-ready and web-ready pdf without artefacts for the 80 or so artworks in the edition. In the end I trialled Affinity Publisher (which can edit pdfs too), and it just worked, no problems at all. So I have a choice of keeping to my open source goals and banging my head against the wall while things that should work just don't quite, or I can run a tool that just works, but requires a software environment I dearly want to avoid.
If all you need is highlighting and notes, the basic gnome pdf viewer is good. If you need to also scribble on the pdf, eg for a signature, Okular or PDF Studio.
Try KasmVNC, the smoothest remote desktop out there: www.kasmweb.com/kasmvnc
Just to say I appreciate you keep your sponsors on point. No moronic Raid/Ridgewallet/etc stupidity.
Are you planning to also post on Rumble?
I'm actually in searching of VNC, how great!
Looks like a cool, product but they aren't supporting Wayland yet
Any chance for a video on Open Source document scanners apps?
As a side note, Firefox has some basic PDF editing capabilities, this may be enough for most people.
Yeah, but it is producing wrong fields which gets broken in other viewers. The text truncates and entire lines disappear.
Didn't Microsoft Edge had that over years ago?
firefox became old because the rise of chromium for me brave + libreoffice will be enough
@@z0rden_brave's trash
@@steamgamerecording Yeah but Linux users (not everyone though) have an allergy to Microsoft & it's products no matter how good it is.
I cant stress enough how this is one of the most important things to know when using linux
Right? Adobe's stranglehold on PDFs is a killer. They've patented the hell out of every feature possible which kills open source projects.
@@meeponinthbit3466 Wait, they've patented editing PDFs?
Then how come Master PDF and the likes able to deliver a similar experience to Adobe Acrobat Pro DC?
@@technomatic6285 oh yeah.... They patent every software feature, function, and the like they can think of, regardless how trivial it might seem to anybody in IT. Then they sue into oblivion anybody who violates their patents. Anybody making a decent product is probably paying licensing fees to him which is why you don't see any good free programs... If you do they're probably just so far under the radar Adobe hasn't found him yet. With PDFs being as old as they are a lot of them are expired at this point, but their lawyers know clever ways to upgrade and provide enhancements that basically renew things without providing any new real tech. The patents don't need to be good, they just need to be strong enough to scare somebody away who has enough money to actually go up against them?
Awesome video, Nick. It shouldn't be so hard to work with PDFs, yet here we are. Thanks for helping us find good tools for working with them.
We shouldn't have to work with PDFs at all. Result of horribly failed digitalization.
I'm a Windows user who is dabling in Linux through Mint on an old laptop. Your videos have been an excellent resource. So thank you. If all of the games out there ran on Linux, I would probably use it as my main desktop. Alas, it is not so.
Glad you like the videos! Linux has come a long way for gaming, but it’s not perfect yet
With the crazy requirements for W11 and the incoming W12, this will be the Linux Year, for sure (yes, preching the end is nigh)
@@happygofishing Perhaps best to learn/phase to linux before that. There will be some Linux "personality" issues that are best encountered early to build up a repertoire of work-arounds and/or accommodations. An instant switch /may/ induce frustrations that would prematurely have you return to window$. Best wishes no matter what path you take.
@@happygofishing Like kychemclass5850 said, get familiar with it at least a month before switching completely, or else you in in for an entire world of frustration and confusion.
I suggest dual booting, or setting up a VM, or installing Linux on an old backup computer, etc. Some way to try out and get used to it while still having Windows available as a plan B.
I created my signature in inkscape. I signed a piece of white paper and photographed it. Then I turned it into a vector graphic in inkscape. You only have to do it once and it will work for almost any form. Vector graphics can be made any size without degrading.
There is so much wrong with this. Our world fucked up badly.
@@Dosenwerfer yeah, but we all gotta live in it somehow...make do where ya can.
I really love this type of content of yours because one, its really helpful for not only beginners who don't know what applications to use to accomplish certain tasks in Linux, and two, the effort you put in to research, use and test those applications is really amazing 💓
Glad you liked the video, thanks for the kind words!
I don't know about the effort, but the finished product is the best I have seen yet.
Just about a month ago, I found out that Okular can open and display markdown files too. As someone who writes basically everything in markdown (or LaTeX), I make use of Okulars markdown capabilities all the time.
Who needs a office suite if you have a Texteditor and markdowns am I right 😅.
I work a lot with pdf on linux and your suggestions are good:
- pdf arranger is powerful and xournal++ too although the menus organisation is a nightmare
- but both should permit to compress the result the best tool I found to compress is edited by itsfoss and called PDF-Compressor but the ergonomy is poor. The top would be a tool with an output file size parameter.
Thank you for this great lesson over the certificates.
+1 for Xournal++
xournal is the only pdf editor for linux which actually behaves like one
I find Master PDF to be the best PDF viewer and editor on Linux. I bought it for one year and was very happy with it. Formatting was perfect and it even opened government of Canada documents that specifically said they require Adobe Acrobat. No other program could open them. Master PDF is the winner for me.
I use version 4 which I downloaded for free. Works great for everything I'd needed to do.
A bit surprised that Scribus wasn't mentioned as PDF editor, not just for creating them. Used it in this role a few times during uni
I took a lot of notes from the comments in the last PDF video, thanks for making this video to organize all the info.
In Spain digital signatures are a must if you are a company and optional for citizens. Once you're set up, no matter how difficult it were, you realise how convenient digital signatures are and often people stick to them. The Spanish Government keeps Autofirma as a multiplatform, Java-bassed signing application, but no editing tools are included. PDF is the de facto standard, as you guessed.
This is one of my favorite types of videos. I watch it and go I need to save this for when I'm trying to edit pdf's in the future.
Thank you as always fantastic research on your behalf [and mine too!] has paid off. You answered many if not all my questions I didn't even know I needed to ask! Cheers ATB
Very helpful video! Thank you for your research! Some of the presented tool I use on a regular basis, but now I know options for almost any use case!
Very thorough rundown and it is very much appreciated. Thanks Nick!
Hey - somebody did his signing homework! As mentioned below - the most easy and usually not too bad viewer is your webbrowser. What I heared is that edge (uuuh) does a pretty good job here.
The remaining issues like cluttered layout after import to tool XY is not a Linux specific problem. One has to deal with the same mess on Windows or MacOS. Usually the PDF source is the problem here. Text often is positioned letter by letter or even converted to curves. It all comes down to the engine used for creating the pdf file. At least the aera of full page bitmaps seems to be over. And if you want to extract Text from the PDF - the command line and poppler pdf2text is your best friend!
Sejda PDF (desktop or online) is a great tool. The free version limits the number of files you could work on per day, but the wide range of functionality is there...
I use Sejda constantly! Love it. I actually paid for the upgraded version
Thanks Nick! This is incredibly useful. I'm swimming in PDFs and being able to manage them is a necessity.
Best software video I have seen yet! Exceptionally well done.
For rearranging PDFs, change metadata (data of creation, for example), rotate pages, merge or split documents, etc., you also have PDF Mix Tool. And of course, for the command line enthusiasts there is also PDFtk.
Hi Nick, as a longtime Master PDF user I must orrect your comment about a one time payment. In reality the payment covers application updates for 1 year only, however by going into settings the user can turn off update searches. This is useful because if you update having just passed your years subscription you'll need to pay for a further year. Having said that I find Master PDF to be an excellent tool and recommend it.
Thanks for the precision!
@@TheLinuxEXP Thank you for your videos; they are well presented and informative. This morning Master PDF issued an update to their application, which talks of some useful changes and additional tools.
There is the possibility of using the free version of an outdated Master PDF (4.x). I don't know how kosher it is, but it's only using a free version they put out so I guess it's ok. If one does a search on MASTER PDF Free, the first item is what you want.
@@michaelwright2986 I've seen lot of those offering but have yet to find one that works. Just tried one - master-pdf-editor-4.3.89_qt5.amd64 - and sure enough it opened showing "Not Registered", which means limited functions and watermarking. (Note that by opening a watermarked file in a registered copy one can easily remove the watermarks).
Actually, for the price I'd recommend it. The developers at code-industry have done a good job and provide good support, so let's support them.
@@jesuisjamaiscontent I agree about paying for it, and I must do that. But the version I'm using shows 4.3.89 "Not Registered. Free for non-commercial use," so I guess I'm not using it beyond their intentions, and I have not had any problems with watermarks. My use is fairly niche: I take PDFs of out-of-copyright books (mostly Latin texts) and chop them up into sections for use in on-line reading groups: definitely non-commercial use, but other people's mileage might vary considerably. I downloaded it from the Code Industry site, though it's not linked on the landing page.
Digitally sign will be super usefull for lawyers aswell. Good job as usual Nick, much love from Italy 👍
I've used Foxit Phantom for many years on windows. Bought it before it was a subscription model it is works great. I'll have to look into it for linux now.
Thanks for the video, I was looking exactly this type of tools
LibreDraw (LD) is a good tool. The biggest issue is, if you do not have the fonts installed on the system that are used in the PDF document, it can throw off the formatting (as alluded to in the OP). Documents created in Mac are the biggest headache because they often use mountains of bizarre unuseual fonts in a single document. As mentioned in the OP, paragraphs are presented as single lines, which is how PDF renders documents. Witih LD, you can select multiple lines and merge them into a single paragraph (text box). If you have the document fonts installed, you're golden, otherwise be prepared to do some tweeking.
Nice vid, you even explained what's the difference between hand write signature and digital signature.
One use case is if you want to do an image-only PDF (i.e. converting CBR or CBZ comic book to PDF to use on an e-reader device that doesn't accept those formats). In that case there's no easier solution than the CLI tool img2pdf which is quick and easy to find in apt. That and PDF Arranger can get you pretty well sorted out in that case.
I think it would have been helpful to focus on any proprietary tools for Linux, too. I'm a big fan of PDF Studio from Qoppa software - the UI is a bit clunky, but it Just Works. It covers almost every use case in the video in one app. Proprietary and paid software - but I think that we shouldn't expect all of our tools to be free, and there are benefits to showing that Linux users will pay for value.
Totally agree with your comments - I have that software too and it works really well
Shouldn't expect all tools to be free (money wise), I agree. But proprietary is what it is, and it's perfectly reasonable to want to avoid them. The tools I've been the most happy to pay for have always been open-source. Games are the only kind of software I'm willing to pay for without being open-source, because they are not critical for anything else than my entertainment.
In Costa Rica, digitally signing documents with a certificate is something that you do need to do rather often, but thankfully there are tools to do that easily on Linux.
I think they are adapted to our laws so I don't know if they would work on other countries that use digital signatures.
Please share PDF software for verify DSC signatures PDF.....
Just one roadblock for me to completely switch to linux.
Try to save your PDFs from Libre Office as EMBEDDED ODF.
Then you will be able to open them in LO, as a copy, in ODF, and edit that copy that can be saved with the same name or other.
That is the way I manage my versions instead of using GIT, with dates and times on the tittle every time I save.
Nice to know, sounds like a practical workaround
Digital signing by adding a picture with a signature makes me smile every time :)
Maybe there are people who lock their houses by putting a picture of a lock
I use macs for laptops and Linux on the desktop and any time i've had to mess with PDFs, i've always just used my macbook. Preview is one of those included mac apps that is really nice and AFAIK, nothing like that is included out of the box on Windows either (although tbh, I haven't used Windows in a while thank goodness).
Excellent video on a topic rarely covered.
I love the level of control you get with Scribus for creating pdf.
Oh hey, my mom just asked me yesterday about a pdf editor on Mint
linux mom? interesting
Nice job on getting you mom to use Linux!
@@TheLinuxEXP i am conviced hard... and as i only have a lap in my home... my mom also uses it... and really liked more than windows of a few years ago
Thank you! PDFs in linux are a pain so this is a really cool resource
Thanks, glad it can be useful!
I agree this is video is a great help with PDFs. The format is indeed a great pain, and that's no accident: it's Adobe's mission in life to make useful stuff that is a pain if you step outside their system. I suppose that's what being proprietary means, so maybe we need an alternative to the PDF format? Well, I can dream.
Bravo Nicola. Grazie per il video.
I think pdftk deserves a mention in this list -- a super useful CLI tool for pdf files.
Thank you brother, I learned a few new tricks. God bless,
I use qpdfview and it works well for filling forms, at least. I've also used Adobe Acrobat DC in wine when I needed full PDF editing capabilities. It seems to work just fine in wine.
Sejda is also a GREAT all around tool for working with PDFs on Linux. It does a ton all in one application
Thanks - Great Info
In Latvia I've only used proper digital signing. We use edoc format, which is basically a regular document file inside a signed file. We can sign these either by using our specific program with our physical ID cards or sign them online using a mobile app to authorize signing. I'm not sure if having an image of your signature would work anywhere here.
proper digital signatures in PDFs sounds like the future to me!
for digitally signing pdf it is a thing we always do in work, even to verify presence in case of forgetting the work id
We are lucky to have you in the Linux realm.
Thank you!
Thanks!
Your most useful video to me yet
Another lesser known tip: jPDF Tweak, my go-to solution for most things PDF
I am so grateful. Without your videos and viewers' comments, I would never know about how great Linux is. Thanks to all 😊
This was actually helpful. The xournal thing might be useful.
I haven't tried it, but I guess you can always go the Wine route if you need any particular feature available on a windows PDF editor.
PDF Arranger looks awesome. PDF merging, splitting and rearranging is such a common task for me. I wonder why that app isnt preinstalled.
Microsoft Edge also can edit PDFs, including signing (with a hand-drawn signature) and filling in form, etc.
If what you want is to mainly add words (sentences, marks. etc) on a PDF and maybe sign them with a signature picture or drawing, I found that Foxit Reader is the best on both Windows and Linux. Even though the Linux version is inferior is still gets the job done.
I've been using linux and libreoffice for years but I just knew we can edit pdf with libreoffice draw 😅. Thank you.
Pdf chain, the GUI for pdftk is also quite good. An old interface but I find it to be adequate
I use Scribus for any PDF editing or extraction. I think it does pretty well.
I've always found PDFsam very useful for splitting, merging and so on.
Actually, latest Firefox enables editing and signing PDFs
Please keep in mind that some PDF creation tools will only include font character glyphs that are actually present in the document. For longer documents that might not be an issue as you've increased the likelihood that all letters are used and thus present, but if you want to edit your single page flyer to announce that there will be free pizza, you might find a missing glyph symbol instead of a 'z'.
I do a lot of .pdf music sheet editing, and Gimp is the best tool I've found. The short coming is being able to view or hide a range of pages in a document with a large number of pages. You can only view the upper most non hidden page with Gimp. If you could view or hide a range of pages it would be a big help.
I found out that if you hold the shift Key down while clicking on the View Eye, GIMP will select that single page. Doing it again will return to all pages selected which you need to do to save all the pages in GIMP format or export in .pdf format.`
Just discovered Pdf arranger’ with your video, i'am using Pdfsam on windows and linux to merge, split pdfs
I use PDFSam Basic, and I like it. (Tq PDFSam makers) - Primarily for extracting pages from the PDF.
I'm using PDFsam basic for some page operations. For comments on the PDF file, I'm using qoppa pdf studio viewer.
Regarding PDF signatures, of the eight forms I filled out for my Canadian immigration application, four of them just required me to type my name in the signature box, three of them required a “handwritten” signature, in which case an electronically scribbled one was fine, and only one of them had where I needed to click a “verify” button on the form which had me type my name then did some fancy work to add some sort of verification barcode to the form and “authorize” my signature.
No electronic signature certificate or anything required, even for a government immigration application. Just a bunch of typing or scribbling my name in online forms.
Thanks 👍
Foxit for linux was unbelievably buggy. I use command line tools for my pdf work, quite successfully. The cpdf or Coherent PDF does most of what I need for splitting, merging, scaling, etc. True editing pdf is an issue, but if you convert from another format, so libreoffice, its a non-issue since you are not editing a pdf. Finally note that ANY application that can print can produce a pdf by using print to pdf.
What makes PDF so useful is that it is essentially electronic paper. It views and prints exactly the same since it carries its own fonts with it and does not rely on the appearance of fonts on your system. Its so universal that most places, including print shops, prefer it instead of particular editor formats. Thus it has become the standard of document exchange.
Danke!
PDR Arranger is awesome. I too, use it all the time. It's hilarious that Adobe Reader and similar programs lock these basic features behind a paywall.
It pains me to say this but the built in pdf viewer in edge is so damn good. The pdf editor is the only reason I have edge installed (even on linux). I had to work heavily with pdfs for two weeks and i just bounced between edge and LOdraw
Edge will become the most popular browser in the future.
Does anyone have any suggested applications for working with PDF accessibility? Acrobat is a nightmare to work with and I can't find any other software that allows editing of the tag structure which is an accessibility requirement.
Thanks... I already went for everything described in the video myself, sadly enough Windows is not different from it tho... and the major issue is usually the PDF Edition, since regardless of the paid option you choose usually the format is so tied to Adobe standards that you never see it 100% correct in some situations with others being Master PDF, FoxIT, NitroPDF, etc
Still can't digitally sign with a smart card on linux. Libre Office "lets" you do that but it changes it into a completely different format and does not have the simple remove features that exist on adobe acrobat.
Reminds me of the bad old days of Document Management System Administration that overlayed e-sigs on PDF's or even worse, editing ps files programmatically to complete forms on a VAX.
You need the certificate-signing in Romania, too. I had to use lots of signed pdf files and unfortunately the way I could mix my USB thumb drive key for the certificate + signing the pdf files was to dual boot in Windows (the only reason I keep it basically), where the basic Acrobat Reader can do the job for free.
On Linux, I often use PDFSam (the paid version) to alternate mix scanned files, rotate, arrange, compress, decrypt, delete, add pages to my pdf files. I had some pdf files (apartment architecture plans) that are unusable on almost any PDV viewer on Linux, the only one that worked just fine (zooming, dragging) was Master PDF, which I might end up buying, but it is not cheap; this one brags to have all the features.
I also met a fully featured editor (including the certificate signing) Java one (paid), but I don't remember the name now.
I would use Libre Office Draw more often, but too many times it messes the formating of the contracts, and don't say those are something very complex, they are just text with some subtitles; the worst I think it comes from the fonts replacement, the text does not fit the page anymore in most cases.
I bought master pdf years ago. Solved my needs. It limits my version to the one released at that time. It works so I am fine with that.
The state of PDF tools in general is maddening.
Sorry I have just seen your video pdf vs linux. A bit late I guess. I was surprised you didn't mention the one FREE pdf reader with brilliant editing possibilities : FOXIT READER. As an ex MS user that is the pdf reader I used for years and years. But if you want to enjoy the brilliant functions of FOXIT you need MS windows. Then after watching your video I thought : but LINUX when installing mentions that you can enjoy MS apps ON linux by means of an app called WINE (cheers). One of my 2 linux pcs has WINE already installed so I gave it a go and installed FOXIT READER free WITH the windows installer (opened with WINE evidently). And guess what it worked like a charm. No problem at all. I run MINT. I did a little test on a pdf that I had to edit but from a web page directly. I downloaded it and started editing with FOXIT and it worked perfectly. It looks like all the brilliant functions of FOXIT are there. Voilà, I hope it will be of some use for anyone reading this comment. And thanks for all your efforts for promoting LINUX on YT. You do a great job
Sejda PDF Editor is pretty good, available as a program and web app. It is proprietary, but is based on open source software.
Okular, Okular is my favorite(on everything Im on Libreoffice Draw, but that's why I love MacOS)
Modern Linux distro's support stylus based graphics tablets (e.g. my Linux Mint 21, Cinnammon). Huion, a major graphics tablet manufacturer, now provide Linux drivers for their modern graphics tablets. XP Pen tablets have provided Linux drivers for their tablets for years. Manually getting these to work can also be done by watching the excellent CZcams tutorial called "How to get XP-PEN working on Linux Mint Correct!" - works for non XP-PEN devices also.
UGEE also has drivers for Linux, in case anyone is looking for a graphic tablet
working asa IT for a large employer i ran into merging PDFs, which for some reason i could not find in Acrobat. Finally found adobe has an online tool for merging them
JUST TO VIEW PDF'S I USE LLPP, IT'S AWESOME BECAUSE OF 3 REASONS:
IT IS WAY FASTER THAN OTHERS BECAUSE IT USES MUPDF.
IT CAN HANDLE ANNOTATIONS.
IT IS KEBOARD DRIVEN WITH THE AWESOME AIR VIEW MODE.
Thanks for this video, it was really enlightening.
One Question: Is there an OS that doesn't need an internet connection? only used for document editing.
So, there is no need for dependency on multiple companies, and no need for IT security.
A simple electronic typewriter for the private person.
- copy you file to mem-stick and export it via some other system.
PDF is a block format for text that is why LibreOffice Draw shows it that way.
I have been in a situation boasting about how cool Linux is but when I gave my laptop to my brother for a pdf file editing, well...it definitely is not the platforms fault though. I learned the hardway that boasting is not a good thing😅
How about printing booklets? Currently, I use an old java script, would be nice to print "booklet" under linux.
I've had tools on my linux desktop for years that can do things like merge, move pages around, etc. Granted, they're usually not pretty, and you couldn't actually edit text, but they were there. Unlike on my Windows desktop at work. From what I've seen on Windows, if you want to do *anything* with a PDF aside from view it, fill out a form, and sign it, it's going to require paid for tools. Part of our workflow involved merging different records from different apps into one PDF and posting it to an archive site. I had to request and get approved to have a proprietary app added to my machine to allow me to merge the documents to meet that requirement. Not even a standard part of the corporate desktop image. I remember thinking at the time, I could do this at home easily. Even generating the PDFs wasn't universally available.
In that same corporate environment, we didn't usually worry about editing a PDF. That job would go back to the author, who'd pull the original (usually Word) document and edit that. Then the PDF would be regenerated by the assigned person.
As to the use case for digitally signing documents, that's an extremely common case in gov't work. Signed using a certificate from an ID card, requiring a card reader as well. At least, that's how it was in my last years working for a defense contractor before I retired.
Are there any free (as in cost free) software that allows to select multiple pdfs/imgs, right click and merge them, a la Adobe Acrobat ? PDFSam enhanced does this, but it's not free
Hey, Nick! I think you're selling Scribus a bit short for PDF editing. Working with some complex PDFs, Scribus has blown both Draw and InkScape out of the water for me.
10:59 I have a Wacom drawing tablet with stylus that supposedly only works with Window$ 8+ and MacOS X Leopard. In Window$ it didn't even get recognized and I had to manually download a driver to use it. In anu Ubuntu-based Linux (which it officially doesn't work with!) I just connected it via Bluetooth and it immediately worked, no setup required.
Yeah, we’ve come a long way for these peripherals, it’s awesome!
@@TheLinuxEXP
What I really like is that the Wacom settings are actually well-integrated into the Gnome Settings and into the settings menu Linux Mint and Ubuntu Unity use.
What Distro and DE are you running in this video? Looks beautiful
I use GIMP for most of my pdf editing needs
What pdf editor in linux type acrobat PRO that is reliable, free and virus free do you recommend? I need to put photos to a pdf and edit their dimensions. Save and if you can add a watermark (that's optional, more with ambition)
I really hope this is not all you can do OCR-wise on Linux. The least I expected was adding an invisible text layer to the PDF file, that makes the text selectable roughly at the position where the original text is and lets you find the document on your hard drive.
I really really want to be Windows-free. Although it's a slightly different use-case, I used scribus to produce a local community magazine. I've just changed to using Serif's Affinity Publisher for this purpose. My toolset for managing pdfs in Linux was Scribus, Inkscape and Gimp. My problem is that artwork for the magazine arrives, and it may or may not render correctly in Scribus (although it is supposed to handle transparency, it doesn't, in my experience). So I'm forced into using pdf v1.3. This causes problems with "white lines" appearing across various bits of artwork in most pdf viewers (as a result of their anti-aliassing algorithms at the edges of tiles in an image). Gimp is pretty good at converting such a pdf to a bitmap, and that was my fallback solution. I spent literally hours per edition messing around to find which combination of these open-source tools could produce both a print-ready and web-ready pdf without artefacts for the 80 or so artworks in the edition.
In the end I trialled Affinity Publisher (which can edit pdfs too), and it just worked, no problems at all. So I have a choice of keeping to my open source goals and banging my head against the wall while things that should work just don't quite, or I can run a tool that just works, but requires a software environment I dearly want to avoid.
Thanks a lot for the Okular stemp trick. It's cumbersome indeed, but it works. Since I use Linux, this is one of the things that bothered me the most.
Pdfgear works well for editing under WINE and its free just remember to flatpak it to stop it from sending telemetry
since i only use foxit reader on windows rn for basic annotating and notes, what do you think could suit all my needs?
If all you need is highlighting and notes, the basic gnome pdf viewer is good. If you need to also scribble on the pdf, eg for a signature, Okular or PDF Studio.
@@r3lativ yes i use fedora kde so i am using okular. but it still feels not as smooth compared to how i used foxit on windows. compromises i guess
Foxit Reader for Linux is available on their website but it's getting old and they don't have plans to update