Hello everyone, I was wondering if anyone knew of a FOSS editing app to use on PDFs, just to add text and and mark things out, I tried GNU image editor but it just works on images exclusively. Any ideas are appreciated, thanks.

  • billgamesh@lemmy.ml
    0·
    6 months ago

    I end up using gimp because I always have it installed and raster is easier than relying on the PDF forms to be set up properly.

  • DirigibleProtein@aussie.zone
    0·
    6 months ago

    Depends what you’re trying to do and what created the pdf. pdftools are good, but they’re command line tools which might not be your scene (dnf/apt/zypper search pdf). Inkscape, Libreoffice are usually a good gui compromise.

  • wolfruff@pawb.social
    0·
    6 months ago

    Another vouch for Xournal++ here. Never in my life have I been so frustrated with software until I was asked to sign a pdf. I also learned this is the entire reason Docusign was created.

    Forget editing any wording yourself either unless you want to spend forever fixing the formatting. The ultimate software as a service is paying to edit a fucking document. When I found Xournal it was like finding gold in the ocean as it was seriously the only decent option on Linux.

  • sab@kbin.social
    0·
    6 months ago

    In addition to what’s already mentioned in the text, shout out to Inkscape. I guess it’s similar to LibreOffice Draw, but I prefer the user experience of Inkscape. Probably more for single-page PDFs.

  • unwarlikeExtortion@lemmy.ml
    0·
    6 months ago

    Inkscape.

    Some people mentioned Inkscape and I can’t recommend it enough because it’s my goto FOSS PDF editor.

    It’s not made for PDFs and it shows, bit regardless it’s absolutely incredible how versatile it is.

    You can keep the formatting, it’s vector so no loss of percieved quality, and its Text tool is easy (and fast) to use.

    The only problem is each page has to be imported and exported seperstely - you’ll have to use something else to combine them

    As far as signing goes, if it can be a classic squiggle it’s perfect - there’s a few pen tools and one has smoothing so you can play with it a bit until the signature looks good.

    On mobile, so excuse any typos.

    • Treczoks@kbin.social
      0·
      6 months ago

      Absolutely. And I think a proper “Export to PDF” in Inkscape is something that should be high on the list of “future features” in Inkscape. Editing the PDF in Inkscape is heaven, having to re-join the pages to one big PDF afterwards is (unnecessary) hell.

      • 56!@lemmy.ml
        0·
        6 months ago

        I can import and export multi-page PDFs into inkskape just fine. No need to do each page individually.

        • Treczoks@kbin.social
          0·
          6 months ago

          I can only import multipage PDFs in 1.3.2. Export produces a bunch of single-page PDF files. What version do you use?

  • TreeGhost@lemm.ee
    0·
    6 months ago

    If you are trying to mark something sensitive out, make sure that you are deleting the actual text or convert the PDF to a flat image after. PDFs can store information in text and images, so if you just draw over some text thinking you are marking it out, there is a chance that the mark out is just a image layer sitting on top of the sensitive text. A way to check this is opening the PDF in Firefox after and toggle Reader View (button in the address bar or F9) to see if you can still see to marked out information.

  • delirious_owl@discuss.online
    0·
    6 months ago

    If you asked this on a windows forum years ago, people would say “you can’t edfit a pdf by design”

    I like how on Linux we have so many solutions and nobody even mentions this

  • U de Recife@literature.cafe
    0·
    6 months ago

    Several options:

    • Master PDF Editor, version 4 is free (and in AUR);
    • PDF Arranger, good for bulk edits;
    • jPdfTweak, a veritable swiss knife of PDF editing;
    • jPDFBookmarks, the best for editing bookmarks;
    • Briss, for bulk cutting PDFs;
    • Krop, also for cutting, but less flexible.