LibréOffice and PDFs (Again)

users
#1

Hi All,

End-users are asking for the ability to edit PDFs. Spotted this:

I've discovered, at least with my new Libre Office 4.3.5.2, that I can
open a PDF or .jpg in Writer and not have to open Draw.

I can also insert images (from file) into these respective documents
and then print them to a PDF, if desired, or save as .odt, MS Word,
etc.

This was a pleasure to discover and helps enormously.

I hope it's helpful to others as well.

I know this does *not* work with the LO 3.5.7.2 install on my Linux
Mint 13 Maya install.

Before I go to the trouble of manually installing later versions of LO
right-and-left, under Linux and Windows, to test this..

Question: Do recent (i.e. 4.3.x.x and later) versions of LO *capably*
allow the opening/editing/saving of PDF files that are writable and not
encrypted or otherwise protected?

Related: Another co-worker was asking about the ability to create PDF
forms. Again: Can that be done with later/current versions of LO?

Thanks,
Jim

#2

Jim Seymour wrote

Hi All,

End-users are asking for the ability to edit PDFs. Spotted this:

...
<snip>
I know this does *not* work with the LO 3.5.7.2 install on my Linux
Mint 13 Maya install.

Before I go to the trouble of manually installing later versions of LO
right-and-left, under Linux and Windows, to test this..

Question: Do recent (i.e. 4.3.x.x and later) versions of LO *capably*
allow the opening/editing/saving of PDF files that are writable and not
encrypted or otherwise protected?

Simple answer... YES, but LibreOffice is not a PDF editor and will never be.
It will always import to ODF native formats, and then must export/print
back to PDF as a round trip process.

LibreOffice produces high quality PDF (~v1.4) documents as export/print of
any of the components. It will filter import PDF with reasonable fidelity
into the Draw component--and uses a less functional PDF import for the other
components--YMMV for any specific task.

It will never be able to edit a PDF. If one needs that functionality--the
Export to Hybrid PDF embeds a copy of the ODF document into the PDF, which
current versions of LibreOffice can extract and edit natively as ODF.
Saving back to PDF is via export (hybrid embedding of ODF or not) as a new
PDF document.

Related: Another co-worker was asking about the ability to create PDF
forms. Again: Can that be done with later/current versions of LO?

ODF documents support fielded data, and those documents will export to PDF
(~v1.4) as passable forms. Again YMMV on achieving all functions that a
proper PDF editor provides with current Adobe PDF specifications.

Your unsupported version of LibreOffice 3.5.7 was release 5 Oct 2012 and is
well past its end-of-life from the projects perspective. ref: LibreOffice
release plan <https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Release_Plan> . You are
of course welcome to continue to use that build if it is serviceable for
your needs. But then it is likely not worth our trouble to try to assist
you further...

Good luck.

#3

Hi :slight_smile:
I think i still have a few machines on 3.5.7 but most have now
upgraded to something like 4.2.7. That might have happened when i
upgraded Ubuntu from 12.04 to 14.04 LTS. It might be possible to ask
your distro's package maintainers if they would be kind enough to make
a more recent version of LibreOffice available in their repos. They
are usually a fairly friendly bunch (except in Slackware where it's
allegedly just one very busy person (where "bunch" no longer applies
but "friendly" does))
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

#4

- From the perspective of a commercial enterprise, the EOL dates guarantee
that LibO is not suitable.

With thirteen months from feature freeze, to EOL, an organization
doesn't have time to test, much less deploy new versions, before they
are passed the EOL date. Which makes purchasing Tier 3 support
mandatory. Good for the developers that offer that. Not so good when
those costs are not included in either the transitional or ongoing
support budget. US$40K/year is cheaper than a new hire, but that can be
hard pill to swallow, if the software was proffered on the basis of
being gratis.

#5

Jim Seymour wrote

[snip]

>
> Question: Do recent (i.e. 4.3.x.x and later) versions of LO
> *capably* allow the opening/editing/saving of PDF files that are
> writable and not encrypted or otherwise protected?

Simple answer... YES, but LibreOffice is not a PDF editor and will
never be. It will always import to ODF native formats, and then must
export/print back to PDF as a round trip process.

[snip]

Surely a distinction without a difference?

It might be possible to ask
your distro's package maintainers if they would be kind enough to make
a more recent version of LibreOffice available in their repos.

[snip]

Even my Linux Mint 17 MATE install at home has only 4.2.7 (near as I
can tell, from here). I doubt I'll see an LO upgrade for Mint 13.

In any event: Not particularly germane: 99-44/100% of the end-users at
work are using MS-Win7 Pro, and it for them I ask this question. If LO
can do the job: Great. If not: I guess we'll have to go out and but a
few copies of some-or-another PDF-editing-capable thing.

> Your unsupported version of LibreOffice 3.5.7 was release 5 Oct
> 2012 and is well past its end-of-life from the projects
> perspective.

- From the perspective of a commercial enterprise, the EOL dates
guarantee that LibO is not suitable.

This is a concept that the open source community does not seem to
grasp. This is but one reason, out of many, that Linux will *never*,
*ever* replace MS-Win on the desktop. It is one of the reasons I no
longer suggest the idea.

With thirteen months from feature freeze, to EOL, an organization
doesn't have time to test, much less deploy new versions, before they
are passed the EOL date. Which makes purchasing Tier 3 support
mandatory.

[snip]

And, if we had to purchase the stuff, anyway, why not just "go with the
flow" and continue purchasing MS Office?

Not trying to be an urmas. Just trying to point out the realities of a
business environment. I have all the time in the world (that I care to
invest, anyway) at home. At work...? No, not so much.

Even at home: I install "LTS" versions of stuff where I can, and let it
run until it EOLs.

None of the above is by way of complaint. It is what it is, and I'm
more than happy with it as it is. It's worth way, *way* more than what
I paid for it, so who'm I to complain? :slight_smile:

Thanks for the responses, everybody. I'll see if I can install 4.3.x.x
or later on my laptop, under its Win7 Pro boot, and see if it'll do what
we need.

Regards,
Jim

#6

Hi :slight_smile:
"PDF Editor" or "PDF Editing" can mean many different things. It
rarely means editing in the way you would edit a .doc or .odt.

In a word-processor format when you delete words or add words to a
sentence the whole line reflows to avoid leaving a gap or having words
over-writing each other. Add or remove enough words and the rest of
the paragraph adjusts and may well affect the length of the whole
document. If you have images "Anchored to" paragraph, character or
"as character" then those images will also move. If images (or other
objects) have almost any of the "wrap" settings then text will usually
reflow around the image rather than over-writing it or vanishing under
it.

With almost all PDF Editors each element on the page might be able to
move around but does so without affecting other elements. An element
might be a line of text, but it's very unlikely to be a whole
sentence. Another element might be an image but if you move it around
no text reflows around it. Sometimes words seem to be sort of
sub-elements and/or individual letters can be sub-sub-elements and
removing them sometimes doesn't even affect the other words in the
same line, let alone the flow of the sentence.

So if you are going to buy a Pdf Editor you need to make sure of what
they mean by "edit".

Some Pdf Readers offer to convert or export Pdfs to certain formats
but so far i have only seen "docX" being offered and then it's a bit
hit-or-miss as to whether it's a "transistional" format that works on
whichever version of MS Office you happen to have - or maybe it uses
MS Office on the machine you export/convert the Pdf from and then you
just have to hope you have the same version on whichever machine you
are going to edit on - or hope the document works on non-MS programs.
If the Pdf Readers converted/exported to Doc or Odf, rather than one
of the many versions of DocX, then most of those worries would vanish.

So, LibreOffice CAN edit Pdfs but only in the way most Pdf Editors
mean. NOT in the way most users expect such editors to work.

Regards from
Tom :slight_smile: