Edit PDF file

[JHolliday]

I have a copy of a file that is only in pdf form. Is it possible to convert this file to text so I can edit it in OpenOffice?

[robleyd]

Hi, and welcome to the community forum.

If you can select the text in the PDF file, simply copy and paste into Writer. This will only work provided the PDF is not a scanned image.

[Zizi64]

I have a copy of a file that is only in pdf form. Is it possible to convert this file to text so I can edit it in OpenOffice?

The PDF fileformat was developed in the past for reading and printing (and for filling today), but not for full featured editing.

The AOO and LO has a feature named Import PDF. It is a limited PDF editor capability: You can open a PDF file in the Draw application, and you can make some cosmetics on the file: you can edit the texts "as labels"; you can delete some texts and/or pictures from the PDF file; etc...


Some PDF files are protected. In this case maybe you will not able to edit it nor copy the content from the pdf.

[RoryOF]

If serious editing is needed, such as re-layout of the file, or extensive extraction of the text from it, it may be necessary to pass the file through an OCR (Optical Character Recognition) program, and then edit the resulting text, both for correction of OCR errors (typically 2 - 3% of the text) and rectification of the formatting which the OCR will attempt to preserve. For a multipage document this is not a trivial task.

As Zizi64 says, it may not easily be possible, as PDF files can be locked to prevent extraction of text.