Editing a pdf

[Alicia]

I apologize right now for having to post something that I'm sure has been asked a million times but I'm not even sure which application would solve this problem so no idea where to look.

I had a graphic designer create some business card templates for my business and saved them as pdf's. I want my reps to be able to edit these templates with their own business information then print.

Writer won't open the template without it looking like lots of gibberish. I downloaded oracle pdf import extension but that forced the doc to open in Draw and I read here that Draw is not desktop publishing. Which is cool because I couldn't figure out how to make Draw do what I wanted anyway.

It looks like Writer has all the functionality for creating business cards. If I could just get my template in there and then use all the business card functionalities like sync that would be great.

Also, I tried to use the template as a jpg file to no avail.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

[FJCC]

There is no way, as far as I know to get a PDF into Writer. For something like a business card, the PDF import extension might well be adequate. What is it that you want to do? Another approach would be to go back to the original source of the template and ask them to save it in some other format. PDF isn't normally intended to be edited, so it really isn't suitable for a template.

[/a3]

You could try using Inkscape.

Just as a warning, in PDF files, paragraphs are separated into lines, so editing them won't cause the other lines to "flow". As FJCC said, PDFs aren't really intended to be edited. If you could get the original files then it might be easier to do.

[RoryOF]

The intention behind PDF is that it is the computer equivalent of a printed page, not intended to be edited. The PDF extension to OpenOffice opens a PDF file in Draw and permits one to do simple changes, such as for example changing a name - see this as the equivalent of taking a printed sheet and pasting in a a slip of paper with a new name on it. So, as FJCC says, it might be suitable for the changes you need.

If you wish to recreate the design of the business cards you probably could do this in Writer or in Draw. Neither of these are desktop publishing applications, but ought be adequate for your needs, as their output can be quite high quality. If you wish for a dedicated DTP application consider Scribus, but in all cases your starting point is unlikely to be the PDF file, other than as a design concept.

[Alicia]

Thank you everyone. I appreciate the help. So it seems the pdf format is the problem. Here's the thing. I see that there are business card templates already available for OO. I downloaded one last night and tried to edit it and couldn't.

I was following instructions for writer where I was supposed to simply highlight the COMPANY NAME text and replace it with whatever I wanted and it wouldn't work.

How do you make a template created for Writer work in Writer?

[RoryOF]

Without seeing the actual template it is difficult to say. It is possible that the key card is that at top left, and all others echo that card. Try editing Company Name on top left card and see what happens.

[Vitesse]

You may find that PDF-Xchange Viewer will do the job. Even the free version has PDF editing capabilities:

www.tracker-software.com/product/pdf-xchange-viewer