Apache OpenOffice Community Forum

Hello,

I am new here and a beginner with open office org 4.3.1. I am trying to make some changes to a PDF document. When I open the PDF attachment in open office, it appears some of the text is shifting to the right i.e. commas, decimal points etc. Why is this happening and how do I stop it? When I go to export and save this new PDF, I have decimal points, exlamation points, periods on top of letters etc.. PLEASE HELP - Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

Hello All,

I'm sorry for the rookie question here, but I am having a hard time with editing a PDF document. I have downloaded open office 4.3.1 and the Oracle PDF Extension. When I open the PDF document some of the text symblos "shift" to the right. I can make small changes, but then all the periods, commas, exlamation points are shifted and sometimes hidden behind other text and do not notice this until I export the new PDF to my desktop. When I open the new PDF, it's a train wreck because of all of the symbol shifting. Please advise.

Thanks

As PDF files are designed to be largely unchangeable, and as OpenOffice's PDF editing extension is designed only for small cosmetic chanes, you should look for a more powerful PDF editor. Google will be your friend here.

As to why the shift of characters might be happening, it is difficult to say without the actual document; don't waste your time trying to fix OpenOffice's interaction with this document - seek another more powerful tool.

Do you have any recommendations for a more powerful tool?

Try Googling for "pdf editor freeware" (no quotes).

Sorry, but OOo really isn't meant to be a PDF editor.

I don't know of any specifically, but I'm pretty sure that there is software available that's designed for this task.

Topics merged. Please don't multi-post...

Hi

I understand your question and hope I can help with your dilemma.
At work we produce invoices in pdf format and sometimes our invoices may contain spelling errors or be missing reference numbers.
A pdf editor would help to make minor cosmetic changes to the text in the body of the invoice.
In the past I have used Adobe Photoshop to make changes but this method rasterizes the document effectively making the pdf a JPEG image.
This is fine in most cases when the invoice is just one page.
However, recently I had an invoice consisting of 91 pages where one number needed changing 91 times because there was a single line item addition
on page 91. So the Adobe Photoshop method was not going to be an efficient way.
Through Google, I found an eXPert editor pro edition and downloaded the trial and was able to achieve the editorial changes I needed, though selecting the text to edit was fiddly requiring subtle mouse movements and right click to get a text i beam cursor appearing in the text.

I concur that pdf files are not really meant for editing and the original document is where this should be done.

Hope this helps a bit.

Ian

Thanks, I've had the same problem and it worked for me. Finally though....took some time to figure it out. But I agree, the reason PDF exists is to stop the editing process.

Hi

If you don't already have Open Office installed on your computer. Download and install Open Office.
This is a complete suite of Office products including Open Office Draw.
After installing Open Office run the PDF Import Extension.
Next, Open Open Office Draw.
Once open, browse to the PDF file you want to edit and open the file.
After the PDF file has been open, edit any text field by double-click the text. If you wish to add new text, click the Text link at the bottom of the Window,
and then click the cursor on where you want to add text.
Finally, after you have finished editing the file click the PDF link to export the file as a PDF.

Be aware, as stated earlier in this thread and elsewhere, that the OpenOffice extension to read/edit PDF files is really intended to make minor changes, not major structural changes in a PDF file. For that, other tools are required, not forming part of the OpenOffice suite.

I have downloaded the PDF Import Extension for Apache OpenOffice 0.1.0 and can't get it to install. Would someone share the steps? I can see it in the Extension Manager. I click Add and the next popup window has Add Extensions in the title bar at the top. I've navigated to my applications folder. Then, I scroll down and click on Open Office and Open. It doesn't matter if I select Only Me or For All Users, I get the error Cannot detect media-type: file://localhost/Applications/OpenOffice.app which a choice to click OK.

I am trying to install the extension so that I might be able to open and type into a simple document that is saved as a pdf.

Thanks for the help.

Firstly, note that there is a special link for the PDF extension for AOO 4.0, at
http://extensions.openoffice.org/en/node/17351

If you have downloaded from this (and no other)
check that the .oxt extension has not been renamed by your browser to .zip.

If it has, rename back to .oxt and try to install.

since PDF files are designed to be largely unchangeable, and as OpenOffice's PDF editing extension is designed only for small cosmetic chanes, you should look for a more powerful PDF editor.

yes, unfortunately OpenOffice does not provide option for editing PDF files. For me very usefull is new Adobe Acrobat.