Hello.

I just installed 64-bit W7 HPE SP1 last night due to a HDD crash on my 
old HDD with its Windows XP Pro SP3 and other old softwares. :( I have 
to look for software replacements:

1. What is a good free PDF file editor to edit on exiting PDF files? 
Basically, add/edit/remove texts and stuff.

2. I print to PDF files instead of the physical printer like from web 
browsers, Offices, etc. What's a good software to do that? I am trying 
to be paperless.

Thank you in advance. :)
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Ant wrote:
> Hello.
>
> I just installed 64-bit W7 HPE SP1 last night due to a HDD crash on my
> old HDD with its Windows XP Pro SP3 and other old softwares. :( I have
> to look for software replacements:
>
> 1. What is a good free PDF file editor to edit on exiting PDF files?
> Basically, add/edit/remove texts and stuff.
>
> 2. I print to PDF files instead of the physical printer like from web
> browsers, Offices, etc. What's a good software to do that? I am trying
> to be paperless.
>
> Thank you in advance. :)

The premise of PDF is that it is secure and text cannot be changed, however, it can
be highlighted, etc.
On the extremely rare occasion that I need to change existing pdf text then I print
to jpg or bmp and use a graphics program to change the text then print back to pdf.

To read PDF's I mostly use the paid version of Foxit Reader 2.2 (2129).
It's almost the same as the free version but adds highlight, underline, graphics,
etc, and does not leave a watermark.  Free versions usually leave a watermark.
IMO, Foxit versions past 2.2 are bloatware, call home, garbage.  PDF JS is not wanted.
Second choice is PDFXchange 2.5 (316.1).  It opens the latest state and federal government 
requirements for genuine Adobe files whereas my old Foxit 2.2 does not.

To print to PDF I use PDFCreator 1.2.0.  Never found one better.

Most of your old XP3 software will run just fine on 7/64.
Don't need 64 bits to read or write a pdf file.

On Sun, 23 Oct 2016 18:08:16 -0500, Paul in Houston TX
<Paul@Houston.Texas> wrote:

>Ant wrote:
>> Hello.
>>
>> I just installed 64-bit W7 HPE SP1 last night due to a HDD crash on my
>> old HDD with its Windows XP Pro SP3 and other old softwares. :( I have
>> to look for software replacements:
>>
>> 1. What is a good free PDF file editor to edit on exiting PDF files?
>> Basically, add/edit/remove texts and stuff.
>>
>> 2. I print to PDF files instead of the physical printer like from web
>> browsers, Offices, etc. What's a good software to do that? I am trying
>> to be paperless.
>>
>> Thank you in advance. :)
>
>The premise of PDF is that it is secure and text cannot be changed,=20


Sorry, but that is not correct. PDF files *can* be edited, if you have
an appropriate program, such as Adobe Acrobat, but not with a program
such as Adobe Reader.

Besides Adobe Acrobat, there are also many other choices. A Google
search will quickly turn up programs like PDFescape, PDF Pro, Sejda,
PDFzorro, DocHub, etc.

Also word processors like Microsoft Word and WordPerfect can edit pdf
files.

I've never used any of these, so I have no recommendations for Ant,
other than suggesting that he (she? it?) download and try all those
that are free.

| 1. What is a good free PDF file editor to edit on exiting PDF files?
| Basically, add/edit/remove texts and stuff.
|
   If you don't want to pay for Acrobat then PDF XChange
Viewer v. 2.5 is probably the most functional. It can edit
tax forms, but is not fully functional.

  There used to be an older free version of Acrobat online with
a free key provided by Adobe. First they posted it, then
they posted a message that it was only for people who
already had the software, then they required one to contact
them to get it. It was never clear whether it was legal to use.
Their original terms and download said it was only legal to use
if it were obtained from Adobe.... which of course it was!
   My guess is that they were putting it online to get people
hooked so they'd buy the newer version and then get suckered
into a subscription, but found more people happy with the
old version than they had expected.

   Anyway.... if you find that you can decide for yourself
whether you feel right about using it.

| 2. I print to PDF files instead of the physical printer like from web
| browsers, Offices, etc. What's a good software to do that? I am trying
| to be paperless.
|

  I just installed the Cute Writer, which I didn't know
about. It was listed in a list of 10 programs obsoleted
by Win10. I installed it on XP to convert HTML to PDF.
It seems to work great. 

On Sun, 23 Oct 2016 17:21:46 -0500, Ant wrote:
> I print to PDF files instead of the physical printer like from web 
> browsers, Offices, etc. What's a good software to do that? I am trying 
> to be paperless.
> 

There are a zillion choices. I use CutePDF and have been happy with 
it for years. It costs nothing.

(There's probably no reason you can't continue using the same 
software you used in Windows XP, unless it was 16-bit software.)

-- 
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
                                       http://BrownMath.com/
                                  http://OakRoadSystems.com/
Shikata ga nai...

On Sun, 23 Oct 2016 17:21:46 -0500, ANTant@zimage.com (Ant) wrote:


>2. I print to PDF files instead of the physical printer like from web 
>browsers, Offices, etc. What's a good software to do that? I am trying 
>to be paperless.

CutePDF works great for me.





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Ken Blake wrote:
> On Sun, 23 Oct 2016 18:08:16 -0500, Paul in Houston TX
> <Paul@Houston.Texas> wrote:
>
>> Ant wrote:
>>> Hello.
>>>
>>> I just installed 64-bit W7 HPE SP1 last night due to a HDD crash on my
>>> old HDD with its Windows XP Pro SP3 and other old softwares. :( I have
>>> to look for software replacements:
>>>
>>> 1. What is a good free PDF file editor to edit on exiting PDF files?
>>> Basically, add/edit/remove texts and stuff.
>>>
>>> 2. I print to PDF files instead of the physical printer like from web
>>> browsers, Offices, etc. What's a good software to do that? I am trying
>>> to be paperless.
>>>
>>> Thank you in advance. :)
>>
>> The premise of PDF is that it is secure and text cannot be changed,
>
>
> Sorry, but that is not correct. PDF files *can* be edited, if you have
> an appropriate program, such as Adobe Acrobat, but not with a program
> such as Adobe Reader.
>
> Besides Adobe Acrobat, there are also many other choices. A Google
> search will quickly turn up programs like PDFescape, PDF Pro, Sejda,
> PDFzorro, DocHub, etc.
>
> Also word processors like Microsoft Word and WordPerfect can edit pdf
> files.
>
> I've never used any of these, so I have no recommendations for Ant,
> other than suggesting that he (she? it?) download and try all those
> that are free.

I stand corrected.  Thank you for the information.

On 10/23/2016 03:21 PM, Ant wrote:
> Hello.
>
> I just installed 64-bit W7 HPE SP1 last night due to a HDD crash on my
> old HDD with its Windows XP Pro SP3 and other old softwares. :( I have
> to look for software replacements:
>
> 1. What is a good free PDF file editor to edit on exiting PDF files?
> Basically, add/edit/remove texts and stuff.
>
> 2. I print to PDF files instead of the physical printer like from web
> browsers, Offices, etc. What's a good software to do that? I am trying
> to be paperless.
>
> Thank you in advance. :)
>

Hi Ant,

Not free.  I use the excellent PDF Studio.  Costs about
$125 and is well worth it.

https://www.qoppa.com/pdfstudio/

It has an unlimited trial (write demo across every other page),
so you try before buying.  The demo is great for technical
research on long PDF tech docs., as it has a wonderful search
tool.  Their tech support is also EXTREMELY responsive and
has fixed several issues for me.

I pound the hell out the of the Linux version.

Give the demo a whirl,

-T

Ken Blake wrote:
> On Sun, 23 Oct 2016 18:08:16 -0500, Paul in Houston TX
> <Paul@Houston.Texas> wrote:
> 
>> Ant wrote:
>>> Hello.
>>>
>>> I just installed 64-bit W7 HPE SP1 last night due to a HDD crash on my
>>> old HDD with its Windows XP Pro SP3 and other old softwares. :( I have
>>> to look for software replacements:
>>>
>>> 1. What is a good free PDF file editor to edit on exiting PDF files?
>>> Basically, add/edit/remove texts and stuff.
>>>
>>> 2. I print to PDF files instead of the physical printer like from web
>>> browsers, Offices, etc. What's a good software to do that? I am trying
>>> to be paperless.
>>>
>>> Thank you in advance. :)
>> The premise of PDF is that it is secure and text cannot be changed, 
> 
> 
> Sorry, but that is not correct. PDF files *can* be edited, if you have
> an appropriate program, such as Adobe Acrobat, but not with a program
> such as Adobe Reader.
> 
> Besides Adobe Acrobat, there are also many other choices. A Google
> search will quickly turn up programs like PDFescape, PDF Pro, Sejda,
> PDFzorro, DocHub, etc.
> 
> Also word processors like Microsoft Word and WordPerfect can edit pdf
> files.
> 
> I've never used any of these, so I have no recommendations for Ant,
> other than suggesting that he (she? it?) download and try all those
> that are free.

Acrobat has a variety of security levels, in terms of
strength of key.

The first irritant, is naive users of Distiller, leave
the default security level enabled. This causes older
versions of Acrobat to throw up messages. It seems modern
users of Distiller are not capable of reviewing the security
settings and setting them properly.

There is at least one product, which can break the password
on Acrobat files. It can find all but one level of key in
a relatively short interval. It's possible the highest level
is something like AES128 or similar. That product is
available in trim levels, up to $500 a copy. The top level
might require several days to attempt to crack the highest
level of PDF security (brute force attack). In most cases
though, you're dealing with clueless Distiller users, and
this level of tool is not required. Still, if you need it,
it's comforting to know that moderate-strength protection
can be removed.

The moral of the story is, if you don't want someone
to have a piece of information, don't give it to them :-)
Giving people a digital puzzle to solve, they'll
eventually figure it out. Even if it costs $500
to do it...

*******

Look for mupdf/mutool, to perform "trivial" cleaning.
This is for cases where the nuisance level of protection
is present.

For example, a couple days ago, I needed to copy a couple
lines of text from an Asus motherboard manual. Using mutool
I was able to remove the "Cannot copy" protection from
the document.

MuPDF is hosted on the same site as GhostScript.

http://ghostscript.com/download/

    http://mupdf.com/downloads/mupdf-1.9a-windows.zip

mupdf-gl can view PDF files.
mutool.exe is useful for command line cleaning.

usage: mutool <command> [options]
	draw	-- convert document
	run	-- run javascript
	clean	-- rewrite pdf file
	extract	-- extract font and image resources
	info	-- show information about pdf resources
	pages	-- show information about pdf pages
	poster	-- split large page into many tiles
	show	-- show internal pdf objects
	create	-- create pdf document
	merge	-- merge pages from multiple pdf sources into a new pdf

For example:

    mutool clean annoying_Intel_doc.pdf pleasant_to_use_Intel_doc.pdf

The merge capability is something new, and I'll be
testing that later today for a little project :-)

*******

PostScript ("the printer language") and PDF ("the document language")
are actually computer programming languages.

When you use a PDF editor, you are asking it to recognize
subroutines in a computer program, and do something
intelligent with them. And it's for this reason,
that I expect you will sooner or later run into
a situation where this causes a problem.

For example, feed this to that "impressive" PDF editor
you found, and see if you can edit it. Or at least
think about whether it's reasonable to even attempt
to edit this.

http://ecee.colorado.edu/~kuester/smith/smith.pdf

It's not really all that tricky, that one. The original
work of art, was smith.ps. And smith.ps was written
from first principles, as a computer programming challenge.
The author of it, wrote subroutines in the PostScript language
by hand, to draw that stuff. (The document was not created in
so other tool and "printed" or "saved out".)

A tool at the level of Adobe Illustrator is required
to handle more complex programming constructs (maybe
it can edit text on a spline curve baseline?). The
other editors you'll find on the Internet, can be
used to edit horizontal or vertical text, and
convince you they're clever pieces of work. But
if you look hard enough, you can always find a PDF
that cannot be (intelligently) edited by them.

As an example of lameness, PDF going into or out
of LibreOffice, will leave you wondering what they
were thinking. LibreOffice can "import PDF", but
not in a way that I find useful. But at least
observing what LibreOffice has done, will
give you a feeling of how hard it is to do
a good job.

HTH,
     Paul

Paul wrote:
> Ken Blake wrote:
>> On Sun, 23 Oct 2016 18:08:16 -0500, Paul in Houston TX
>> <Paul@Houston.Texas> wrote:
>>
>>> Ant wrote:
>>>> Hello.
>>>>
>>>> I just installed 64-bit W7 HPE SP1 last night due to a HDD crash on my
>>>> old HDD with its Windows XP Pro SP3 and other old softwares. :( I have
>>>> to look for software replacements:
>>>>
>>>> 1. What is a good free PDF file editor to edit on exiting PDF files?
>>>> Basically, add/edit/remove texts and stuff.
>>>>
>>>> 2. I print to PDF files instead of the physical printer like from web
>>>> browsers, Offices, etc. What's a good software to do that? I am trying
>>>> to be paperless.
>>>>
>>>> Thank you in advance. :)
>>> The premise of PDF is that it is secure and text cannot be changed, 
>>
>>
>> Sorry, but that is not correct. PDF files *can* be edited, if you have
>> an appropriate program, such as Adobe Acrobat, but not with a program
>> such as Adobe Reader.
>>
>> Besides Adobe Acrobat, there are also many other choices. A Google
>> search will quickly turn up programs like PDFescape, PDF Pro, Sejda,
>> PDFzorro, DocHub, etc.
>>
>> Also word processors like Microsoft Word and WordPerfect can edit pdf
>> files.
>>
>> I've never used any of these, so I have no recommendations for Ant,
>> other than suggesting that he (she? it?) download and try all those
>> that are free.
> 

For more info on the innards of PDF (may not be the
latest version, but at least it'll show you some examples).
[ 8.7MB 1236 pages ].

http://wwwimages.adobe.com/www.adobe.com/content/dam/Adobe/en/devnet/pdf/pdfs/pdf_reference_archives/PDFReference16.pdf

In the spirit of trivia, here is the largest
PDF I've ever downloaded. Try *this* in your editor
and watch it choke :-)  [ 154,752,614 bytes  28,365 pages ]

https://download.microsoft.com/download/3/5/0/3502F151-5E4C-48E1-8ABE-C89E73CB1291/Windows%20Server%202003_en-us.pdf

My copy of Acrobat Reader was running at 30% CPU for
quite a while, after loading that. Maybe it was
trying to index it ?

    Paul

On Mon, 24 Oct 2016 04:45:27 -0400, Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> wrote:


>In the spirit of trivia, here is the largest
>PDF I've ever downloaded. Try *this* in your editor
>and watch it choke :-)  [ 154,752,614 bytes  28,365 pages ]
>
>https://download.microsoft.com/download/3/5/0/3502F151-5E4C-48E1-8ABE-C89E73CB1291/Windows%20Server%202003_en-us.pdf
>
>My copy of Acrobat Reader was running at 30% CPU for
>quite a while, after loading that. Maybe it was
>trying to index it ?

DLed it in less than 30 seconds, and Sumatra on my old laptop with Win7
opened it in less than 5 seconds. Rendering of pages above 5 or 6 took a
bit longer.






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On Sun, 23 Oct 2016 19:56:57 -0500, Paul in Houston TX
<Paul@Houston.Texas> wrote:

>Ken Blake wrote:
>> On Sun, 23 Oct 2016 18:08:16 -0500, Paul in Houston TX
>> <Paul@Houston.Texas> wrote:
>>
>>> Ant wrote:
>>>> Hello.
>>>>
>>>> I just installed 64-bit W7 HPE SP1 last night due to a HDD crash on =
my
>>>> old HDD with its Windows XP Pro SP3 and other old softwares. :( I =
have
>>>> to look for software replacements:
>>>>
>>>> 1. What is a good free PDF file editor to edit on exiting PDF files?
>>>> Basically, add/edit/remove texts and stuff.
>>>>
>>>> 2. I print to PDF files instead of the physical printer like from =
web
>>>> browsers, Offices, etc. What's a good software to do that? I am =
trying
>>>> to be paperless.
>>>>
>>>> Thank you in advance. :)
>>>
>>> The premise of PDF is that it is secure and text cannot be changed,
>>
>>
>> Sorry, but that is not correct. PDF files *can* be edited, if you have
>> an appropriate program, such as Adobe Acrobat, but not with a program
>> such as Adobe Reader.
>>
>> Besides Adobe Acrobat, there are also many other choices. A Google
>> search will quickly turn up programs like PDFescape, PDF Pro, Sejda,
>> PDFzorro, DocHub, etc.
>>
>> Also word processors like Microsoft Word and WordPerfect can edit pdf
>> files.
>>
>> I've never used any of these, so I have no recommendations for Ant,
>> other than suggesting that he (she? it?) download and try all those
>> that are free.
>
>I stand corrected.  Thank you for the information.

You're welcome. Glad to help.=20