Software To Edit PDFs

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ZennMystic

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Hello,

I have a disability and get sent medical forms as a PDF and then have to print them out. Then wait for my PCA to come and write for me. As I have trouble writing.

It would be much butter if I could some how edit the form directly, type/fill it out and then send back.

But I am not sure what software to look for on Linux. I am guessing that I will have to buy. This is fine as I really need it and it also needs to be reliable.

I am running Linux Mint 20.3 x64 on a Dell XPS 8300 (yes I know its old but still does at I need.)

Any help with this would be appreciated.

Thank you for your time.
 


ZennMystic said:
Hello,

I have a disability and get sent medical forms as a PDF and then have to print them out. Then wait for my PCA to come and write for me. As I have trouble writing.

It would be much butter if I could some how edit the form directly, type/fill it out and then send back.

But I am not sure what software to look for on Linux. I am guessing that I will have to buy. This is fine as I really need it and it also needs to be reliable.

I am running Linux Mint 20.3 x64 on a Dell XPS 8300 (yes I know its old but still does at I need.)

Any help with this would be appreciated.

Thank you for your time.
Click to expand...
PDF editor software does exist. It’s been a few years since ive had it. As for running it on Linux, ive no clue. Have you tried editing using Libre yet? Actually I’ll try and help you figure that out. I would definitely like to save a few dollars.
A quick search brought up ‘Sejda PDF Editor’ it’s compatible with Mac Windows and Linux.
 
Last edited:
LibreOffice Writer works pretty well for editing PDFs.
 
Couple of options spring to mind.

Master PDF Editor from CodeIndustry:-

Master PDF Editor | Edit text and images in PDF files

Master PDF Editor is а complete application for editing PDF documents.
code-industry.net

Or there's PDF Studio Viewer, from Qoppa Software:-

www.qoppa.com

PDF Studio Viewer - Free PDF Reader for Mac, Windows and Linux

Need PDF viewing software? PDF Studio Viewer is free, reliable PDF viewer for Windows, Mac and Linux!
www.qoppa.com www.qoppa.com

.....which, despite the name, WILL let you fill out interactive forms.

Both are free to download & use. I use the latter most of the time.


Mike. ;)
 
If you'd prefer something relatively economical in installed size, xournal can edit pdf files. It took a little while to learn its ways but filled forms in very well.
 
I tried free stuff when I used windows always lacking and not worth it. Been on Linux a while now and don't plan to go back. Needing to PDF edit just came up for the first time this week. Some things I still don't know. so I ask when it comes up.

Thank for the help. So grateful I'll check them out and get back.

Thank you so much.
 
I think evince (the default pdf reader for GNOME) can be used to fill out pdf forms.
I’m sure I’ve used it in the past.
I can’t remember if I re-saved the pdf after filling it in, or if I printed the file to a new pdf file. (Using the print dialog’s "print to file" option, rather than printing to a printer, to print the file as a pdf).

I think you can also open pdf’s in any chrome-based browser and fill in any text-fields and then print the file to a new pdf file too.

And I believe Libreoffice can also be used for importing and editing pdf’s.
 
JasKinasis wrote:
I think evince (the default pdf reader for GNOME) can be used to fill out pdf forms.
I’m sure I’ve used it in the past.
Click to expand...

Had a look at gnome help to see whether there'd been a change to evince to have it write, but it doesn't seem so:

From: https://help.gnome.org/users/evince/stable/editing.html.en
Can I edit documents in the document viewer?

The document viewer can't be used to make changes to documents. You need to use the appropriate editing application for the type of file you want to change.

PDF and PostScript (.ps) files are not usually intended to be edited, but PDF editing software is available. Try LibreOffice Draw or Okular, for example. Furthermore, pdfarranger allows rearranging or removing pages and merging files.
Click to expand...

The evince package I have in debian will only read pdfs, and it has issues as well. Its printing facility is broken which I found trying it on a number of machines here. It's "print to file" function is very handy, but it's not unique in that respect any more, if it ever was.

Libreoffice does edit pdf files but it's a large installation if one doesn't already have it on the machine. I think it's over 300M for a full install compared to xournal's couple of megabytes.
 
So I tried LibreOffice Writer since the community edition was already on this machine. It was OK for a very small form. But otherwise I it was hard to get it to keep alignment even with layer lock and snap grid on.

One thing I could not figure out was how to move the text cursor just a little in any direction easily like with keyboard..

It took 20 minutes to fill out a simple 1 page PDF. Which is not going to work for forms I have that have way way more than a few boxes on the page and the document is like 6 pages.


I will try the other suggestions too. Thank you all so much.
 
ZennMystic said:
So I tried LibreOffice Writer since the community edition was already on this machine. It was OK for a very small form. But otherwise I it was hard to get it to keep alignment even with layer lock and snap grid on.

One thing I could not figure out was how to move the text cursor just a little in any direction easily like with keyboard..

It took 20 minutes to fill out a simple 1 page PDF. Which is not going to work for forms I have that have way way more than a few boxes on the page and the document is like 6 pages.


I will try the other suggestions too. Thank you all so much.
Click to expand...
If you have these reasonably involved requirements, then xournal will be too fiddly I think. I found it good for docs with few pages but lining things up was always a bit time consuming and work intensive. Sounds like something more sophisticated would be more suitable such as perhaps in Lord Boltar's post #12.
 
Thunderpants said:
Recent Firefox releases have a PDF editing option built in. Used it successfully a couple of weeks ago to complete and print a couple of forms. Worked well.
Click to expand...
Firefox-108.0 can edit pdf files with drawing and text. Thanks for the tip Thunderpants.
 
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