In an increasingly Adobe PDF world -- thankfully in my view, as I don't like having to pass around Microsoft Word documents -- it's useful to be aware of some tools that make dealing with PDFs easier. In particular, I intend to briefly discuss three different PDF tools, all free.
Below the fold, I will expound at some length on each tool.
Past Tech Kos posts are listed below:
* Password Management with KeePass
* Data Backups with Duplicati
PDF Creator
The first tool, PDF Creator, is an Open Source(tm) printer driver for Microsoft Windows systems that allows you to print to a PDF file from within any application simply by selecting the PDF printer. While many applications allow you to export a PDF file now, such as the Libre Office Suite, it can still be useful in some situations.
The installation process for PDF Creator is straightforward, although a reboot may be necessary. As of this writing, the current version is 1.2. When running the installation wizard, the Standard installation is fine for most users. The Name of printer will be the printer that appears as a regular printer choice when printing from applications. the default of PDFCreator is probably fine.
Uncheck both boxes when asked if you want to install the pdfforge Toolbar and click Next. When the Select Components window appears, the default is fine.
Last, for Select Additional Tasks, you may wish to uncheck Create an entry in the Windows Explorer context menu if you don't want to be able to access a PDF Creator context menu from Windows explorer. Additionally, there's usually no reason for a desktop icon, so you may uncheck Create a desktop icon. When you arrive at the next screen, you can click Install.
The final configuration must be done by locating the PDF Creator appplication inside the Start Menu as above, then selecting File - Options as above to bring up the configuration menu. It seems scary, but only a few choices are important. In particular, I like to have the PDF files automatically saved. By default, when printing to the PDF Creator printer, an options dialog will appear. It's easier when the PDFs are simply saved automatically, by default in your My Documents folder. To enable this, select the Auto-save item on the left, then check the Use Auto-save box on the right. Finally, click Save at the bottom to commit your changes.
PDF-XChange Viewer
A second useful tool is PDF-XChange Viewer, which allows for simple annotations and additions to a PDF file. I found the changes to only appear in Adobe Acrobat Reader and not in other PDF viewers I tried under GNU/Linux, but that won't be an issue for the vast majority of users. XChange Viewer is free for non-commercial and commercial usage. The current version as of this writing is 2.5.195 and has a dizzying number of installer choices. The EXE installer choice is usually appropriate.
When installing, you may wish to disable Addin for Internet Explorer, Addin for Mozilla Firefox, Opera, and Chrome, or Shell Extensions. I find such things are usually just clutter. As usual, the default is to create another desktop icon. I almost always uncheck Create a desktop icon when installing applications on Windows. You almost ceratainly want to disable Set PDF-XChange Viewer as default view for PDF files.
Yes, there is a toolbar for this application, too. It's the Ask toolbar, which I highly suggest you disable. Uncheck the I accept the terms of the Ask End User License Agreement... to decline the toolbar installation. Finally, it can be installed.
When it runs, it will again ask if you want it to be the default PDF viewer. Tell it no once again. Feel free to experiment with a PDF file to see the kinds of things you can do. For example, below I printed the PDF Creator Web page to PDF, then made modifications to it.
Libre Office with Oracle PDF Import Extension
Once in a while, it's necessary to modify an existing PDF. Using Oracle's PDF Import Extension, it's possible to import an existing PDF, make modifications, and export a new PDF file. Any changes made will be saved in the OpenOffice Draw format, not the original PDF. In many situations, that's entirely acceptable, but note you can only create new PDFs based upon an existing PDF, not directly modify and save an existing PDF.
Naturally you need either Oracle's OpenOffice.org Suite or Libre Office, which is a recent fork of the OpenOffice.org codebase which offers some newer import filters and other enhancements. In either, start up the suite and select Tools - Extension Manager... Once the Extension Manager window appears, select Add.. to browse to the Oracle PDF Import Extension just downloaded. When prompted, select For all users so the extension is installed globally. Accept the license agreement to finish the install. The extension will appear in the extension list.
Thereafter, you can open any PDF file as you would any other OpenOffice.org or Libre Office document. It will open inside the Draw application. The representation will closely resemble the PDF file. Edit away. For example, below the PDF modified earlier with PDF X-Change Viewer has been imported. Notice the "For Public Release" graphic didn't survive the import. Sometimes things like that can happen, but overall the importer works quite well. Also, notice Libre Office is performing a spellcheck on the text.
Author
Jason Boxman is an IT industry professional working in the life and health insurance sales industry. His principle background is Linux Systems Administration, task automation, and documentation. He is happy to answer any questions anyone may have and also available for contract work.