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July 30, 2006
How can I edit a PDF file? Or can I convert it to a DOC?
The deep issue is that PDF is never the editable source file for any document. Portable Document Format is a portable *output* format. It is a core part of Adobe's business to make sure PDFs can be viewed in any operating system and printed on any printer. That PDF is an output format is also why PDF is so popular for distributing documents over the Internet when authors want to preserve their content: the odds of a PDF being compromised without intent are nil.
You can "mark-up" PDFs up and flatten them so they look like clean edits to the casual observer, but you need a full version of Adobe Acrobat (not just the reader), Creative Suite (CS2 is available on education discount for $350, less than any one component retail), Photoshop, or Illustrator. There are some free Linux programs that you can hack together to edit PDFs, but I'm not familiar with them. Google show's a promising PDF editor that actually allows you to edit the PDF's code.
As for converting PDF to DOC, google knows about lots of companies selling software to do that. There may be some free ones.
Posted by Niels Olson at July 30, 2006 11:35 AM
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