PDF editor needed, free and local software

[PeterC]

Howdy! I have a need to remove pages from some PDFs before I send
them to come companies.
I have looked at "best free PDF editor sites", but all of them point
to various web sites. These documents are contain information like my
name, address, date of birth, and bank account numbers, so I really
don't want to upload them to some web site.
Does anyone know of an free software that can edit PDF on a whole-
page basis, strictly on my local Windows 7 PC? My immediate need is
just to be able to remove individual pages, but it would be nice if
the software could split PDFS or append one to another as well.
Thanks!
If there's no software, Plan B is to print the pages I want to send
and make a new PDF from scratch.
(I thought Irfanview could do this, but I tried updating to the
current version and it can't. It can create a PDF, but not edit one.)

For removing, merging etc. a9also it will remove the lock from some files) I
use this Freeware:
https://www.softpedia.com/get/Office-tools/PDF/PDFill-PDF-Tools.shtml

You need to 'poke around' in it to find out what it can do, but it's quite
easy.

[Ken Springer]

Howdy! I have a need to remove pages from some PDFs before I send
them to come companies.
I have looked at "best free PDF editor sites", but all of them point
to various web sites. These documents are contain information like my
name, address, date of birth, and bank account numbers, so I really
don't want to upload them to some web site.
Does anyone know of an free software that can edit PDF on a whole-
page basis, strictly on my local Windows 7 PC? My immediate need is
just to be able to remove individual pages, but it would be nice if
the software could split PDFS or append one to another as well.
Thanks!
If there's no software, Plan B is to print the pages I want to send
and make a new PDF from scratch.
(I thought Irfanview could do this, but I tried updating to the
current version and it can't. It can create a PDF, but not edit one.)

Hi, Stan,

If you don't find free software that will do what you want, do you know
anyone with a Mac?

Macs come with a program called Preview, so damned easy to open a PDF,
select the page(s) you want to remove, go to the Edit menu and select
Delete. Close the PDF, done.

Only work on copies of the documents.

[Monty]

On Sat, 5 Oct 2019 13:42:26 -0400, Stan Brown

Howdy! I have a need to remove pages from some PDFs before I send
them to come companies.

FlexiPDF Basic might do what you want. I use FlexiPDF Pro and that
does all the editing of PDF files that I need.

https://www.freeoffice.com/en/flexipdf-basic

[VanguardLH]

Post by Monty

Howdy! I have a need to remove pages from some PDFs before I send
them to come companies.

FlexiPDF Basic might do what you want. I use FlexiPDF Pro and that
does all the editing of PDF files that I need.
https://www.freeoffice.com/en/flexipdf-basic

As for FlexiPDF Basic (since the OP commanded a freeware solution) ...

You mention using the Pro edition ($60), yet then you point to the free
Basic edition. You can do what the OP requested in the Pro edition, but
can you also do what the OP wants in the Basic edition?

You sure FlexiPDF Basic isn't lureware? It is a free version with
"Basic" in its title. https://www.freeoffice.com/en/flexipdf-basic
doesn't mention a Pro or Plus or other-named full-featured version.
However, that is Softmaker's freeoffice site, so perhaps all they show
there are their freeware or lureware products. I went to
https://www.softmaker.com/en/.

https://www.pcworld.com/article/3388637/flexipdf-2019-pdf-editor-review.html

That says the SRP is $60 for the non-Basic edition (no Pro or Plus in
its name to differentiate from the free Basic edition). So, the Basic
edition is lureware. Softmaker doesn't offer a comparison page to show
what features are in the non-Basic edition that are missing from the
Basic edition.

According to the article, the non-Basic edition is called Standard
($60). For a higher price ($80), there is the Pro edition. The article
mentions some differences between the editions, but is unlikely to be an
exhaustive comparison. Also offered are subscriptionware editions. At
https://www.softmaker.com/en/flexipdf, which is for the payware
editions, is a list of features in the Pro edition missing from the
Standard edition. There is a list of payware edition differentation
shown at https://www.softmaker.com/en/flexipdf-features. I've not found
Softmaker offering a comparison list or chart to show how much the Basic
edition is crippled compared to the Standard edition.

The article states a con is "Free trial version includes watermarks".
For me, that is always a killer for using crippleware. Does the free
Basic version add watermarks after editing the PDF document either in
the document itself or when printing from the Basic edition? A trial
edition is available for download at https://www.softmaker.com/en/, so
maybe the Basic edition is separate of the trial edition; i.e., perhaps
the free Basic edition doesn't watermark as does the free trial edition.

I can get a list of feature differences at Softmaker's site for the
Standard and Pro editions. I haven't found a comparison for what is
crippled from the Standard edition to see what is missing in the Basic
edition.


Back to the OP's request ...

The OP wants freeware to be as robust as Adobe Acrobat, PDF-Xchange
Editor Pro, or FlexiPDF Pro. I haven't found anyone offering all that
functionality for free, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. After
all, LibreOffice isn't wimp freeware. The reason why many of the
freeware alternatives to Adobe Acrobat are web/cloud based is that the
resources are shared among users and no license tracking/control is
needed. Wanting to have the features of commercial payware but as
freeware often means having to leech on the hard work of a community
working on an open source project (LibreOffice, Inkscape, Scribus).

I mentioned LibreOffice which has some PDF functions. The OP could
import a PDF into LibreOffice Draw, edit (delete pages, edit text and
images -- but only from a source dofument and not from OCR scanned
sources), and then export as PDF. I haven't used Inkscape but hear good
recommendations about it; however, it is more geared to graphic heavy
documents rather than mostly or all text. Inkscape can import and
export in PDF format, and several others. The OP can find some
tutorials on using LibreOffice Draw or Inkscape to edit PDF docs, like:

LibreOffice Draw with PDFs

Inkscape with PDFs

I've not used Scribus, but there are Youtube tutorials on using it with
PDF documents, too.

These are not pumped up Notepad programs to edit documents. There will
be a learning curve to using LO Draw, Inkscape, or Scribus.

[Ian Jackson]

Post by Monty
On Sat, 5 Oct 2019 13:42:26 -0400, Stan Brown

Howdy! I have a need to remove pages from some PDFs before I send
them to come companies.

FlexiPDF Basic might do what you want. I use FlexiPDF Pro and that
does all the editing of PDF files that I need.
https://www.freeoffice.com/en/flexipdf-basic

I use PDFTK Builder
http://angusj.com/pdftkb/
"Open source freeware - no nags, no ads, and no bundled junk."

[Zaidy036]

Howdy! I have a need to remove pages from some PDFs before I send
them to come companies.
I have looked at "best free PDF editor sites", but all of them point
to various web sites. These documents are contain information like my
name, address, date of birth, and bank account numbers, so I really
don't want to upload them to some web site.
Does anyone know of an free software that can edit PDF on a whole-
page basis, strictly on my local Windows 7 PC? My immediate need is
just to be able to remove individual pages, but it would be nice if
the software could split PDFS or append one to another as well.
Thanks!
If there's no software, Plan B is to print the pages I want to send
and make a new PDF from scratch.
(I thought Irfanview could do this, but I tried updating to the
current version and it can't. It can create a PDF, but not edit one.)

Look at 3StepPDF available free or $
<https://3steppdf.soft112.com/>
<https://64bitapps.com/3steppdf-fine-tune-your-pdf-documents/>

[Paul]

Howdy! I have a need to remove pages from some PDFs before I send
them to come companies.
I have looked at "best free PDF editor sites", but all of them point
to various web sites. These documents are contain information like my
name, address, date of birth, and bank account numbers, so I really
don't want to upload them to some web site.
Does anyone know of an free software that can edit PDF on a whole-
page basis, strictly on my local Windows 7 PC? My immediate need is
just to be able to remove individual pages, but it would be nice if
the software could split PDFS or append one to another as well.
Thanks!
If there's no software, Plan B is to print the pages I want to send
and make a new PDF from scratch.
(I thought Irfanview could do this, but I tried updating to the
current version and it can't. It can create a PDF, but not edit one.)

https://www.mupdf.com/downloads/index.html

https://www.mupdf.com/docs/manual-mutool-merge.html

# Example: reverse a four page document

mutool merge -o reverse.pdf in.pdf 4 in.pdf 3 in.pdf 2 in.pdf 1

# Example: knock out the middle two pages in a six page PDF

mutool merge -o knock.pdf in.pdf 1-2,5-6

The result looks like this:

Loading Image...

There are (naturally) going to be documents which are
better off edited in GUI-based tools. For example, if
you have a document which mixes page sizes, I wouldn't
expect such a simple-minded command line tool to pass the
test. But if the pages are uniform in size with no
rotation tricks, it's probably going to work.

Paul

[Dick]

Howdy! I have a need to remove pages from some PDFs before I send
them to come companies.
I have looked at "best free PDF editor sites", but all of them point
to various web sites. These documents are contain information like my
name, address, date of birth, and bank account numbers, so I really
don't want to upload them to some web site.
Does anyone know of an free software that can edit PDF on a whole-
page basis, strictly on my local Windows 7 PC? My immediate need is
just to be able to remove individual pages, but it would be nice if
the software could split PDFS or append one to another as well.
Thanks!
If there's no software, Plan B is to print the pages I want to send
and make a new PDF from scratch.
(I thought Irfanview could do this, but I tried updating to the
current version and it can't. It can create a PDF, but not edit one.)

Stan,
I have used PDFsam Basic (free) for many years. The basic free version
allows you to remove pages, insert pages etc. It runs locally on your
machine, so you have complete control over it.

[Mayayana]

"Dick" <***@comcast.net> wrote

| I have used PDFsam Basic (free) for many years. The basic free version
| allows you to remove pages, insert pages etc. It runs locally on your
| machine, so you have complete control over it.

What a mess. It tries and fails to run a BAT file written
in win98 era, to start Java. The fail message is unusual:
No such path as %1. Apparently there's a problem with
lack of quotes in the BAT file.

I wish people would mention these things. I don't
want Java. I was also trying out some OCR software
after seeing Java Jive's request. It' become typical these
days that people build software out of wrappers and
then don't explain it. One program wanted to install the
VC++ 14 runtime *and* ghostscript *and* .Net 4.5.
Others want a python runtime. The cross-platform
stuff is the worst. Claims to run on all systems but really
it's just using crap like python and Qt, bypassing the
native API.
Yet the download pages rarely mention these things.
There was even one called NEOCR that installs ghostscript
but then the program installer fails. When did it become
normal to offer halfbaked junk as software?

[Stan Brown]

Does anyone know of an free software that can edit PDF on a whole-
page basis, strictly on my local Windows 7 PC? My immediate need is
just to be able to remove individual pages, but it would be nice if
the software could split PDFS or append one to another as well.

Many thanks, everyone! I have downloaded Mutool (Paul's suggestion)
and used the command line successfully. I've also downloaded
PDFTKBuilder (Ian Jackson's suggestion) in case I need to add
watermarking at some point.

[Arlen _G_ Holder]

Post by Stan Brown
Many thanks, everyone! I have downloaded Mutool (Paul's suggestion)
and used the command line successfully. I've also downloaded
PDFTKBuilder (Ian Jackson's suggestion) in case I need to add
watermarking at some point.

Please improve this summary so all benefit in the Usenet potluck.

[x] Fast PDF reader: (Sumatra PDF freeware, us it to replace acrobat reader)
[x] Archive entire web sites into a "clickable" pdf (wkhtmltopdf freeware)
[x] Add or concatenate pages (pdftk freeware, acrobat payware)
[x] Remove pages (pdfsam freeware, pdftk freeware)
[x] Rotate pages (recent versions of Acrobat Reader freeware)
[x] Renumber pages (Acrobat Reader freeware)
[x] Remove restrictions (Ghostscript/Ghostview freeware)
[x] Merge PDFs (pdfsam freeware, pdftk freeware)
[x] Extract images (PDF Exchange Viewer freeware)
[x] Edit PDF existing text (Acrobat DC commenting freeware, Acrobat payware)
[x] Print sans username in the properties (Libre Office Writer)
[_] Print book format PDF (ala FinePrint payware - does PDF freeware exist?)
[x] Tile PDFs (i.e., to print large posters) (Posterazor freeware)
[x] Create PDF new text (Irfanview or Paint.NET freeware plugins + Ghostscript freeware)

[Roger Mills]

Howdy! I have a need to remove pages from some PDFs before I send
them to come companies.
I have looked at "best free PDF editor sites", but all of them point
to various web sites. These documents are contain information like my
name, address, date of birth, and bank account numbers, so I really
don't want to upload them to some web site.
Does anyone know of an free software that can edit PDF on a whole-
page basis, strictly on my local Windows 7 PC? My immediate need is
just to be able to remove individual pages, but it would be nice if
the software could split PDFS or append one to another as well.
Thanks!
If there's no software, Plan B is to print the pages I want to send
and make a new PDF from scratch.
(I thought Irfanview could do this, but I tried updating to the
current version and it can't. It can create a PDF, but not edit one.)

I use PDFTools
http://www.sheelapps.com/index.php?p=PDFTools.HomePage&action=view which
works fine - and is free!

You can split a PDF into individual pages, or after a specified page,
putting (say) Pages 1-5 in one file and 6+ in another.

You can also join multiple PDFs. I often use this feature when compiling
documents which have appendices produced in a different application -
e.g. main body in Word and appendices in Excel. Save them all as PDFs
and then combine them into a single file.

Also, if you wanted to shuffle the pages in a PDF, you could split it
into individual pages, and then re-combine them in a different order.

[Arlen _G_ Holder]

Howdy! I have a need to remove pages from some PDFs before I send
them to come companies.

How is this update, which attempted to add Paul's 'mupdf' suggestions?

[x] Fast PDF reader: (Sumatra PDF freeware replaces acrobat reader freeware)
[x] Archive sites (wkhtmltopdf freeware replaces Acrobat payware site archival)
[x] Remove restrictions (Ghostscript/Ghostview freeware in combination)
[x] Edit PDF existing text (Acrobat DC commenting replaces Acrobat payware)
[x] Print sans username in the properties (Libre Office Writer, any others?)
[x] Extract images (PDF Exchange Viewer freeware)
[x] Tile PDFs to print large posters (Posterazor freeware)
[x] New font-matched text (Irfanview or Paint.NET plugins + Ghostscript freeware)
[x] Add or concatenate pages (pdftk & mutool freeware)
[x] Remove pages (pdfsam & pdftk & mutool freeware)
[x] Renumber pages (Acrobat Reader freeware now allows renumbering pages)
[x] Merge PDFs (pdfsam & pdftk & mutool freeware)
[x] Rotate pages (Acrobat Reader freeware now rotates pages & allows a save)
[_] Print book format PDF (FinePrint payware but we need a freeware solution)
[?] ??? what functionality is missing in this listing ???

[Stan Brown]

Post by Arlen _G_ Holder
How is this update, which attempted to add Paul's 'mupdf' suggestions?

Compiling this is a good idea, Arlen. I made the subject line a bit
more descriptive.

Post by Arlen _G_ Holder
[x] Fast PDF reader: (Sumatra PDF freeware replaces acrobat reader freeware)
[x] Archive sites (wkhtmltopdf freeware replaces Acrobat payware site archival)
[x] Remove restrictions (Ghostscript/Ghostview freeware in combination)
[x] Edit PDF existing text (Acrobat DC commenting replaces Acrobat payware)
[x] Print sans username in the properties (Libre Office Writer, any others?)
[x] Extract images (PDF Exchange Viewer freeware)
[x] Tile PDFs to print large posters (Posterazor freeware)
[x] New font-matched text (Irfanview or Paint.NET plugins + Ghostscript freeware)

I did not know this about Irfanview. I don't see an immediate need to
edit PDFs, but it might be worth my while to install Ghostscript.
Irfanview creates PDFs just fine without Ghostscript, by the way, but
of course each page is an image, not text.

Post by Arlen _G_ Holder
[x] Add or concatenate pages (pdftk & mutool freeware)

I didn't understand "concatenate". How is that meant to be different
from "add"?

Post by Arlen _G_ Holder
[x] Remove pages (pdfsam & pdftk & mutool freeware)
[x] Renumber pages (Acrobat Reader freeware now allows renumbering pages)
[x] Merge PDFs (pdfsam & pdftk & mutool freeware)
[x] Rotate pages (Acrobat Reader freeware now rotates pages & allows a save)
[_] Print book format PDF (FinePrint payware but we need a freeware solution)
[?] ??? what functionality is missing in this listing ???

[x] Reorder pages (mutool freeware)

I don't know which other products can do that, but I'm sure there are
some.

BTW, "mutool freeware" may or may not be the best name to use. Mutool
is actually part of the mupdf download. On the other hand, when I did
a naive Google search for mutool it did come up with links to the
mupdf website, and those pages contained prominent "Download"
buttons.

[Arlen _G_ Holder]

Post by Stan Brown
Compiling this is a good idea, Arlen. I made the subject line a bit
more descriptive.

Hi Stan Brown,
It's a pleasure when people on Usenet share ideas, and work together, to
improve our capabilities.

My one sugestion is to keep a "google archived" group in the newsgroup
list, as, well, you must know by now that these suck for lots of reasons:
o <http://tinyurl.com/alt-windows7-general>
o <http://tinyurl.com/alt-comp-os-windows-8>
o <http://tinyurl.com/alt-comp-os-windows-10>

But these work beautifully as web-searchable login-free permanent archives:
o <http://tinyurl.com/windowsxp-general>
o <http://tinyurl.com/alt-comp-freeware>

Hence, it's generally a good idea to include one of the ngs which are
archived well, so that, in the future, we can all make use of our efforts
today. (It's a strategic goal.)

Post by Stan Brown
I did not know this about Irfanview. I don't see an immediate need to
edit PDFs, but it might be worth my while to install Ghostscript.
Irfanview creates PDFs just fine without Ghostscript, by the way, but
of course each page is an image, not text.

We can look up in the archives listed above where we discussed Irfanview
allowing us to add new font-matched text to a PDF document.

Maybe it was here, I don't remember (and I didn't look it up):
o Windows Tutorial to annotate & print family calendar at home on 8.5x11 paper
<https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/alt.comp.freeware/RA3bLfsgtFg>

I do remember that I found Paint.NET font-based plugins to be better than
what Irfanview offers with Ghostscript anyway - so my recommendation if
folks need to add font-matched text to PDF documents, that they do this:
1. Install Paint.NET (which, unfortunately, will install .NET Framework)
<https://www.getpaint.net/download.html>
2. Install the PDF open/save plugins for reading/editing/writing PDF files
<https://forums.getpaint.net/topic/22863-portable-document-format-filetype-plugin-pdf/>

In addition, it's a bit convoluted, but the Adobe Acrobat DC freeware can
also edit font-matched text (as long as you have the font in Windows)

1. Install Adobe Acrobat DC (reader) using the full offline installer
<https://get.adobe.com/reader/enterprise/?scid=social46788336>
2. Edit using the "comment" feature as kindly explained by Keith Nuttle.

See also:
o Better way to edit PDF forms with any desired font using freeware?
<https://groups.google.com/d/msg/alt.comp.freeware/LkL6FcxJCD0/TSw7nA_ZAwAJ>

Post by Stan Brown

Post by Arlen _G_ Holder
[x] Add or concatenate pages (pdftk & mutool freeware)

I didn't understand "concatenate".
How is that meant to be different from "add"?

That's a great observation.
Probably we should clarify that since you bring up a good point.

There's this concept of including a page somewhere inside of a PDF, e.g.,
you have a ten-page PDF and then you bring in another couple of pages, say,
after page 5 but before page 6, so now you have a dozen pages.

That's what I had meant by "add".

For concatenation, let's say you have five different PDFs that you want to
stack together into one PDF; that's what I referred to as "concatenation".

However, I do agree with you that both are 'adding' pages, where the
distinction isn't so great that one is adding a page anywhere you want it,
while the other is always adding it to the end each time.

I guess the long-time (decades) UNIX/SunOS/Solaris/linux use of "cat" is
what made me use those terms.

Post by Stan Brown
[x] Reorder pages (mutool freeware)

Nice catch.
I'll add that to my personal listing which I keep on this stuff.

Post by Stan Brown
I don't know which other products can do that, but I'm sure there are
some.
BTW, "mutool freeware" may or may not be the best name to use. Mutool
is actually part of the mupdf download. On the other hand, when I did
a naive Google search for mutool it did come up with links to the
mupdf website, and those pages contained prominent "Download"
buttons.

Good catch. I'll use whatever name is most appropriate.
Thanks!