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10 Ways to Manipulate PDF Files with Free Software

Posted 09/01/09 at 03:30:38 PM by Josh Kampschmidt

Have you always wished you could merge, encrypt or just manipulate a PDF file? Editing PDFs has always been possible with Adobe’s software, but not everyone can afford the steep price of Adobe’s professional suite. But there are actually several pieces of software that will let you deftly manipulate Adobe’s proprietary Portable Document Format. In this guide, we will show you a few ways you can manipulate a PDF file without investing in Acrobat Professional. To start, here’s an overview of the free software that you’ll need.

PDF Split and Merge

As the name implies, this program allows you to split and merge a PDF. However, it has a few limitations. This program will not split or merge protected PDF files (which are password-protected). If you want to split and merge PDFs that you have created, the program should work fine.

PDFill

This is one of the best pieces of software to manipulate a PDF. It will allow you to make almost any change to a PDF (with the exception of editing the text inside of the PDF). The program can merge, split, reorder, watermark, and even rotate a PDF. This program does have a few shareware programs with it, but we will only demonstrate the free tools of the program.

Some PDF Image Extract

As the name suggests, this program is designed to extract images from a PDF. When you open the PDF, it will extract every image from it and save it to the directory where the original PDF is located. In other words, if your PDF is on the desktop, it will create a folder on your desktop with the images.

Zamzar

Many of you probably already know about Zamzar. It's a website that allows you to upload a file and convert that file in to almost any format. You can go from a PDF to a word document for example or a PDF to HTML. The max file you can upload is 100MB. It does not watermark or make any comestic changes to the PDF, either.

Some PDF to HTML Converter

As the name implies, this allows you to convert a PDF to HTML. Not only does the program convert the text to HTML, it also converts the pictures so you do not lose them, as is the case with other converters. The program places the HTML folder in the same directory as your original PDF file.

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Infix does all of this for free
Submitted by Misty on Wed, 01/06/2010 - 10:38pm

It's true that you can pick up lots of little apps for doing individual tasks. However the app that does it all is Infix and it is basically free.

It lets you edit your PDFs in the way you would expect with text flowing from line to line and page to page. It lets you fill in and save PDF forms. It lets you manipulate pdf pages and extract content. etc etc etc.

It would seem the developers spend most of their time improving the application rather that shouting about it because it is true that it is less well known than say Foxit.

But it is totally the best out there - I really wouldn't bother with anything else.

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that is a great idea.Magnet
Submitted by magnetmaterialyl on Tue, 09/15/2009 - 10:05pm

that is a great idea.Magnet Material

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PDF-XChange Viewer
Submitted by pongnut on Sun, 09/06/2009 - 10:52pm

This is a great program for marking up pdf's.

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ISO != proprietary
Submitted by bloodgain on Sun, 09/06/2009 - 12:54pm

I would just like to point out that PDF is not a proprietary Adobe format. Not anymore. It was published as an open standard (ISO 32000-1:2008) in 2008. It's been 1 year, and already the number of free programs to work with PDF has grown. I expect to see fully featured Acrobat Suite replacements within another year.

This is why I find it unacceptable that Microsoft hasn't included a native PDF printer and reader in Windows 7. OS-X includes this support, and lately MS wants to compete with OS-X as directly as possible. I think out-of-the-box PDF support is one of the things they should be matching. Adobe can whine all day about unfair competition, but if it's an open standard they can't do anything about it.

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OpenOffice Draw
Submitted by F1_Computers on Thu, 09/03/2009 - 8:05am

OpenOffice Draw actually has an extension in which you can do basic edits in PDF files. I have tried it out and it works quite well. The extension is called "Sun PDF Import Extension." Available here:

http://extensions.services.openoffice.org/project/pdfimport

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How about edit a PDF?
Submitted by suprattalljdm on Wed, 09/02/2009 - 11:00am

Which of these would be the best to edit a pdf? I want to create text boxes to add info to existing pdf's.

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PDFCreator
Submitted by cjdavis7 on Tue, 09/01/2009 - 8:13pm

PDFCreator can be used in XP to create a .pdf file from any program that can print. Graphics/documents/pictures or anything else. Once the program is installed, it shows up as a printer. Select the printer from the application and when you click Print the dialog box for the conversion will show up. I haven't seen a Vista version yet unfortunately.

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CutePDF
Submitted by bloodgain on Sun, 09/06/2009 - 12:36pm

I think I had PDFCreator installed on Vista 32-bit. I'm running Win7 RC x64, and I think I'm using CutePDF right now (not on my computer at the moment). Both use Ghostscript as their engine, so they produce similar results. You should be able to install either one, but CutePDF says specifically that Vista and Win7 are supported.

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zamzar is the way to go!
Submitted by Yusonice on Tue, 09/01/2009 - 2:36pm

zamzar is the way to go! unless you wanna pirate adobe

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