Hey all,
My father’s business requires him to work a lot with PDF forms, combine PDF files, convert scanned pictures to files, etc.
I’ve found Master PDF editor, but I’ve found it to be buggy – specifically when trying to create a new PDF from multiple files the program errors out saying it can’t create the file.
I’ve also tried running Foxxit PDF editor through WINE but that’s abysmal.
Any recommendations on Linux native software paid or FOSS, that can fill forms, create/combine PDFs, and do basic edition (rotating pages, etc) that my 70 year old dad can learn to use?
I moved him away from Windows with the Windows 11 debacle, and he’s liked Linux so far except for this one issue
Thanks all for your help?
***** EDIT *****
Thanks all for your responses, I’ll be trying out StirlingpPDF, PDFSam, OnlyOffice, and re-trying MasterPDF editor over the holidays while I have some 1:1 time with my dad. Tl;Dr: playing family IT and switching your parents to Linux is rough 😂
I use PDF Arranger a lot for that
For working with PDFs on a page level (moving pages around, deleting, copying pages between PDFs etc) pdfarranger is the best and easiest of anything I could find, can vouch for it.
For edits whithin a page, I use inkscape. Both program combined have covered all my needs until now.
Or libreoffice draw sometimes, it depends, but yes, pdfarranger + one of the two is enough for most of the tasks.
I use a combination of Okular for signing PDFs and PDF Arranger for rearranging pages, etc
I’d suggest Stirling PDF, just get the
Stirling-PDF.jarfile from the releases. It does really lots of stuff (though I had some issues with creating pdfs with multiple pages per page). It open a port for the service to run locally and once you close it, it also closes the port.I also use libre office draw (or firefox printing menu) to create pdfs with multiple pages per page.
There’s also xournal as some other people have mention that has some editing capabilities.
Was gonna suggest a look at sterling PDF as well, great toolkit.
https://github.com/Stirling-Tools/Stirling-PDF
I put one in at work. It sat idle for a while until a member of my admin staff asked me how to do a job involving pay slips. We discovered the pipeline tool in Stirling. It is now a permanent system with an SLA!
Each tool has a nice big icon or you can create desktop or browser shortcuts to the ones of interest - ideal for keeping it simple.
As other have said, a combination of Firefox PDF tool, PDF Arranger and Xournal++ is all I’ve ever needed. And Okular is nowadays my viewer of choice, which does a lot on its own, too.
Don’t browsers allow you to do form fillable these days? I swear i just filled one with firefox the other day. Maybe that’s too limited?
For combining pdfs, pdftk from the command line is my goto. The command line interface for it isn’t too complicated.
Exactly. OP should start by seeing what’s possible in Firefox.
It does, as well as adding pictures into it and drawing by hand, so handwritten signing shouldn’t be an issue, either.
It doesn’t allow you to merge several PDFs, that’s still something they need other software for.
https://invent.kde.org/graphics/okular
I like Okular’s ability to scan and convert tabled data in PDFs too. There is an option to turn off DRM nonsense. That can do page edits and stuff. If you want to create pages with images you need an office suite.
It also has support for digital signatures that work with saved inserted signatures
For “basic edition (rotating pages, etc)”, I myself always use pdftk.
“If PDF is electronic paper, then pdftk is an electronic staple-remover, hole-punch, binder, secret-decoder-ring, and X-Ray-glasses.”
Did too until recently, started to switch to qpdf aqs it seems more openly maintained while doing about the same job with, arguably, clearer documentation than pdftk.
Xournal++ works pretty good in my experience
can’t say about forms, but I use xournal all the time for signing pdfs.
I’ve been through a lot of options trying to get the same functionality you mentioned. I’ve never found a single app that works particularly well. I’m surprised the state of PDF apps is so poor in Linux. Others have mentioned a bunch of apps and each fails in some major way. I’ll come back and check this comment section later for new suggestions for my own sake too.
There is a reason for that. PDFs de facto “standard” is complex and documentation is sparse. PDFs were also designed to be static and uneditable which makes a lot of simple edits more complex to implement than people think.
Understandable, but it’s a significant diifculty in migrating fully to Linux when PDFs are used everywhere and there are solutions that work well on Windows. This is one of the few things I will get my wife’s Windows laptop for.
And because Linux users know what an
mdfile is.
I like to add xournal++ for editing PDF without a functional form field. And as other said already: PDF Ranger and Firefox itself
PDF Ranger or PDF Arranger?
Sorry, I meant PDF arranger https://github.com/pdfarranger/pdfarranger
Ahhh OK, I was thinking about the CLI file manager
rangerand got excited for a CLI PDF editor.Yeah, that would be something great for sure!
For Editing you can use libre office draw or stirling pdf in a docker container. For Formulars and other stuff sounds can use okular.
The options are surprisingly poor.
Personally, I rolled my own TUI script. It uses
pdftkto explode and merge, andgs(Ghostscript) to optimize. To paste PNGs of my signature (absurd, but here we are) I usexournal, which looks a bit rough but gets the job done.This one has a perpetual license option, which could be steep for personal use but could be fine for a business. PDFsam Visual is great for what it does. You can also try it for 14 days too and then decide if it’s useful for you or not.
Thanks for sharing this, it actually looks like a fantastic alternative to Adobe Acrobat DC.
No problem! There are actually a lot of good paid software for Linux too but most people don’t know about them. Mostly targeted businesses but that’s fine I think.
Thanks! I’m going to check this out!
No problem!
For filling forms mupdf-gl, for combining and rearranging pages pdf arranger, imagemagick to convert images to files (commandline with easy format ‘convert file.png file.pdf’), mupdf and zathura to view them.
Yea I use IM for flattening PDFs before I send them.
