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11 Apr 05 - 12:24 PM (#1458070) Subject: Tech: Any good shareware pdf editors? From: katlaughing I need to edit the pdf file of my book; until recently I didn't know there were programs that allowed that. Anyway, just found one which costs $79, but has a free trial version HERE. I'd rather use something recommended by you all than otherwise, so thanks in advance for any advice! kat |
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11 Apr 05 - 12:40 PM (#1458083) Subject: RE: Tech: Any good shareware pdf editors? From: JohnInKansas As a fringe onlooker at the publishing business, I would caution that the pros do not do book editing in .pdf files. The "editing" that can be done directly to .pdfs is generally of the sort used to exchange comments about the book, but making layout changes directly in the .pdf is both clumsy and unreliable. Your book should be prepared in a "proper" text/layout program, probably one you already have. When you have the "editing done" you create a .pdf to assure portability and consistency of appearance for your users; but your file in the layout program should remain your "master file." For a simple book, Word is more than sufficient. For a "trivial" or "flash" book - where appearance is more important than content - something like Project or Publisher might do. For something complex or with a really fussy editor, you'd want Pagemaker, Quark, Framemaker, etc. Even for a minor edit to the book itself, the preference would be to correct the "master" and then simply regenerate a complete new .pdf. But that's just one observers opinion... John |
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11 Apr 05 - 12:45 PM (#1458086) Subject: RE: Tech: Any good shareware pdf editors? From: Bill D click this link and look through the various responses. ( a newsgroup search) If you really need to do some editing, there are a 'few'choices. |
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11 Apr 05 - 01:49 PM (#1458138) Subject: RE: Tech: Any good shareware pdf editors? From: George Seto - af221@chebucto.ns.ca I agree with JohninKansas, kat. Edit the original, or else re-create the original from the PDF perhaps, but PDFs generally are meant to be passed around and not edited in the usual sense. |
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11 Apr 05 - 02:13 PM (#1458155) Subject: RE: Tech: Any good shareware pdf editors? From: ToulouseCruise as an addition... Once you have your file completed, you can save it to a pdf format directly at the www.adobe.com website -- they have a free service that will convert the file if you do not have something to convert it. I have used it many times and it works very well. Brian |
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11 Apr 05 - 02:25 PM (#1458174) Subject: RE: Tech: Any good shareware pdf editors? From: katlaughing Thanks, guys. I am being lazy, frustrated. I already have the book published, BUT missed some minor typos/strange spellings. I re-edited my WORD master, no problem, BUT lost some of the formatting due to page changes, etc. Because I haven't done any specific formatting since last August when I first published at cafepress.com and due to low energy because of health, I was excited to see that I could edit text in my original pdf file, from which the book was published, and not have to worry about getting the formatting right, again, let alone remember how I did it!**bg** So, I'll take a look at your links, Bill and thanks to you all once, again. kat |
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11 Apr 05 - 02:42 PM (#1458188) Subject: RE: Tech: Any good shareware pdf editors? From: JohnInKansas For shame Kat. Your Word master should have all your "styles" safely tucked away, so there shouldn't be anything to "remember." Just refresh/apply formats. Yeah, I know, sometimes we cut a corner or two, and then wish... John |
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11 Apr 05 - 03:19 PM (#1458221) Subject: RE: Tech: Any good shareware pdf editors? From: Amos Unless you want to get into managing PostScript files, your best bet is to get the full Adope Acrobat program which allows corrections easily in small doses. A |
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11 Apr 05 - 03:39 PM (#1458233) Subject: RE: Tech: Any good shareware pdf editors? From: JohnInKansas Amos - Having the full Adobe Acrobat program, and having worked a few books, I WOULD NOT PRESUME to send a book printer a "corrected" .pdf. Okay if you're going to run it down to the Quick-Print and "xerox" it, but you don't maintain good working relationships with your key service providers by causing them problems gratuitously. Of course, maybe the people I've worked with are a little more fussy than some. Some of them are so out-of-date that they still use Macs. John |
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11 Apr 05 - 04:41 PM (#1458296) Subject: RE: Tech: Any good shareware pdf editors? From: Amos John: Out of date? You must be joking. The Mac OS has been redesigned and re-architected from the ground up, while your OS of choice continues to slap more fixes on old designs and keeps sliding their new archityecture into the future. For shame!! A |
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11 Apr 05 - 05:07 PM (#1458319) Subject: RE: Tech: Any good shareware pdf editors? From: JohnInKansas Rule number 1: Don't tweak your book in .pdf. Rule number 2: Don't tweak Amos about his Mac. Gotcha! You know I'm only kidding. John |
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11 Apr 05 - 05:09 PM (#1458322) Subject: RE: Tech: Any good shareware pdf editors? From: katlaughing Thanks, JohninKS. I DO see my formatting when I tell it to show it, BUT it's all g Part of the problem is I was in a fog and edited in my regular 8X11 format, then converted it to their 5X8 format, which changed page breaks, etc., then converted that to pdf, then checked for any mistakes, THEN back to the original drawing board to repair, then the whole thing all over again. I am still a bit foggy from the last few months, so will see about going back just to their 5X8 template version and see if I can go from there. Or, maybe I'll have a go at my original, re-edited WORD file and see if I can get it right. I had wanted to get the changes done and uploaded by May 1st, but I may have to just be a bit more patient. Maybe it will have to wait for idle convalescence.:-) Thankfully, the mistakes do not alter the content at all, they are just little things, really, but bug me. Thanks, again, kat Thanks! |
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11 Apr 05 - 05:31 PM (#1458351) Subject: RE: Tech: Any good shareware pdf editors? From: JohnInKansas One of the advantages of deliberately using styles in Word is that you can set up a style, for a body text paragraph for example, so that it works in your 8x10 layout, then when you do the page layout switch to 5x8 you can "select all instances" of that style and change them all in one swell foop to a body text paragraph format that fits the new page size. Even if you didn't deliberately set up styles, you may be able to use what's there. If you change something like point size or indents, Word 2000 and later (and possibly earlier versions) usually will "create" a new still that will look something like "normal + 11 pt Bold Italic Header -5" etc, so that you can select all the paragraphs that have the same style and change them all at the same time to a new one that you defined on purpose. In Word, on the top toolbar to the left of the window where you set a paragraph style (it will probably say "Normal") there should be a pair of interlocking "As" like "AA." Click there to open the "Styles and Formatting" toolbar on the right side of the screen. At the bottom, there's a roller where you can select "show styles in use." With it selected, hover over a style and open the roller by the style name, and you should find the "select all." Once selected, clicking another paragraph style changes them all. The "Styles and Formatting" bar on the right is not to be mistaken for the "Style Bar" on the left that shows in Normal View. The one on the left is only a reference to tell you what style is used. The one that opens on the right is where you get control. You may also want to look at Tools|Templates and Add-Ins, click the "Organizer" and you can copy paragraph styles from any template on your machine into the template for the document you have open. (If you didn't create a separate template, the document itself is its own template of course.) But you already know all this and just got in a hurry. We'll pretend I'm talking to you and maybe we'll make someone else curious. John |
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11 Apr 05 - 05:42 PM (#1458363) Subject: RE: Tech: Any good shareware pdf editors? From: katlaughing LOL...between your last two sentences and swell foop, you've really given me a great pick-me-up, today, John. Thanks, I need all the giggles I can get these days! I AM impatient, I USED to have a clue...I'd better practice some more AND follow your instructions! Och, me achin' 'ead!:-) kat |
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11 Apr 05 - 10:02 PM (#1458568) Subject: RE: Tech: Any good shareware pdf editors? From: JohnInKansas It seems that few people actually use all those style tools unless they get forced into it - usually by a publisher/printer or some other disreputable influence. They can be horribly confusing, especially at first; but once you get a few of them working they get so they seem simple - and indispensible. Newer versions of Word have added a few quirks too, that can be initially confusing even to those who've used styles in older versions or in other programs; but it's really the way to go if you want consistency in your books. And as mentioned, you may be able to use them just to latch on to the "similarly formatted" gobs of text that were put in by cruder methods. It can be just like that "replace all" command - - save or destroy whole documents in a single keystroke. John |
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11 Apr 05 - 10:22 PM (#1458586) Subject: RE: Tech: Any good shareware pdf editors? From: Shanghaiceltic I was using Adobe but as I also use Chinese characters in data sheets it kept crashing even with the font downloads. Rather than pay for a whole new suite I found this freeby on the net http://www.pdf995.com/download.html Free PDF suite I use it all the time and it works very weel for me when creating PDF's |
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11 Apr 05 - 10:54 PM (#1458622) Subject: RE: Tech: Any good shareware pdf editors? From: Amos If you mean Word's Styles tools, I use them all the time. Kat, may I suggest you change your Page Setup in Word to show the final page-size, then go through and remove the forced page breaks, if any, and then work your way from front to back with the end results showing in Print Preview or n Page Layout View and re-insert page breaks as appropriate. This will bring you to the end of the document with the breaks all in the right places. THEN check for spelling, or typos, and print to PDF. If your version of Word doesn't print to PDF directly, then use "print to file" to produce a Post Script file and then use acrobat Distiller to turn it into PDF. A |
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12 Apr 05 - 11:44 AM (#1459099) Subject: RE: Tech: Any good shareware pdf editors? From: katlaughing Joh, last time I use the Find and Repalce all for the proper kind of quotation marks for printing, it screwed up a BUNCH of other formatting! But, as least it left all of the text intact, NOT that I don't have multiple files of it!**bg** I tried that, Amos. It worked great with my latest version, except for the Table of Contents. In that area only it ran the page numbers off the page, so...I've got to now remember how the heck I formatted that to not happen as I seem to recall it cropping up before. ShanghaiCeltic, thanks! I'll take a look at the editing program. Thanks, fellahs! kat |
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12 Apr 05 - 12:12 PM (#1459134) Subject: RE: Tech: Any good shareware pdf editors? From: Amos If it is just the numbers, probably the right-end tab, which aligns the numbers, is set to far to the right. A |
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12 Apr 05 - 12:43 PM (#1459163) Subject: RE: Tech: Any good shareware pdf editors? From: katlaughing But, since it was fine on the 8X11 format and I told it to format the whole doc to the 5X8, that should have taken care of it automatically, right? I'll check on the right-end tab later, just in case. Thanks. |
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12 Apr 05 - 01:59 PM (#1459242) Subject: RE: Tech: Any good shareware pdf editors? From: JohnInKansas ?? I use the Find|Replace All function quite a lot, but I will concede that it's not too hard to mess something up. Fortunately "Undo" works if you do it immediately. I think my record so far is something like "Word has finished replacing and made 82,341 replacements." (You'd never believe it, with my reputation for brevity; but sometimes I work large documents.) Replacing quotes shouldn't affect anything else. If you want "curly quotes" you set that in Tools|Autocorrect Options, on the tab for "Autocorrect as you type," and then run (replace " with "). If you have curlies and want straight ones, you uncheck the curlies box in the same place and rerun (replace " with "). Note that you can attach a style or format to either the "Find What" or the "Replace With" boxes in the Edit|Replace screen, and if you inadvertently leave a "format" or "style" attached to the Replace With box it will get slammed on wherever there's anything you replace. Note: the same (Replace ' with ') works for single quotes, using the same curly/straight settings in Tools. Changing page size doesn't move the tabs, since the tab locations are a "paragraph" property. On your 8" wide page, with margins, you've got about 6 inches or so of text width. Your page number tab would likely be at something between 5 and 6 inches from the left margin. When you change to a 5 inch wide page you likely only have about 4 to 4.5 inches of text width, so that should put the page numbers "off the page," although depending on the Word version you're using the line may wrap. All that's likely needed is just to reset the tab. If you select one line of the TOC and fix it, you can click the "format paint" to copy/paint the new tab to all the rest of the TOC lines. Not to belabor it, but if you set up a document, perhaps called "book8x10" and insert one paragraph of each kind that you use, format it as desired and give each kind of paragraph a "style name" you can save the document as a template, "book8x10.dot" and those styles will be handily available forever. Do the same thing for a document in your 5x8 format, "book5x8" using the same style names. Then, if you've applied the styles in your book, when you change the page setup (page size), all you have to do is click "Tools|Templates and Add-Ins," click the "Organizer" tab, close the template file on the right (that might be your book8x10.dot), open the template file for the other page size (perhaps book5x8.dot), select all the styles in the right pane, click the "copy to document" and say "Yes to All" and everything should be right in the new size. It's actually a lot less complicated than it sounds. And of course, always proof-read. John |
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12 Apr 05 - 02:05 PM (#1459247) Subject: RE: Tech: Any good shareware pdf editors? From: katlaughing If you have curlies and want straight ones, you uncheck the curlies box in the same place and rerun wish I could do that with my hair as easily!**bg** I've printed off your instructions, John. Thanks a bunch. It is very helpful and I will start on it tomorrow morning. You guys are just g-r-r-r-e-a-t! (As Tony the Tiger would say!) kat |
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12 Apr 05 - 04:56 PM (#1459384) Subject: RE: Tech: Any good shareware pdf editors? From: JohnInKansas Word generally does an excellent job of deciding which way to "curl" the apostrophe, single quote, and double quote, but it appears to depend on the "adjacent space." A quote mark "preceded by a space and followed by a letter" will be a leftquote. A quote mark preceded by a letter (or .) will be a rightquote. If " you " put " spaces " on both sides, the result may be unpredictable, hence the need to proofread. (The "leading singlequote" on some tune titles may be a trouble spot?) When you set the "use curlies" the keystroke inserts a straight quote, and it's autocorrect that replaces it with the left/right curly, so when you tell it to search for " it finds them all. If you want to search only for a single one of the curly marks you need to use "Find ^0145" for ‘, "Find ^0146" for ’, Find ^0147" for “, "Find ^0148" for ”, "Find ^0034" for ", and "Find ^0039" for '. Incidental info is that Word sorts (Table|Sort) more or less by ANSI value, so if you're using curly quotes and paste something with straight quotes in, lines/fields that begin with a quote will be split into two separate places in the sort order. You need to do the (Replace " With ") and (Replace ' With ') things to get them all the same before sorting - if it matters. John |