PDF EDITORS
The complete guide to editing PDF files
Nick Peers reveals all the free tools you need to view, annotate, edit and create PDFs on your Linux-running PC.
OUR EXPERT
Nick Peers loves the PDF format. How else do you explain the thousands of PDF documents scattered across his hard drives?
LABEL PDFS WITH OKULAR
1
Annotations list
The Annotations lists all the labels on the document. Right-click one to select it, delete it or tweak its properties.
2 Highlighter
Both yellow and green highlighters are available (other colours can be configured). Click and drag across a passage of text.
3 Underline
If you prefer to underline content, use this tool. It’s red by default, but you can choose a different hue and level of opacity.
4
Insert Text
This option enables you to type – like a typewriter – on top of the document itself. You can change font, size and colour.
5
Inline notes
These notes appear like sticky notes – just click where you want one to appear and start typing.
6
Pop-up notes
Instead of the full text appearing on top of the document – as with an inline note – Popups display this icon instead.
The humble Portable Document Format file (PDF to its mates) is one of the most versatile formats you could ask for. It solves a very simple problem: how do you ensure that a file you share with other people looks identical on their computers even if they don’t have access to the application in which it was created?
After starting off as a simple way of sharing and displaying documents in a consistent way, PDFs have evolved to become ever more useful. Armed with the right tools you can search them for specific text (then extract that text), annotate them, add comments and even use them like digital forms, filling in sections by typing text or selecting from drop-down menus. And if the PDF is a ‘true’ one (see the box right), you can even edit its content and layout. In this tutorial we’ll reveal what free PDF tools are available in Linux, plus how to use them to meet your every PDF-related need.
Creating PDFs
Before we delve any deeper, let’s quickly recap how you can create PDF files of your own. The easiest way to generate them is from existing documents. In LibreOffice, for example, choose ‘File > Export as >Export as PDF’ to generate a PDF from your Writer, Calc, Impress or Draw document. You’ll see lots of different options are available, which you’ll come to understand better later on in this tutorial – for now, in most cases the default settings are fine, so simply click Export.
Other programs – if they support PDF directly – should work in a similar way, so look under the Export or ‘Save as’ menus for options. If none exist, try File > Print instead. Select the ‘Print to File’ option and make sure the output format is set to PDF. You’ll be able to generate a PDF from the entire document or by selecting specific pages.
Viewing PDFs
Most distros ship with tools for viewing PDFs (along with other files) – in the case of Ubuntu that tool is evince, better known as Document Viewer. It’s pretty basic but does provide all the core functionality you need for viewing PDFs. Simply double-click a PDF file, and it’ll open in Document Viewer.