Editing PDFs contents

2026-03-03 13:45 UTC

Hi guys! I’m considering some tool to edit the texts and images within a PDF. What would be some decent recommendations? So far I think the only with a semblance of working has been Libreoffice Draw, but it messed the formatting quite a lot (the arrangement is very much off in many pages, the text splits incorrectly, some images pop up duplicated and so on). But so far it’s the only one I’ve seen actually allowing me to play with the PDF contents. Are there any other/better options? Thanks!

Replies (11)

@thilo@lemmy.ml 2026-03-03 14:06

if you want feature completeness and linux the only option is foxit pdf editor. FOSS there is nothing, and inertia bogs us down, but it’s high time that eveyone ditches pdfs for good and transitions to markup or other free formats

Open ##507487
@supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz 2026-03-03 14:19

Inkscape!

Open ##507562
@db2__dup_9305@lemmy.world 2026-03-03 14:32

Try Stirling PDF maybe

Open ##507579
@schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.de 2026-03-03 14:35

The thing about PDF is that the whole point of PDF is that it shouldn’t be easy to edit. So you’re asking for hacks around something that isn’t supposed to be easily possible. It’s possible to import PDFs into Inkscape. But my experience is that the result is usually not very easily editable (probably depends on the PDF) because it puts everything into very complex groups and other structures.

Open ##507596
@thenextguy@lemmy.world 2026-03-03 15:23

PDF was never designed to be editable. It’s an output/display format.

Open ##507746
@myusername@lemmy.ml 2026-03-03 16:53

OnlyOffice

Open ##508023
@cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.de 2026-03-03 22:00

Libreoffice Draw is the best option. You need to make sure all of the fonts used in the PDF are installed on your computer before editing it. The embedded fonts can’t be used for editing. If you are missing a font, Draw will try to find a substitute, which will most likely mess up the spacing. You can go to File->Properties in a PDF viewer like Okular or Xreader to get a list of the fonts that the PDF uses. Most PDFs aren’t intended to be edited. The incorrect text splits are an issue caused by the program that created the PDF.

Open ##508605
@undrwater@lemmy.world 2026-03-03 23:25

I’ve found the best tool for carving up PDFs is xournal++. It does a better job at maintaining formatting than Draw as well.

Open ##508750
@vort3@lemmy.ml 2026-03-04 02:47

Others have already explained about PDF not being easy to edit and lack of FOSS tools. The only advice I can give is that PDF XChange editor works well under Wine if you have it.

Open ##511276
@northernlights@lemmy.today 2026-03-04 18:38

I’ve been using bento pdf (self-hosted)

Open ##523454
@rjb@lemmy.ml 2026-03-06 22:10

I found this the other day. It’s Linux first, but not FOSS. Flatpak version is pretty sweet. indomitusgroup.com/indipdf/

Open ##560103