PDF Editor

I need a PDF editor to create internal hyperlinks in a document. I purchased a huge PDF and would like to be able to link internally to keep me from having to scroll or search the relevant data when needed. This thing is massive, over 1100 pages, and it’s for ttrpg so there are a lot of tables, locations, special items, etc. that I’d like to be able to link to and find quickly.

I’m okay with paying for software if it will include this feature specifically, however, I don’t prefer the subscription-based services I keep seeing listed in general searches. Bonus points: no major hassle with licenses when upgrading my OS to the newest LTS, and I can also run it as a Linux app on my Chromebook.

BumbleBear,
@BumbleBear@lemmy.world avatar

You may want to check out Libreoffice Draw but with that many pages it may choke. You may also want to try out MasterPDF. That one is a paid option but you can try it out for free.

tanker405th,

Yeah, Draw is too clunky for this. I’ve been looking at MasterPDF or qoppa’s PDF Studio. I’ll download Master PDF when I get home to see if the trial will allow for the functions I’m looking for. Thank you!

art,
@art@lemmy.world avatar

If it’s not an image heavy document converting to markdown might be a good solution.

tanker405th,

There are quite a few images and a lot of tables. It’s a mega dungeon and campaign setting. Fortunately all of the maps were in a separate document.

BitSound,

You might actually get something out of converting it to html. Easily editable with a basic text editor, you can link to anywhere in the document, and you can view it nicely in any browser.

tanker405th,

I’m leaning more towards this. Any suggestions on what to use to convert it to html? I’ve ended up going down the rabbit hole reading up on LaTeX now because of this lol

BitSound,

You’ll probably get decent results by trying out pdf2htmlex with a command like this:

<pre style="background-color:#ffffff;">
<span style="color:#323232;">docker run -it --rm -v /path/to/pdf/folder:/pdf bwits/pdf2htmlex pdf2htmlEX --zoom 1.3 my-pdf.pdf
</span>
tanker405th,

Thanks. I’ll see what I can do!

tanker405th,

I ran it through pdf2htmlex. It extracted the text, tables, toc, etc. very nicely. Images are just black rectangles. I’ll keep playing with the options to see if I can get those extracted and usable as well. So far, this has been the most usable output I’ve gotten. Thanks again!

ThirdNerd,
@ThirdNerd@lemmy.world avatar

I’ve been using Okular to edit large PDFs, but never one that big. Perhaps it will work?

tanker405th,

It’s worth a shot. I’ll try to play around with it and see what happens.

WillyWonksters,

Possibly Scribus.

tanker405th,

I’ve installed that on my desktop, but I haven’t really tried it out yet. I’ve also been reading up on Sigil as well. Considering converting it to an epub to read on my phone and e-reader while out and about.

WillyWonksters,

Scribus is certainly powerful. You can also use python scripting to automate edits, so maybe you could even use regular expressions in a script to automatically insert hyperlinks.

mhewitt,

Microsoft word? Should be able to open a PDF, edit, and re-save as DOCX or PDF again.

tanker405th,

I’m not running Word. I do have LibreOffice on my Linux machines, and use Google Docs on the Chromebook. Docs has struggled to open the pdf because of the size of it. I’ve even considered using Sigil to try and edit it into epub format.

mhewitt,

Crossover has a great WINE implementation of Word 2016 if you choose to go this route.

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