PDF to Inkscape to PDF help

Post questions on how to use or achieve an effect in Inkscape.
xroox
Posts: 5
Joined: Sat Apr 24, 2010 7:38 am

PDF to Inkscape to PDF help

Postby xroox » Sat Aug 13, 2011 3:45 am

Hi there,

I know this is touchy; but I have been asked to edit a PDF file and make some changes to the text.

I use Inkscape and not adobe... I can certainly import the PDF, then re-save it as a PDF no problem.

However the text ceases to be text, even though I leave the 'convert text to paths' radio button unchecked.

Has anyone ever been successful at doing this? It would be a big help for some guidance on this so that I can help the person that is in need of these changes.

Thanks so much – I LOVE INKSCAPE!

Drew :)

PatJr
Posts: 81
Joined: Fri Jul 29, 2011 5:35 am

Re: PDF to Inkscape to PDF help

Postby PatJr » Sat Aug 13, 2011 7:38 am

dunno,
maybe it's the font you used for the text?
try something that has redistribution rights, Liberation?

Maybe you could use LibreOffiice or use inkscape to save the graphics and remake the document in LibreOffice?
http://www.libreoffice.org/

Pat Jr.

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brynn
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Location: western USA
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Re: PDF to Inkscape to PDF help

Postby brynn » Sun Aug 14, 2011 8:39 am

When you say "the text ceases to be text", what do you mean? Does the other person need to edit the text later? If so, I assume they could make the changes themselves to begin with. So I'm curious why it matters? Or otherwise, what does the text become, and why is it a problem?

~suv
Posts: 2272
Joined: Sun May 10, 2009 2:07 am

Re: PDF to Inkscape to PDF help

Postby ~suv » Sun Aug 14, 2011 2:45 pm

oops - I misunderstood the question, it seems -
Off topic:
With regard to known limitations when editing text from PDF (or PS/EPS) files in Inkscape, please read the notes on text editing in the Release notes of 0.46 (they still apply to 0.48):
PDF import (Release Notes 0.46) wrote:Text editing tips: Any text imported from PDF or AI has each letter's precise place on the page fixed. While this preserves the exact appearance (e.g. justification of text blocks) of the imported document, it makes editing such text difficult: deleting text fails to contract the text line and inserting text fails to expand it, i.e. typed letters overlay the existing letters. (However, you still can replace a letter with another letter of about the same width, although you may need to kern it into place with Alt+arrows.)

To work around this, select the text object you want to edit and use Text > Remove manual kerns command. This will remove the exact positioning information, so if the text block was justified it will lose justification, but instead you will be able to edit it as usual.

Note that there is a way to select even a single line in a text block. For this, open the XML editor, expand the <svg:text> tree branch corresponding to your text, and select any of the <svg:tspan> objects under it. Now you can remove manual kerns from this line only. After you finish editing the line, you can manually justify it back, for example by adding spaces, manual kerns (Alt+arrows), or by adjusting letterspacing (select the whole line and use Alt+> or Alt+<).


Possibly you talk about the text no longer being editable as text in Adobe Illustrator, after having edited the PDF file in Inkscape? As far as I know, Adobe Illustrator can't handle embedded and subset fonts well (at least for EPS/PS files, AI outlines any text if it was embedded and subsetted in the PS/EPS file), but possible this still affects PDF files too (might depend on the version of Adobe Illustrator, as well as on the cairo version Inkscape was built with [1]).


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