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Comment by xnx | Hacker News Reader

Protip: I only recently learned that LibreOffice is a pretty good PDF Editor. https://ask.libreoffice.org/t/how-do-i-edit-pdf-files-create...

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This is not a pro tip. LibreOffice can import a PDF and export a PDF but, even with minimal changes, the PDF you get out won't necessarily have a similar binary representation or appearance to the original.

Most of the PDF editing I do is the equivalent to physically typing over, covering over, or cutting elements out of a print document. I would not expect a an editor to be able to (for example) reflow the layout of PDF.

I just opened a PDF in LibreOffice, and immediately exported it to PDF, without making any changes.

I deliberately chose a PDF with very few images, simple formatting and very few fonts.

The output PDF differed materially from the original:

- not only was the font different, but the original fixed-width font had been replaced with a proportional font

- multiple lines that had consistent horizontal alignment in the original were now jagged

- numbers that were in a column are now no longer directly below each other

> This is not a pro tip.

I think there's also the implication of 'pro', as if the rest of HN are not software professionals. I'd suggest GP to revise the structure of their comment in order to not offend the entire forum.

In my experience, LibreOffice Draw usually messes up the formatting of any PDFs I open in it. Nothing entirely unsalvageable, but text gets slightly moved around and winds up overlapping other text in a way that's annoying for future readers of the document.

In my experience, every open source PDF Reader/Editor, is ATROCIOUS and messes up the formatting big time. I wish there was an alternative out there that was as good as adobe, but as with all of their other tools, the alternatives always leave much to be desired.

And then adobe takes advantage of that fact (Their product is second to none), and rail their customers by making their products expensive AF.

TLDR: Adobe products are AMAZING. Their pricing structure and marketing techniques and straight up disrespect to their customers is absolute garbage.

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