How to Edit PDF Files without Adobe Acrobat
The PDF file format was originally created by Adobe in the early ’90s and there are now over 450+ million PDF documents on the Internet according to Google. Compare this with the DOC format that was created in early ’80s (much before PDF) but there are only 75 million .doc files on the web today.
Why PDF Files are Popular:
There are several reasons why PDF files are so popular for exchanging all sorts of documents including presentation portfolios, CAD Drawings, invoices and even legal forms.
#1. PDF files are generally more compact (smaller in size) than the source document and they easily preserve the original formatting. You can open a PDF file, that was created using a Windows PC, on a Mac or a Linux machine and your document will still look the same everywhere.
#2. Unlike Word and other popular document formats, the contents of a PDF file cannot be modified easily. You can also prevent other users from printing a physical copy of your PDF document.
#3. And the biggest advantage -- you can view PDF files on almost any computer (or mobile phone) using the web browser or with the help of free software like Adobe Acrobat Reader.
Edit PDF Files with Free Alternatives to Adobe Acrobat
While PDF Files are “read only” by default, there are ways by which you can edit certain elements* of a PDF document for free without requiring the source files or any of the commercial PDF editing tools.
[*] This article will primarily focus on tools that let you alter the actual contents of a PDF file. If you are looking to manipulate the PDF file structure itself like rearranging pages or merging multiple PDFs into one, please refer to the previous Adobe PDF Guide.
1. Online PDF Editor for Basic Tasks
There are situations when you need to make only minor changes in a PDF file. For instance, you want to hide your personal phone number from a PDF file before posting it on the web or want to annotate a page with sticky notes.
You can perform such edits pretty easily with PDF Escape, an online PDF editor that’s free and also lets you edit password-protected PDF documents in the browser.
With PDF Escape, you can hide* parts of a PDF file using the whiteout tool or add annotations with the help of custom shapes, arrows, text boxes and sticky notes. You can add hyperlinks to other PDF pages / web documents.
[*] Hiding is different from redaction because here we aren’t changing the associated metadata of a PDF file but just hiding certain parts of a PDF file by pasting an opaque rectangle over that region so that that stuff beneath the rectangle stays invisible.
2. Edit PDF Metadata (Author, PDF Title, etc.)
If you like to edit the meta-data associated* with a PDF document, check out Becy PDFMetaEdit. It’s a free utility that can help you edit details like the PDF document title, author name, creation data, keywords, etc. of any PDF file.
The tool can also be used for encrypting PDF documents such that only users who know the password can read the contents of your PDF files. And since this PDF metadata cum bookmarks editor can be executed from the command line, you can use it to update information in multiple PDF files in a batch.
[*] If you planning to post your PDF files on the web, you should consider adding proper metadata to all the files as that will help improve the organic rankings of your PDF files in Google search results.
3. Edit Text in a PDF File
If you want to edit large amounts of text in a PDF file but don’t have access to the source documents, your best bet is that you convert the PDF file into an editable Word document or an Excel spreadsheet depending on the contents of the PDF.
Then edit these converted PDFs in Microsoft Office (or Google Docs) and export the modified files back into PDF format.
If your PDF document is mostly text, you may use the desktop version of Stanza to convert that PDF into a Word document but if the document includes images, charts, tables and other complex formatting, try the online PDF to Word converter from BCL Research or the one from NitroPDF -- the former offers instant conversion while the latter service can take up to a day though its yields more accurate results.
4. Advanced PDF Editing (Images, text, etc.)
Now that you know the basic tools, let’s look at another set of PDF editors that are again free but can help you do some more advanced editing with PDF documents. This refers to stuff like replacing images on a PDF file, adding signatures, removing blocks of text without breaking the flow of the document, etc.
PDF XChange is a free PDF viewer cum editor that you may use for typing text directly on any PDF page. PDF XChange also supports image stamps so you may use the tool for signing a PDF file or for inserting images anywhere on a PDF page.
Then you have Inkscape, a free vector drawing tool (like Adobe Illustrator) that can natively import and export PDF content.
Video Demo: Edit PDF Files with Inkscape
With Inkscape, you can select any object on a PDF page (including text, graphics, tables, etc.) and move them to a different location or even remove them permanently from the PDF file. You can also annotate PDF files with Inkscape or draw freehand on a page using the built-in pencil tool.
The next tool in the category of advanced PDF editors is OpenOffice Draw with the PDFImport extension. OpenOffice Draw supports inline editing so you can easily fix typos in a PDF document or make formatting related changes like replacing color, increasing or decreasing the text size, replacing the default font-family, etc.
Like Inkscape, the OpenOffice toolbox also includes support for annotations, shapes, images, tables, charts, etc. but here you have more choices and the software also looks less complex.
Edit PDF Files
The OpenOffice suite is a little bulky (they don’t provide a standalone installer for Draw) but if you have the bandwidth, OpenOffice is the best tool for manipulating PDF documents when you don’t have the budget for Adobe Acrobat.
Why PDF Files are Popular:
There are several reasons why PDF files are so popular for exchanging all sorts of documents including presentation portfolios, CAD Drawings, invoices and even legal forms.
#1. PDF files are generally more compact (smaller in size) than the source document and they easily preserve the original formatting. You can open a PDF file, that was created using a Windows PC, on a Mac or a Linux machine and your document will still look the same everywhere.
#2. Unlike Word and other popular document formats, the contents of a PDF file cannot be modified easily. You can also prevent other users from printing a physical copy of your PDF document.
#3. And the biggest advantage -- you can view PDF files on almost any computer (or mobile phone) using the web browser or with the help of free software like Adobe Acrobat Reader.
Edit PDF Files with Free Alternatives to Adobe Acrobat
While PDF Files are “read only” by default, there are ways by which you can edit certain elements* of a PDF document for free without requiring the source files or any of the commercial PDF editing tools.
[*] This article will primarily focus on tools that let you alter the actual contents of a PDF file. If you are looking to manipulate the PDF file structure itself like rearranging pages or merging multiple PDFs into one, please refer to the previous Adobe PDF Guide.
1. Online PDF Editor for Basic Tasks
There are situations when you need to make only minor changes in a PDF file. For instance, you want to hide your personal phone number from a PDF file before posting it on the web or want to annotate a page with sticky notes.
You can perform such edits pretty easily with PDF Escape, an online PDF editor that’s free and also lets you edit password-protected PDF documents in the browser.
With PDF Escape, you can hide* parts of a PDF file using the whiteout tool or add annotations with the help of custom shapes, arrows, text boxes and sticky notes. You can add hyperlinks to other PDF pages / web documents.
[*] Hiding is different from redaction because here we aren’t changing the associated metadata of a PDF file but just hiding certain parts of a PDF file by pasting an opaque rectangle over that region so that that stuff beneath the rectangle stays invisible.
2. Edit PDF Metadata (Author, PDF Title, etc.)
If you like to edit the meta-data associated* with a PDF document, check out Becy PDFMetaEdit. It’s a free utility that can help you edit details like the PDF document title, author name, creation data, keywords, etc. of any PDF file.
The tool can also be used for encrypting PDF documents such that only users who know the password can read the contents of your PDF files. And since this PDF metadata cum bookmarks editor can be executed from the command line, you can use it to update information in multiple PDF files in a batch.
[*] If you planning to post your PDF files on the web, you should consider adding proper metadata to all the files as that will help improve the organic rankings of your PDF files in Google search results.
3. Edit Text in a PDF File
If you want to edit large amounts of text in a PDF file but don’t have access to the source documents, your best bet is that you convert the PDF file into an editable Word document or an Excel spreadsheet depending on the contents of the PDF.
Then edit these converted PDFs in Microsoft Office (or Google Docs) and export the modified files back into PDF format.
If your PDF document is mostly text, you may use the desktop version of Stanza to convert that PDF into a Word document but if the document includes images, charts, tables and other complex formatting, try the online PDF to Word converter from BCL Research or the one from NitroPDF -- the former offers instant conversion while the latter service can take up to a day though its yields more accurate results.
4. Advanced PDF Editing (Images, text, etc.)
Now that you know the basic tools, let’s look at another set of PDF editors that are again free but can help you do some more advanced editing with PDF documents. This refers to stuff like replacing images on a PDF file, adding signatures, removing blocks of text without breaking the flow of the document, etc.
PDF XChange is a free PDF viewer cum editor that you may use for typing text directly on any PDF page. PDF XChange also supports image stamps so you may use the tool for signing a PDF file or for inserting images anywhere on a PDF page.
Then you have Inkscape, a free vector drawing tool (like Adobe Illustrator) that can natively import and export PDF content.
Video Demo: Edit PDF Files with Inkscape
With Inkscape, you can select any object on a PDF page (including text, graphics, tables, etc.) and move them to a different location or even remove them permanently from the PDF file. You can also annotate PDF files with Inkscape or draw freehand on a page using the built-in pencil tool.
The next tool in the category of advanced PDF editors is OpenOffice Draw with the PDFImport extension. OpenOffice Draw supports inline editing so you can easily fix typos in a PDF document or make formatting related changes like replacing color, increasing or decreasing the text size, replacing the default font-family, etc.
Like Inkscape, the OpenOffice toolbox also includes support for annotations, shapes, images, tables, charts, etc. but here you have more choices and the software also looks less complex.
Edit PDF Files
The OpenOffice suite is a little bulky (they don’t provide a standalone installer for Draw) but if you have the bandwidth, OpenOffice is the best tool for manipulating PDF documents when you don’t have the budget for Adobe Acrobat.
The ePUB Format for E-Books – Everything You Wanted to Know
ePub is now a standard e-book file format that is supported by almost* every e-book reading device include Sony Reader, BeBook, IREX Reader, iPhone and the upcoming Nook from Barnes & Noble’s.
Other than hardware devices, you can also read .epub books on your desktop or mobile phone using free e-reader software like Stanza, Mobipocket, FBReader (for Linux), Aldiko (for Android) or Adobe Digital Editions.
[*] Amazon Kindle uses a proprietary format (AZW) and cannot read ePub files directly though you can use the free Stanza desktop application to convert an ePub ebook into AZW (or even PDF), a format that your Kindle can understand.
Download Books in ePub Format
O’Reilly, Shortcovers, Sony Store are some popular book publishers that provide ebooks in ePub format but if you are looking to download classic titles to read offline, the best place is Google Books (select the “public domain only” option).
google books in epubGoogle Books has more than a million public domain (out of copyright) books in the EPUB format that are completely free and they aren’t protected by DRM so you can read these ebook titles on any device / computer without restrictions.
Project Gutenberg and FeedBooks are some other useful sites that offers most of their titles in the EPUF format.
Read ePub e-books inside Firefox
Firefox users can download EPUBReader, a free add-on that lets you read the contents of any ePub book right inside their favorite browser without requiring any special software.
epub reader ePub is basically a zip file that contains a collection of text files and images. This add-on will simply uncompress that zip file and display the contents inside your browser.
In regular course, if you click on a link that points to an ePub file, Firefox will prompt you to to save that file onto the hard-drive but with this add-on installed, the ebook will directly open inside your Firefox tab like any other web page.
Additionally, you can open any ePub file that’s on your desktop using the File -> Open File menu in Firefox. All the ebook are automatically stored in your Firefox profile under a separate sub-directory. Thanks Paul Biba.
How to Create ePub eBooks
epub editor and converter If you want to publish your own books or blog in ePUB format, the easiest option is that you compose the text in Word (or Google Docs), save it as an RTF file and then you use Amazon’s Stanza program to convert that document into an ePUB ebook.
Before publishing, you should also use the EpubCheck tool from Adobe to make sure that the markup in your ePUB file is valid after conversion.
Alternatively, you may use the free Calibre program to convert virtually any document format into ePUB in a batch. Calibre is available for Linux, Windows and Mac OS X. And for editing ePUB files, you should try Sigil - a WYSIWYG editor that also runs on Windows, Linux and Mac and support the.
Download Google Books with Sony Desktop Reader
sony reader for epub While you can download ePUB books directly from the Google Books website, Sony offers an excellent desktop application (for Mac and PC) that is nice integrated with Google Books and you don’t have to own the Sony Reader for using that application.
You can then search public domain titles on Google Books directly from the desktop and save them to your local library in ePUB format.
Track Your RSS Feed Clicks with Google Analytics
Would you like to know how may people are visiting your site via RSS feeds?
If you are using FeedBurner to syndicate the RSS feeds of your blog, you can now easily track all the incoming traffic from feed clicks through Google Analytics.
Just open your FeedBurner dashboard, click the title of your RSS feed and choose "Configure Stats" under the Analyze Tab. Tick the options that say "Item views", "Item click" and "Track clicks as a traffic source in Google Analytics" and save.
In addition to click counts, you’ll also know the exact source from where that click may originated.
This is useful data because, for instance, it will help you understand if people who subscribe to your feed inside Google Reader are more engaged than your "My Yahoo!" subscribers (or vice-versa).
Traffic from clicks inside your RSS feed will be included under "All Traffic Sources" and "Campaigns." in your Google Analytics reports. Select "Ad Content" from the segment drop down in the traffic source data table and it will show you the incoming traffic from your RSS feed segmented by specific feed readers or email clients.
@digital inspiration
