Cannot open .pdf documents

zac · Guest

I am using neooffice/j 1.1 and update every time it tells me to, on a titanium powerebook running 10.2.8.

I came into work Monday (of course), and tried to revise a document I'd created last week, and saved as a .pdf. When I opened it, its hit me up with the "filter" dialog box, and a .pdf filter is not an option.

I tried opening it through the open dialog box, and .pdf is not a choosable file type!

I'm wondering 1) How do i open this file? 2) Why is .pdf not an option in these file lists?

Thanks In advance

zac

OPENSTEP · Posted: Mon Oct 03, 2005 9:36 am Post subject:

Neither OOo nor NeoJ can import a PDF file. PDF support is export only and is labeled as such in the interface (Export to PDF). To save files in a format that can be re-edited, you will need to save them as OOo/NeoJ files (sxw, etc.) or Office formatted files.

I don't even know of any commercial program that allows you to open PDFs and edit them easily beyond simple textual corrections.

ed

zac · Guest

Thanks, Ed. All I need to know.

zac

Max_Barel · Posted: Mon Oct 03, 2005 9:56 am Post subject:

jjmckenzie51 · Posted: Mon Oct 03, 2005 12:30 pm Post subject:

ovvldc · Posted: Mon Oct 03, 2005 12:38 pm Post subject:

sardisson · Town Crier Joined: Feb 01, 2004 Posts: 4588

There are also various shareware and commercial apps that convert PDF to editable formats like RTF and such and which, in theory, preserve the style info.

A long time ago, I copied the content of a PDF from Acrobat Reader and pasted into AppleWorks with decent luck (this was when I was still on Mac OS 9...).

Smokey

Guest · Guest

Probably the easiest sloution is to not save as a .pdf but rather save as an .rtf or .doc.

-Captain Obvious

JKT · Posted: Tue Oct 04, 2005 11:34 am Post subject:

The important thing to remember is that PDF is an electronic form of printing, not of saving file information. In other words, PDF will strip all the information from the file other than that which is needed to format it as a .pdf - in other words, PDFs don't know whether that centred bit of text in the middle of the page came from someone tabbing it there, or from applying a centre justification. To reverse a PDF to an editable document means that it would have to default to a particular choice for that object (i.e. guess) which may well not correspond to the original formatting in any way, shape or form.

PDFs are excellent for preserving the "paper form" of your file on your computer, but in this respect, that is about all.