P
PDFrank
PgmText v.2.00
Some of you are already familiar with a program called PgmText v.2.00,
which can be obtained for free from http://home.wanadoo.nl/netko/. It's
a great little hex editor/hacking tool that lets you actually edit the
text in program menus, etc., without corrupting the file.
Its author might not have considered that it can be used to edit PDF
files. But it can do just that.
Many people don't realize that a PDF, stripped to its bare essentials,
is just a text file. The reason why it doesn't LOOK like a text file if
you load it into Notepad is because, in most PDFs, the text resides in
compressed text streams, and are not humanly readable. (Of course, PDFs
typically contain graphical and other elements in addition to text.
Some PDFs have no text at all because they are merely scanned images.)
If one can de-compress the text streams, the actual text will be visible
in all its naked glory.
There are at least two freeware programs that can de-compress the
streams. One is PDFTK. Another is a free program called Free PDF
Compressor from www.nicepdf.com. The advantage of PDFTK, however, is
that it inserts page number markers into the file to help you navigate:
/pdftk_PageNum 1, /pdftk_PageNum 2, etc. (Sometimes the actual order of
the pages in the PDF file is not the same as they appear when viewed in
Adobe Reader.)
Once you have de-compressed the text, you can open it with Notepad or,
better yet, Wordpad, to see the results. Look inside the parentheses in
the file -- that's where the text resides. (In some PDFs the text
streams are very short -- sometimes as short as one letter. Those are
the most difficult to navigate and edit.) You can edit the text in
Wordpad, but you run the risk that you may corrupt the file so badly
that not even PDFTK will be able to repair it.
This is where PgmText v.2.00 comes in, because it easily isolates the
textual matter from the non-textual matter, and you can just keep
clicking "next" until you arrive at the line you need to edit. (You
will have to set the file filter to "*.*" so that it can "see" PDF files.)
One drawback to using PgmText v.2.00 is that it won't let you increase
the number of letters in the stream. This is to minimize the likelihood
of corrupting the file. But there should be no problem with REMOVING
text you DON'T want displated in the file.
Find your target text, make your (minor) edit, store, save, and exit.
Then, re-compress your PDF. You have just edited a PDF file.
Some of you are already familiar with a program called PgmText v.2.00,
which can be obtained for free from http://home.wanadoo.nl/netko/. It's
a great little hex editor/hacking tool that lets you actually edit the
text in program menus, etc., without corrupting the file.
Its author might not have considered that it can be used to edit PDF
files. But it can do just that.
Many people don't realize that a PDF, stripped to its bare essentials,
is just a text file. The reason why it doesn't LOOK like a text file if
you load it into Notepad is because, in most PDFs, the text resides in
compressed text streams, and are not humanly readable. (Of course, PDFs
typically contain graphical and other elements in addition to text.
Some PDFs have no text at all because they are merely scanned images.)
If one can de-compress the text streams, the actual text will be visible
in all its naked glory.
There are at least two freeware programs that can de-compress the
streams. One is PDFTK. Another is a free program called Free PDF
Compressor from www.nicepdf.com. The advantage of PDFTK, however, is
that it inserts page number markers into the file to help you navigate:
/pdftk_PageNum 1, /pdftk_PageNum 2, etc. (Sometimes the actual order of
the pages in the PDF file is not the same as they appear when viewed in
Adobe Reader.)
Once you have de-compressed the text, you can open it with Notepad or,
better yet, Wordpad, to see the results. Look inside the parentheses in
the file -- that's where the text resides. (In some PDFs the text
streams are very short -- sometimes as short as one letter. Those are
the most difficult to navigate and edit.) You can edit the text in
Wordpad, but you run the risk that you may corrupt the file so badly
that not even PDFTK will be able to repair it.
This is where PgmText v.2.00 comes in, because it easily isolates the
textual matter from the non-textual matter, and you can just keep
clicking "next" until you arrive at the line you need to edit. (You
will have to set the file filter to "*.*" so that it can "see" PDF files.)
One drawback to using PgmText v.2.00 is that it won't let you increase
the number of letters in the stream. This is to minimize the likelihood
of corrupting the file. But there should be no problem with REMOVING
text you DON'T want displated in the file.
Find your target text, make your (minor) edit, store, save, and exit.
Then, re-compress your PDF. You have just edited a PDF file.