Editing PDF's in Linux

[Jonathan Hutchins]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Hanasaki JiJi [mailto:hanasaki at hanaden.com]

> Any way to edit a PDF in linux?  The idea is to start with a 
> template of a form and programatically edit a copy to fill in the form.

PDF's are not intended as word processing files.  They're meant to be the
electronic equivalent of a printed document, not meant to be edited.  The
PDF format is owned by Adobe, and while some of their products can edit the
files, even then it's not like using a WYSIWYG word processor.

The preferred method is to maintain the original document as an editable
file, make changes to it, and re-process it into PDF.

The same is true of PostScript files, which are intended as printer control
files rather than editable documents.

What it sounds like you need is a protected form within a word processing
program, or possibly a web-base form where the actual form is kept separate
from the data collected, and a script processes it to combine the two
elements.