Ubuntu PDF Editor

Almost every distribution of Linux provides a PDF viewer, but not essentially a PDF editor, but we do not have to worry because there are several PDF editors available in Linux that we might install and use.

We might be looking for achieving a few basic tasks such as deleting, merging pages, and the same on the PDF editor. However, we might have a reason for editing the content within a PDF file.

PDF editors could be divided as follows:

• PDF editors that enable us to change the files by splitting files, merging files, and extracting pages using files, etc.
• PDF editors that enable us to edit the data (add/remove images, change, highlight, and annotate text, etc).

PDF editors and readers are a famous part of the day-to-day work associated with documents, whitePaper, presentations, ebooks, and more due to the security and portability of PDF. However, we will generally see one in Linux easily when we talk about reader apps for PDF files. Although PDF editors may require to be installed, which are present in just a handful.

• PDF was developed by Adobe in such a way that it can represent the layout inside the final document exactly the same, anywhere, despite the OS software or system where we are going to utilize later.
• Hence, afterward, editing PDF files isn't an easy for task- except comment functions and standard notes.
• Besides, Adobe provides an efficient PDF editor for Windows and Mac, but that has limited capabilities.
• It means that we can not thoroughly edit every PDF file like we did Word documents.

Because PDF has an open format nature and does not limit to Adobe only, so several third-party open-source, free, and paid software came up to manage it. A few of them can change files to a few expand, while others can only merge, split, extract, annotate, and compress PDF files.

We are going to discuss some best PDF editors for Linux in this article.

LibreOffice Draw

LibreOffice Draw gives a handy way to edit a PDF file. If our requirements are restricted and mostly text editing within a PDF document, LibreOffice Draw will serve our purpose. It might not be a full-fledged PDF editor and provides a few limitations but it is worth trying out.

Advantages of LibreOffice Draw

• Cross-platform
• Supports making PDF files
• Employ the existing content
• Add images/text in a file
• Text editing in the file

Installing LibreOffice

LibreOffice is open-source, free, and comes bundled along with almost every distribution. We will not see it as an isolated software but as a segment of the LibreOffice suite.

Scribus

It is not completely a PDF editor but it provides the essential features for highlighting, adding content, and some more things within a PDF file.

Scribus is a helpful and open-source tool of desktop publishing that we can use for making advertisement posters and writing books between other things. Surely, we can use it for highlighting the text, adding text, moving the text, and other objects for improving the PDF file for PDF editing.

It is also an open-source and cross-platform tool which makes it more interesting.

Advantages of Scribus

• Move the PDF file's existing text for repositioning it or deleting it
• Include text boxes and other components
• Highlight the content of the text

Installing Scribus

We should find it mentioned in our software center for easily getting it installed. Also, we can opt for a Flatpak package present in either case.

We can also check out the official download page of Scribus for more options for Windows, macOS, FreeBSD, and others.

Okular

Okular is a famous open-source and free document viewer created by KDE which contains common PDF editing aspects. In Okular, once we open the PDF file, we can copy any text segment to the clipboard by choosing it or store it as an image.

We can navigate our way from the menu, i.e., Tools>Reviews for getting other options such as adding pop-ups notes, freehand line drawing, stamp, highlighter, inline notes, and other features. Okular can manage our common tasks of PDF editing. However, it might not be that much helpful for advanced editing.

Advantages of Okular

• Cross-platform
• Distinct annotation options as a part of the review feature of the tool

Installing Okular

Okular is present within the software repository of most major distributions of Linux. We can install it using our software center. Also, we can establish it using a source from the website of KDE in either case.

Qoppa PDF Studio

PDF Studio is a financial PDF editor through Qoppa Software that includes every necessary editing aspect. We can establish, examine, and edit any PDF file.

It is not a free tool but we can at least try out the complete release as a trial. It is also good to see that they provide a one-time purchase. We can compare the versions on their official website and go for the best one.

Advantages of PDF Studio

• Cross-platform
• Supports many advanced features like touch mode for laptop, text search, side by side comparing two PDF files, grid and ruler views
• Add password to any PDF document and sign the PDF document digitally.
• Add footers, headers, hyperlinks, freehand annotations, text boxes, sticky notes, etc.
• Edit text properties and contents, path and shape objects, resize and move images, and optimize PDF files for reducing file size.

Installing Qoppa PDF Studio

We can download the .deb package from the official download page of PDF Studio and install it on Ubuntu distributions.

For any other distribution of Linux, we can only download an installer script present on the official download page and enter the below command through the target directory. The name of the file might be different so ensure to verify that.

PDF Mix Tool

It is an excellent open-source software for common tasks of PDF file editing that contains extracting pages, merging, adding, or deleting files. It is an attractive open-source app for common PDF file editing operations that contains extracting pages, adding, merging, or deleting files.

On the other hand, the PDF Mix Tool can mix files backing up their pages, add white pages to any PDF file, produce booklets, remove pages from any PDF file, edit the information of the PDF documents, extract pages through the PDF files, etc. This tool is written in the C++ programming language and only depends on qpdf and Qt. It is a free application shared upon the terms and conditions of the GNU GPLv3 license.

Advantages of PDF Mix Tool

• Page's edit layout
• Add, delete, extract, and split pages
• Rotate pages
• Merge files

Master PDF Editor

It is another proprietary software to edit PDF files. We can do most of the things ranging from editing a PDF file to editing scanned archives.

We can freely use it but an unregistered release will include a watermark in our PDF files. If you wish to get rid of this watermark, we can select to purchase it.

It is a helpful PDF editor for all users of Ubuntu. It offers many functions like encryption of document security, adding and creating PDF fonts, documents, and image editing. Also, it supports JavaScript.

Supporting operating systems include:

• Vista 7,8, and 10
• Mac OS X 10.7.5
• Windows 2008
• Windows 2003
• Windows XP

Advantages of Master PDF Editor

• Cross-platform
• Facilitates digital signature option and much more
• Split or merge PDF file; establish, edit, or delete bookmarks
• Edit documents having images and scanned documents
• Supports editing, creation, and filling of PDF files
• Offers robust annotation tools like measuring tools, sticky notes, shapes, and increase capabilities like a strike from highlights and underline
• Edit or add text in the PDF file l, change the object size, insert images, and copy objects using a PDF file to our clipboard

Installing Master PDF Editor

Both .rpm and .deb packages are present for downloading and we can get them using its official download page.

Also, we will see a Flatpak package over Flathub that we can install. So, we might not see it in our software center unless it is supporting Flatpak.

PDFsam

PDFsam (also known as basic edition) is an open-source and free tool that enables us to easily extract, rotate, merge, and split PDF files.

We might not get the ability for editing the content of the PDF file, but it facilitates two different paid editions along with many plans of yearly subscription (in the official website) that provides more advanced aspects if we wish them and like PDFsam.

Advantages of PDFsam

• Cross-platform
• Optional paid editions for editing PDF files along with more advanced aspects for editing the PDF content
• Extract, rotate, merge, and split files

Installing PDFsam

PDFsam Basic edition must be present in the software center of our Linux distribution. We can check out its official download page for getting the .deb file or the portable archive file in either case.

PDFArranger

It is an easy-to-use and open-source tool for rearranging, merging, splitting, and rotating pages of any PDF file. Originally, it is a fork of the project, i.e., PDF Shuffler which is no more developed. This tool is a small python-gtk app that supports the user to split and merge PDF documents and rearrange, crop, and rotate their pages with an intuitive and interactive graphical interface. PDFArranger is a front-end tool for pikepdf.

Advantages of PDFArranger

• Cross-platform (Linux and Windows)
• Drag and drop for re-arranging
• Crop pages
• Delete/split pages
• Rotate pages

PDF Chain

PDF Chain is a Graphical User Interface for PDF Toolkit (short for PDFtk). When we use GUI, it runs the commands essential to finish the operations.

Even though PDF Toolkit is not available in Linux directly, there is a port of PDF Toolkit in Linux that applies Java. We can install it for PDF Chain to implement. But, we can only use Synaptic Package Manager for installing PDFtk-java for almost all parts.

Advantages of PDF Chain

• Compress PDF
• Add/Remove pages
• Rotate pages

Installing PDF Chain

We can install it using the software center itself. If we are looking for installing it on other distributions of Linux, we can also check out the official website for more details.

PDF Slicer

PDF slicer is pretty much a General open-source software that helps us to extract, render, merge, and rotate PDF files.

We can install this tool from the software center or easily install a Flatpak package. It can be used upon the terms and conditions of GNU GPL 3.0 or later version license. A copy can be created in the LICENSE file. Several third-party libraries are shared as part of the source code repository. These are specified in the file, i.e., LICENSE-THIRD-PARTY, with the license information they were published under.

Advantages of PDF Slicer

• Delete pages
• Merge pages
• Rotate pages

Some other PDF editors that we can use in Ubuntu to edit PDF files:

• Foxit PhantomPDF: Foxit PhantomPDF has several features that can help us make modifications to the text of the PDF documents while it is a reliable PDF editor for Ubuntu. Particularly, it is a great choice with a few annotation functions, such as the feature to highlight large text blocks.
  We can add many text boxes and other components in terms of text editing on any PDF document. Also, we can easily move the available text to a distinct document section or remove the text.

Advantages:

• It is very easy to use and free.
• We can delete, move, and highlight texts.
• It has various advanced editing abilities.
• Drawbacks:
• Foxit PhantomPDF is very expensive.

• PDF Filler: On Ubuntu, PDF Filler permits us to edit PDF files either by highlighting text, adding comments, changing the size of the fonts, type and color of our text, rotating, adding, cropping and resizing images and protecting our images with passwords.

We can access our PDF files and utilize them on browsers, including Internet Explorer, Mozilla, or Chrome. We can also use this PDF editor on Mac and Windows. Editing our PDF files with this editor is an easy task but takes a short time, and the result is efficient PDF files.

• PDF Studio: It is an editor that permits us to edit our PDF files in Ubuntu easily. PDF Studio is available in four different editions, including PDF Studio 10 Pro, PDF Studio 10 Standard, Adobe Acrobat Pro, and Adobe Acrobat Standard.

PDF Studio provides its support for the following operating systems:

• Unix
• Mac
• Linux
• Windows

• PDFedit: It is a free editor available for Ubuntu. This editor contains advanced aspects that permit us to modify raw objects. If we are not an expert, we don't have to be worried because PDFedit permits us to utilize less complicated GUI tools. It enables us to implement functions, such as editing text (color, size, or type), images (add, delete, rotate, crop, or resize), protecting by using passwords, etc.
• PDF Exhaust: It is a helpful app and doesn't need any download. We can use it online from the web browser directly.

Some of the main features of PDF Exhaust are as follows:

• We can add and delete pages from a PDF file.
• It permits us to add our images and text.
• It provides various tools.
• It works online via our web browser.

• Sejda PDF Editor: This PDF editor includes an extra feature that permits us to edit the available text within the PDF without the requirement to add a watermark. Almost every editor just edits the text that we add ourselves, or they facilitate text editing, but they toss watermarks everywhere.

This tool can also run completely in our web browser. Thud, it actually includes that extra choice of being able to utilize it without downloading any program. Although we can install the desktop version if we want.

• Evince: It is a convenient document viewer and provides the built-in GNOME desktop environment. Some of its benefits include search tools, encrypted document viewing, document printing and indexing, and others.

We can view all files in PDF, DjVu, and PostScript formats. The goal of Evince is to substitute several document viewers that are available in GNOME with one application, including xpdf, GPdf, and GGV.
Mainly, it is written in the C programming language along with a small segment written in C++; the code intersects with the Poppler software.

• Inkscape: It is an attractive vector graphics program; various professionally developed graphics regularly utilize this software around the world. Also, we can edit and make our PDF files so that they can be implemented properly as a PDF editor of Linux. One thing that troubles some users is that this PDF editor doesn't work like several other document editors, where they support two or more pages, such as Word and LibreOffice. Hence, Inkscape imports only a single page at a time.
  • It is a drawing program and operates like Adobe Photoshop for dealing with several PDF files.
  • The user can include the PDF fonts substituted by installed fonts using the same names when importing any PDF document.
  • The interface of Inkscape is quite nice and allows us to choose text easily and edit them.
  • We can also deal with distinct graphics available in PDF files apart from a vector graphics program.

However, Inkscape isn't a multi-page editing program, such as LibreOffice, so when we import two or more files, it will just choose the initial one for editing. We can limit the export to chosen drawing parts and transform the texts into lines and paths. Inkscape almost perfectly imported the self-written PDF, just combining the text frames one on the other's top into one bigger one.

• Xournal++: Xournal++ is primarily an application for handwritten notes. However, it offers an annotation tool for PDF, which can be utilized for common PDF editing, such as drawing figures, adding text, highlighting, etc. This tool supports extra helpful tools, including shape recognizer, image and text addition to PDF, feature to insert vertical space between multiple layers and annotations, etc.

Some of its advantages are listed below:

• Layer support
• Text for shape recognizer
• PDF annotation
• Scientific formula/equation support
• Increase note-taking

• GIMP: GIMP stands for GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a famous cross-platform tool used for image editing that implements a huge variety of image editing tasks. It offers high-quality tools for image manipulation to perform image modification operations, including restoring and retouching.

Additionally, we can establish mock art user interface components like icons and buttons supported by high-quality color management aspects, which protect high-color image devotion. Also, it is utilized in workflows associated with other applications like Scribus and Inkscape.

• Many people are not aware that the famous GIMP raster graphics editor can also launch and permits us to edit PDF files.
• When we open any PDF file in GIMP, it will ask us to open all PDF pages as layers independently as image files.
• We can edit several images and export them finally from GIMP as PDF files.

However, there is a catch. In GIMP, all PDF pages become a fixed image. That includes icons, diagrams, texts, etc. Thus, if we wish to change it, we might require matching the size of the font, deleting sections using GIMP selections, and so on. Overall, we can implement advanced editing, but we can not change the available texts over it.