Hey all,

My father’s business requires him to work a lot with PDF forms, combine PDF files, convert scanned pictures to files, etc.

I’ve found Master PDF editor, but I’ve found it to be buggy – specifically when trying to create a new PDF from multiple files the program errors out saying it can’t create the file.

I’ve also tried running Foxxit PDF editor through WINE but that’s abysmal.

Any recommendations on Linux native software paid or FOSS, that can fill forms, create/combine PDFs, and do basic edition (rotating pages, etc) that my 70 year old dad can learn to use?

I moved him away from Windows with the Windows 11 debacle, and he’s liked Linux so far except for this one issue

Thanks all for your help?

***** EDIT *****

Thanks all for your responses, I’ll be trying out StirlingpPDF, PDFSam, OnlyOffice, and re-trying MasterPDF editor over the holidays while I have some 1:1 time with my dad. Tl;Dr: playing family IT and switching your parents to Linux is rough 😂

  • gerdesj@lemmy.mlEnglish
    18·
    6 days ago

    https://github.com/Stirling-Tools/Stirling-PDF

    I put one in at work. It sat idle for a while until a member of my admin staff asked me how to do a job involving pay slips. We discovered the pipeline tool in Stirling. It is now a permanent system with an SLA!

    Each tool has a nice big icon or you can create desktop or browser shortcuts to the ones of interest - ideal for keeping it simple.

  • Artopal@lemmy.ml
    17·
    7 days ago

    As other have said, a combination of Firefox PDF tool, PDF Arranger and Xournal++ is all I’ve ever needed. And Okular is nowadays my viewer of choice, which does a lot on its own, too.

  • Blastboom Strice@mander.xyz
    20·
    7 days ago

    I’d suggest Stirling PDF, just get the Stirling-PDF.jar file from the releases. It does really lots of stuff (though I had some issues with creating pdfs with multiple pages per page). It open a port for the service to run locally and once you close it, it also closes the port.

    I also use libre office draw (or firefox printing menu) to create pdfs with multiple pages per page.

    There’s also xournal as some other people have mention that has some editing capabilities.

  • SapientLasagna@lemmy.ca
    2·
    5 days ago

    Scribus has really good PDF support. It’s a full desktop publishing program (like InDesign), so it might not be the best for quick conversions. It does a really good job of PDF forms though.

  • j4k3@lemmy.worldEnglish
    12·
    7 days ago

    https://invent.kde.org/graphics/okular

    I like Okular’s ability to scan and convert tabled data in PDFs too. There is an option to turn off DRM nonsense. That can do page edits and stuff. If you want to create pages with images you need an office suite.

  • cRazi_man@lemm.ee
    10·
    7 days ago

    I’ve been through a lot of options trying to get the same functionality you mentioned. I’ve never found a single app that works particularly well. I’m surprised the state of PDF apps is so poor in Linux. Others have mentioned a bunch of apps and each fails in some major way. I’ll come back and check this comment section later for new suggestions for my own sake too.

    • weker01@sh.itjust.works
      5·
      7 days ago

      There is a reason for that. PDFs de facto “standard” is complex and documentation is sparse. PDFs were also designed to be static and uneditable which makes a lot of simple edits more complex to implement than people think.

      • cRazi_man@lemm.ee
        3·
        6 days ago

        Understandable, but it’s a significant diifculty in migrating fully to Linux when PDFs are used everywhere and there are solutions that work well on Windows. This is one of the few things I will get my wife’s Windows laptop for.

  • Mucki@feddit.orgEnglish
    2·
    5 days ago

    Okular for forms. qpdf just for quick viewing and reading. PDF arranger for rearranging pages. pdftk (CLI) for some serious work on PDFs. Exiftool and qpdf (both CLIs) for metadata and linearizing.

  • muhyb@programming.dev
    5·
    7 days ago

    This one has a perpetual license option, which could be steep for personal use but could be fine for a business. PDFsam Visual is great for what it does. You can also try it for 14 days too and then decide if it’s useful for you or not.

  • JubilantJaguar@lemmy.world
    5·
    7 days ago

    The options are surprisingly poor.

    Personally, I rolled my own TUI script. It uses pdftk to explode and merge, and gs (Ghostscript) to optimize. To paste PNGs of my signature (absurd, but here we are) I use xournal, which looks a bit rough but gets the job done.

  • MonkderVierte@lemmy.ml
    3·
    7 days ago

    pdfjam is the only tool i found that resizes images of different sizes to letter size while combining. Though it’s cli only. If your file manager has something similiar to Thunars custom actions, you could create little scripts to split, merge, image-to-pdf and put them in the context menu this way.

    • tapdattl@lemmy.worldOP
      1·
      6 days ago

      Yeah as @Nick mentioned, if it was just filling forms that would be fine, but its arranging documents and adding files together that he does most

    • Nick@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      7 days ago

      For basic form filling, the Firefox PDF editor is fine. But sounds like OP’s use case is more advanced than that.

  • logging_strict@lemmy.ml
    2·
    7 days ago

    When Python coders create documentation popular options: Sphinx and mkdocs. pandocs for converting a lone vanilla ReStructuredText file.

    With Sphinx can create user manual and PDF!

    Let me politely add a big warning, there is a learning curve

    Any user level questions regarding Sphinx can send my way

    • tapdattl@lemmy.worldOP
      1·
      6 days ago

      This would totally work if it was for me, but the constant complaint from my dad is, “This was easier on Windows, why did you switch me to Linux?” So it has to be 70 year old man easy. Thank you, though!

      • logging_strict@lemmy.ml
        1·
        4 days ago

        when faced with people with that position/attitude/minset, i have a phrase for that, grandma gets a smartphone. These people really aren’t made to be using tech.