MarkT-a1b

In a separate message thread, I recommended that Affinity develop a stand-alone PDF editing application, to go along with Designer, Publisher and Photo. Several members commented in response, and one in particular recommended using an existing, (relatively) low-cost program to address my issues with a particularly troublesome PDF file. It turns out that this program does do the job in spades, as detailed in my "closing" comments to the following forum message thread: Sincere thanks to everyone who replied! MarkT

Since this is the user forum for Affinity software, I will refrain from extended discussion of competing products; however, since PDF-eXchange Pro was recommended to me by "Medical Officer Bones," above, I will comment further: Thanks to exceptionally helpful tech support from Tracker Software, I was able to zero in on just the program functions specific to the font color, word spacing, paragraph justification and page size problems that led to my starting this message thread in the first place. As I subsequently replied to the Tracker representative: "... I am by now simply *blown away* by PDF-eXchange, which has allowed me to do in 15 minutes what I have been unsuccessfully *trying* to do, off and on for two years [and more], using a combination of Acrobat Pro, ABBYY Finereader, Bluebeam Revu (trial), and lately, Affinity Designer and Publisher. "For a number of years I was a Beta tester for several of Adobe's flagship, high-end programs, starting with Acrobat 2.x for the Mac, but when they captured and killed Aldus/Macromedia Freehand, it turned me off to their typical modus operandus. Now, with the sometime exception of Acrobat Pro XI, I avoid their software like the plague. (But I *still* do regularly use Freehand 8 under Mac OS 9!) "Both Bluebeam and Affinity have been recommended by professional Acrobat users on Adobe's own support forum - but with not a peep from the latter, in response, in at least two years...." [End of quote] Affinity Designer, Publisher and Photo already make up a valued triumvirate in my software arsenal, and do I plan to use them thoroughly and often; but considering the availability of such a capable and (relatively) low-cost PDF handler as PDF-eXchange Pro, it would seem a better use of Affinity's programming resources to continue development and improvement of their existing software offerings, rather than to create a stand-alone PDF program. Sincere thanks to everyone who has weighed in on this topic. FWIIW.... MarkT

Upon PDF import, the program indicates that the only font within the file (Times New Roman) is indeed present and accounted for, within the computer's operating system. In the meantime, however, I am testing the above-referenced program, PDF-eXchange Editor Pro (along with its optional "Enhanced OCR" module), and a most helpful Tracker Software tech support representative says about this issue: "This is usually quite specific to the document and/or font being used. Sometimes editing can cause disturbances due to poor font embedding, substitution, encoding, etc." That being said, it so far appears that PDF-eXchange Editor Pro has no problems whatsoever with the same file whose word spacing bedevils both Acrobat and Affinity; and the entire page's font color can be changed - without wrecking the line justification and paragraph structure. I have considerably more testing left to do before declaring complete success, but for now I remain hopeful. Stay tuned.... MarkT

Too true! However, since it was Adobe who invented and developed the Postscript page description language; its subset of Postscript fonts; and the closely tied Portable Document Format, one might think that their "Professional" (cough!) PDF editing program would run circles around everyone else's. The PDF documents that I want to touch up appear to be simple, but they apparently contain some under-the-hood anomalies that Affinity is not (yet) quite up to handling. FWIIW....

Thanks to everyone for providing suggestions and comments on this subject. Affinity does seem able to correctly change font color within an imported PDF file; but within my test file, upon import, Affinity also introduces word spacing and line justification anomalies that not only do not lend themselves to straightforward correction, but which are not present at all when the file is handled within Acrobat or Finereader. To supplant these two programs, moreover, Affinity would need the ability to import/open, and then re-save/export, the same list of file formats - including .DOC - and to incorporate capable OCR functions. I recently posted, in the Affinity Support & Questions area of the forum, my frustrations with Acrobat Pro (XI and DC) and ABBYY Finereader: https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/96559-changing-font-color-and-enlarging-page-sizes-in-existing-pdf-files/ Bluebeam Revu eXtreme (but not Standard) is capable of addressing each of the specified issues, but its $549 (one-time) purchase price is beyond my budget. Are you using the "Pro" version of PDF-Xchange Editor, with or without its "Enhanced OCR Plugin"? If the USD $54.50 PDF-Xchange Editor Plus, with or without the Enhanced OCR Plugin, performs as claimed, then that would seem to obviate the need for Affinity to develop their own such program module. I will do some testing with the trial/free versions of PDF-Xchange Editor, and report back. MarkT

I highly recommend that Serif develop a fourth addition to the Affinity triumvirate: a PDF file creator, editor and OCR-capable program to supplant those currently being foisted on users - most expensively - by Adobe and others. Apropos of this recommendation, the Acrobat "UserVoice" topic "Full Tools, Menu customization" has by now been ongoing for somewhere approaching two years, and if Adobe has ever responded to or otherwise addressed the significant issues that continue to plague professional users, I do not recall having seen it. For reference, here follows a quite typical posting on this subject, wherein a professional user states that they would abandon - or already have abandoned - Acrobat Pro in favor of a competing program, such as Bluebeam Revu. Surely I am not the only user who would like to see just the complete PDF-handling capabilities of the expensive Revu xTreme incorporated within a stand-alone program costing significantly less than $549. I would happily abandon both Acrobat Pro and ABBYY Finereader in favor of such a program within the Affinity group, and harbor a strong suspicion that many other users would so so as well. --------------------------------- Adobe <no-reply@acrobat.uservoice.com> acrobat.uservoice.com New comment on 'Full Tools, Menu customisation' Posted in Acrobat for Windows and Mac » User Interface Anonymous commented on Full Tools, Menu customisation DC Pro has unfortunately been developed into a sluggish, bloated and complicated piece of pdf editing software. It needs to be re-imagined from the bottom up. PDFs aren't going away ... but Adobe customers are. If Affinity can develop the next greatest pdf editing tool - I won't let the door hit me on the way out. Just waiting to get the next big cost savings for my company by abandoning Adobe products altogether. If you would like to stop receiving these emails you may unsubscribe.

Thank you Petar and Old Bruce. I am not sure that I understand the definition of an "editable PDF document," as you cite above. The PDF file containing these pages has none of the Security features enabled within Acrobat Pro's File > Properties drop-down menu, and the text can be freely copied, edited, printed, etc. In my experience, however, text copied from such PDFs, and then pasted into other programs, remains columnar, with each line ending in a Paragraph mark (or a "carriage return," if you're a dinosaur like me); and most if not all special characters and custom formatting are lost. An example: The global MAX fleet of about 400 planes was grounded in March, following two fatal nose-dives triggered by the misfiring of an automated flight- control system called MCAS. As to exporting the file's text within ABBYY Finereader, I have experimented with each available target-file format - DOC, DOCX, TXT, CSV, RTF, ODT, XLS, XLSX, etc., and found that approach to be more trouble than it is worth - at least for this particular 200-page document. Also, this file is structured such that its page numbering within Acrobat (versus its absolute page numbering within the file itself) corresponds to that of the original document, e.g., with initial un-numbered Title, Notice, blank, Copyright, Contents and Introduction pages; as well as an ending Bibliography and letter-labeled Addendum. Starting this file from scratch in any program, Affinity or otherwise, would be a daunting proposition. In any case, just lately life has got in the way of work, but I hope to soon experiment fully with this file within the Affinity workspace. Stay tuned.... MarkT

Thank you, firstdefence and Walt. I agree that this file is a bit of a "mess," but the saving grace is that there are not all that many pages where Acrobat Pro's font-color change function ruins the line length (this file has justified right margins), and likewise there are not *too* many pages that are undersized. I would like to maintain the PDF file's close replication of the paper document's original page layout and numbering, and completely re-formatting it, front to back in Publisher, seems likely to make that goal difficult or impossible to achieve. In any case I will experiment with both Designer and Publisher, and report with what I find - if I still have any hair left, that is! Thanks again, MarkT

New to the forum, I have by now purchased, downloaded and installed all three Affinity programs (Win 7), and am hoping that Designer can do what both Acrobat Pro and ABBYY Finereader refuse to do. I have a 200-page PDF document that apparently was created, by someone else, in some sort of automated scanner-to-OCR-to-PDF application. The original paper document's pages were 4.25" wide by 7.0" high, but throughout the PDF document they vary somewhat in both directions - in some cases larger, in other cases smaller. The font color throughout is a medium-to-dark gray - notwithstanding that the font color in the original was black. Acrobat Pro XI and DC both are able to correctly crop the over-size pages in both dimensions, but both versions of that program absolutely refuse to increase the under-size values. ABBYY Finereader, OTOH, can be finagled to generate new pages of the correct size, but in doing so it screws up the line justifications on almost every page. So, in addition to needing to make sure all pages end up the desired 4.25" wide by 7.0" high, I need to change the font color to solid black, throughout the document. Acrobat can only do this a single page at a time, which would otherwise be barely tolerable; but in making these labor-intensive color changes it often royally screws up the line justifications and general fit of the text blocks on each page. My version of ABBYY Finereader can change font color only one line at a time, which basically makes the program worthless for my purposes. Bluebeam eXtreme can do what I need to do, but its $549 (US) price is way beyond my current budget. So, before I wade deeply into Designer and risk even more "manual hair loss," does it sound as though the program can be made to do what I need to do? Thank you! MarkT