I want to import .PDF files and have them editable.

[chris gardiner]

When I copy a .PDF file into a blank document it is not editable as far as I can see.
I have set resolution at 300DPI  at both ends.

I cannot find how you set read as text. (searched the import page).

If I can make this work reasonably well I will buy Affinity.

Thanks  Chris
 

Charles Gardiner jnr.afpub

[Komatös]

Hi @chris gardinerand welcome to the forums.

You can open the PDF without importing to a new document.

[iconoclast]

I think, you should be able to drag & drop a PDF file into a Publisher document.  But of course you need to have the fonts installed on your computer that are used in the PDF document. And as far as I know not all features of PDFs, that were created with Adobe apps, are supported by Affinity and other apps.

[AlanPickup]

It may be worth mentioning that it can be opened in Publisher and Designer but there are caveats in that it may not always translate to the original format. There are many instances of problems in the forums and it depends on what programme created the original PDF and whether the fonts used are embedded in the pdf or you have them installed on your computer.

The apps make best guess when translating the pdf for grouping of text, as you will see with the file you included that all lines are separate,

If your only use of Affinity is to convert word files to pdf you may be better using an online pdf converter like https://www.ilovepdf.com/ and convert it to a word document as per attached which I exported from your file as a pdf, but if you intend doing design work I cannot recommend the Affinity suite enough as an affordable set of tools

Charles Gardiner jnr.docx

[chris gardiner]

Thanks for the help.Ok. That is a help. Most of the text disappeared.. will play around and see if I can find a good way to save the PDF from my ODT documents

 

I think I will struggle on with open office word. It gets confused when you anchor too many wrapped pictures in a long document. Undoes pages ahead.
But am too far commited to turn back. May try latest word to see if they have sorted that problem there. Just sharing as a thankyou.

Also stuck on how to get from zoom to edit writing inside the paragraph.

 

[chris gardiner]

I see I can try word365 free. So I will and should be able to convert to DOCX  and then save and then exit free trial. £80 for one year is too much.
So thanks for chat.

[walt.farrell]

2 hours ago, chris gardiner said:

I see I can try word365 free. So I will and should be able to convert to DOCX 

Have you tried saving a .docx file from OpenOffice? It should work, and you can import that to Affinity Publisher using File > Place. I know it works from LibreOffice (which I prefer to OpenOffice).

[chris gardiner]

Getting desperate. I just downloaded a free months trial of windows word. Will try File>Place as you suggest.
Open Office and Word really don't like long word and picture chunks. open office does not have a docx option . is why I agreed to the trial. My little laptop is a bit stuffed with MS bloatware. Regretting it already. My other route is to split my books into chapters. Am looking at Scrivener which is just a bit ott when you only want to make a family history.
If ever you try do be super careful what you say especially about the living. Photo's are more beyond dispute.

Uploaded a .doc into word and saved as docx and affinity refused to see the file when it was saved. Times new Roman and ariel fonts maybe Garamond  -- ye gods. not ideal but not really got to that bit. Scrivener does not text wrap at all which might be sensible since it aint that easy.  I think if all inline pictures were all anchored to a paragraph things might not go nuts. None of these progs just stop when they run out of blank pages, nor do they add pages. So primitive.
The thing I like about Affinity is the A3 page size. So useful for an Album.

[AlanPickup]

I am not sure on Walt's method but I have not found place to work direct with word docx with formatting, also place only puts the first page in to the apub file. Word formatting is not compatible in many ways. There is no shortcut with programmes like Affinity or even the other programmes you mention they have to be learnt. I do many publications that start off in word but it is a long process of setting the layout in Apub and the styles and pasting the text in to the text frames without format. In Desk top publishing you work with elements of text boxes and picture frames / images that in the most stay in the position you place them, where as word and other office programs each part moves in relation to the other as you type. You can obviously anchor images in word, but the text follows the margin settings for the page or section. You can do it in word but you need to create text boxes and anchor them to a position on the page, as you would with an image.

If you have got an office subscription trial try MS Publisher, but again there is a learning curve  

[chris gardiner]

Getting desperate. I just downloaded a free months trial of windows word. Will try File>Place as you suggest.
Open Office and Word really don't like long word and picture chunks. open office does not have a docx option . is why I agreed to the trial. My little laptop is a bit stuffed with MS bloatware. Regretting it already. My other route is to split my books into chapters. Am looking at Scrivener which is just a bit ott when you only want to make a family history.
If ever you try do be super careful what you say especially about the living. Photo's are more beyond dispute.

Uploaded a .doc into word and saved as docx and affinity refused to see the file when it was saved. Times new Roman and ariel fonts maybe Garamond  -- ye gods. not ideal but not really got to that bit. Scrivener does not text wrap at all which might be sensible since it aint that easy.  I think if all inline pictures were all anchored to a paragraph things might not go nuts. None of these progs just stop when they run out of blank pages, nor do they add pages. So primitive.
As I started with open Office I might migrate to word. Everything else is just too much overload in learning. Also I am making a family album and word is everywhere which could be useful for sharing. Thankas for the help. Really appreciated.

[walt.farrell]

1 hour ago, chris gardiner said:

open office does not have a docx option

I thought it did, but the last time I used it was probably at least 10 years ago. I've been using LibreOffice, instead.

[Old Bruce]

1 minute ago, walt.farrell said:

I thought it did, but the last time I used it was probably at least 10 years ago. I've been using LibreOffice, instead.

I know that there was a reason I switched from Open Office to Libre Office (also about 10 years ago) and this might be why. Cannot say for certain though.

[AlanPickup]

49 minutes ago, chris gardiner said:

Getting desperate. I just downloaded a free months trial of windows word. Will try File>Place as you suggest.
Open Office and Word really don't like long word and picture chunks. open office does not have a docx option . is why I agreed to the trial. My little laptop is a bit stuffed with MS bloatware. Regretting it already. My other route is to split my books into chapters. Am looking at Scrivener which is just a bit ott when you only want to make a family history.
If ever you try do be super careful what you say especially about the living. Photo's are more beyond dispute.

Uploaded a .doc into word and saved as docx and affinity refused to see the file when it was saved. Times new Roman and ariel fonts maybe Garamond  -- ye gods. not ideal but not really got to that bit. Scrivener does not text wrap at all which might be sensible since it aint that easy.  I think if all inline pictures were all anchored to a paragraph things might not go nuts. None of these progs just stop when they run out of blank pages, nor do they add pages. So primitive.
As I started with open Office I might migrate to word. Everything else is just too much overload in learning. Also I am making a family album and word is everywhere which could be useful for sharing. Thankas for the help. Really appreciated.

Hi Chris

A lot of this about you not understanding how publishing software works, in many cases it starts out with a set number of pages based on you know what that the finished product needs to be, if you need to increase the number of pages you work with copies of master pages. A three fold leaflet the text flows illogical until folded, how would you do that with text that just creates a new page?.  Magazines have text flowing in different ways around pictures and blank spaces which are used to draw the eye, the text flows from text box to text box not page to page.

Being a family genealogist also I hope you get there in your quest. 

 

[Komatös]

Hi @chris gardiner

If OpenOffice/LibreOffice don't offer exporting to pdf, it is possible to use a virtual pdf printer like doPDF.

https://www.dopdf.com

[walt.farrell]

38 minutes ago, Komatös said:

If OpenOffice/LibreOffice don't offer exporting to pdf, it is possible to use a virtual pdf printer like doPDF.

LibreOffice certainly can create a PDF file, but importing a .docx (which it can also create) into Publisher should work better, usually.

[Steve_From_Oz]

11 hours ago, chris gardiner said:

Uploaded a .doc into word and saved as docx and affinity refused to see the file when it was saved. 

Hi Chris,

I have a simlar dilemma. I am writing my autobiography in MS Word 2007 (basically my personal family history) but as Word is not a colour managed workflow I thought of switching to Affinity Publisher so the images would print with the correct colour.

Publisher will not recognise docx files to open directly, you have to use file place, see this link:

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/59eef27c8dd041ce629c7235/t/5f1cc48e4c3ccd4dea54ca3e/1595720848227/03+Importing+the+Word+file+content.pdf

It will open PDF files directly.

I have found saving my docx file in word as a PDF works to import the document, however you need to set "favour editable text" and unclick group lines of text into text frames. However, as per another post, I have found that behaviour to be inconsistent, probably a bug and almost a show stopper for me with Publisher. 

If you open a Microsoft account, you can get a stripped down version of MSWord 365 that only works online, that might help you.

Regards,

Steve

 

Edited July 11, 2022 by Steve_From_Oz

[Steve_From_Oz]

On 7/9/2022 at 7:06 PM, chris gardiner said:

When I copy a .PDF file into a blank document it is not editable as far as I can see.
I have set resolution at 300DPI  at both ends.

Thanks  Chris
 

Charles Gardiner jnr.afpub 1.87 MB · 6 downloads

Hi Chris, a PDF is editable. I have attached a video of a sample pdf

 

 

to show you how. Note that in the first section, all lines of text are set as layers (look in the layers pallete to the right of screen). This should not happen with the settings I used in the video, look at the file open options. The second part of the video shows what should be the correct behavour, however to edit your document, double click in the text frame and you should be able to edit.

Like you, my document is almost complete and has been written in Word. Trying to convert into Publisher IMO will entail too much time and learning curve at this late stage of my project. 

Your are correct, most people will be able to read a Word document, however, they can also edit a Word document. Word allows you to save a file as a PDF.

 

 

 

Edited July 11, 2022 by Steve_From_Oz
Update video

[chris gardiner]

Getting desperate. I just downloaded a free months trial of windows word. Will try File>Place as you suggest.
Open Office and Word really don't like long word and picture chunks. open office does not have a docx option . is why I agreed to the trial. My little laptop is a bit stuffed with MS bloatware. Regretting it already. My other route is to split my books into chapters. Am looking at Scrivener which is just a bit ott when you only want to make a family history.
If ever you try do be super careful what you say especially about the living. Photo's are more beyond dispute.

Uploaded a .doc into word and saved as docx and affinity refused to see the file when it was saved. Times new Roman and ariel fonts maybe Garamond  -- ye gods. not ideal but not really got to that bit. Scrivener does not text wrap at all which might be sensible since it aint that easy.  I think if all inline pictures were all anchored to a paragraph things might not go nuts. None of these progs just stop when they run out of blank pages, nor do they add pages. So primitive.
The thing I like about Affinity is the A3 page size. So useful for an Album.

 

A word of warning to all biographers. You will upset somebody for sure. Most people have stuff they would prefer to remain burried even if it is generations back.

[GarryP]

8 minutes ago, chris gardiner said:

Getting desperate. I just downloaded a free months trial of windows word. Will try File>Place as you suggest.
Open Office and Word really don't like long word and picture chunks. open office does not have a docx option . is why I agreed to the trial. My little laptop is a bit stuffed with MS bloatware. Regretting it already. My other route is to split my books into chapters. Am looking at Scrivener which is just a bit ott when you only want to make a family history.
If ever you try do be super careful what you say especially about the living. Photo's are more beyond dispute.

Uploaded a .doc into word and saved as docx and affinity refused to see the file when it was saved. Times new Roman and ariel fonts maybe Garamond  -- ye gods. not ideal but not really got to that bit. Scrivener does not text wrap at all which might be sensible since it aint that easy.  I think if all inline pictures were all anchored to a paragraph things might not go nuts. None of these progs just stop when they run out of blank pages, nor do they add pages. So primitive.

Why have you posted pretty-much the same thing three times?
Posting the same thing over and over again doesn’t add anything to the discussion and can make it more difficult to follow as people could try and figure out if there are any subtle differences in each version which could be pertinent.
It would help you to get answers if you don’t repeat yourself.