> On Dec 31, 2015, at 6:04 PM, Knapp <xxxxxx@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> no one has mentioned it yet but Inkscape might be more what you are looking for.

Inkscape is frigging awesome.

At work I was asked to redo an existing PDF form to meet our requirements.

What I was handed for requirements was a *printed* pdf with parts cut out, written on and taped in to show what the final form should look like…literally copied and pasted. (there are still head-shaped dents on my desk from that afternoon!)

First I spent a half hour trying to make Adobe acrobat do what I needed without success.

Then I spent ten minutes seriously contemplating doing it the hardest way possible (http://search.cpan.org/~ssimms/PDF-API2-2.025/lib/PDF/API2.pm If anyone wants the code to make the typical ‘class photo’ with a bunch of thumbnail photos and a Perl interpreter, let me know..I can hook you up. Optimizing the number of columns and rows is surprisingly ‘not simple’)

Inkscape let me import the pdf as svg, copy/paste/edit parts to suit and export as pdf again to shovel into Acrobat Pro XI* to spit out a finished pdf form all within about two and a half hours, making me look like a gorram graphics superhero instead of the KludgeMaster I actually am.

Total time using Inkscape before that? About ten minutes...

Eight thumbs up!

* (which does a bang-up job of recognizing fields for fillable PDFS, btw, even if it’s total shite for editing and creating them. I would give a bunch of money to to the person who writes a PDF-based word processor/page layout app. NOT an app you can import a PDF into, but an actual app that used PDF as it’s native format)

--
Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group

Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs