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I have a workbook in the form of a PDF and would like to be able to write in it and save it, but I can’t figure out how to convert it so editable format. Adobe Reader requires a subscription so is there a better software I can use?

Thanks.

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CutePDF or smallpdf should work

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I like this one as well

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I tried Cute, Small & Foxit and none of them seem to do what I want. I want to be able to add fillable text boxes to PDFs. Can the free versions of any of them do this?

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PDF is a format for presentation, printing and sharing unmodified. Editing possibilities are limited. I use PDF24 for those limited editing and modification options. So if you want to convert any PDF file to an editable format, that is not possible.

OCR may provide an option to create an editable file format based on certain kinds of PDF files.

Certain PDF file contain their editable sources. For these kind of PDF files, you don’t need to convert but to recover instead.

  • So to which kind of PDF file do you refer?
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PDF-Xchange might be able to do this.

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Get the original author to send you in word or excel format ?

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Adobe Acrobat Pro DC. The best PDF editor overall.

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This is a comparison of SoftMakers pdf editing software and you can see that as the features increase the cost increases. Comparison: FreePDF and FlexiPDF

You could try LibreOffice as it does have some pdf editing capabilities https://www.libreoffice.org/ and 11 Best Linux PDF Editors You Can Use in 2023 gives a number of options some of which are cross platform.

In Linux I have successfully used xournal which was basic. There is a Windows version. Windows Installation - Xournal++

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Take a look at this:

https://www.faa.gov/licenses_certificates/medical_certification/media/MedicalRecordsRequestForm.pdf

You can fill in the text boxes and check the check boxes. I’d like to convert a PDF I have to be able to do that.

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This is a form type of PDF. This has nothing to do to convert a PDF into an editable format. Forms are not editable neither. You may only fill in data. And depending on configured restrictions, these entered data may be saved too or not.

As far as I know, this has nothing to do with a conversion. You would need to create a PDF form.

  • And what do you want to do with the form data?
  • What do you mean by conversion of a PDF to a PDF form as it does not create and form fields?

I don’t remember when I used PDF forms. It’s a long time ago. And if I remember it right, the form data is the data which you filled in into such a PDF form, and is not using PDF for providing this form data.

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" And what do you want to do with the form data?

What do you mean by conversion of a PDF to a PDF form as it does not create and form fields?"

There’s a workbook I have that’s in PDF format that accompanies a self-help series, and I’d like to be able to fill it out as I go along and save various copies of it. I think they expect you to print it out and fill it in but I’d rather keep it in digital format and be able to fill it in as needed like the PDF I linked. Is it possible?

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With xournal you can add boxes in which you place typing. As I remember the boxes fit on a layer on top of the PDF form but were fiddly to position. It worked but when I had a lot of pdf forms to fill in which also needed my signature I found it quicker to print them, hand write the answers, photograph them and send it back as a jpg or convert it to pdf (I seem to remember).

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We use FOXIT, works really well TBH

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PDF forms are exactly what their name is - they are forms documents to be handed out to someone who you don’t want to share the original document with, so he can’t make unwanted changes to the form. It’s about forms, that would be filled out one time and printed. Not for real ‘data entry’ where you would regularly enter / add data.

PDF is the form you would print to, to share the document with someone, so the document is not messed up on his side, but looks exactly as you have designed it.

But PDF format is not meant to be really ‘editable’. Right the opposite! It is designed to limit your editing.

There are other types of forms from word over excel to all kinds of Cloud based forms offered by Google and others, that would be 100x better for the purpose you are talking about.

Whatever type of document you will be using for the editing - you will still be able to create pdf output from it, to share it with someone.

Really - forget pdf as the data entry document. Whatever else you will use, will be far more suitable.

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  • Are you sure that FDF variant of PDF forms is not supporting a use case for regular data entry?
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If you already have MS Office 2013 or newer then Word supports converting PDF to editable doc, though it’s not perfect and doesn’t do OCR so images in PDF may present an issue

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Am I sure? Well people do all kind of crazy stuff. Like tat guy that took his tractor to travel to the Italian seaside from Germany…

FDF (never actually used it) is supposed to be the ‘export’ from a PDF forms file. As such I would use it for automated data import&processing from some customer application forms. But never as a good excuse for the use of PDF for ‘storing’ something like journal, reports, measures,… data.

PDF is o.k. for a few data field on one page, but not for a page, that practically consists only of data.

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Writing the following pains me. I’m not a fan of Adobe and have not been a fan for decades. I also really do not like the subscription model and avoid it whenever possible.

That said, after many aggravations with other PDF editors, including paid-for software, I subscribed to Acrobat DC Pro.

It works. :rage::rage::rage:

Edit: Rereading the original post, it sounds like maybe more of a one time or limited use scenario. In such a case, it’s hard to believe that one of the non-subscription solutions above wouldn’t work.

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We switched form Adobe to Nitro PDF. We had some users who were not happy with the switch but we needed a better solution and paying the subscription was not an option for how infrequently we used it.

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