Re: editing a PDF [Re: emacs 30.5.0 editing epub]

[Emanuel Berg]

Yuri Khan wrote:

>> It is kinda weird that, with all the many things that emacs
>> can do, it can't take the info from doc-view (which
>> obviously understands all the pieces of a pdf-- down to its
>> bits-- and how they all go together to make a document) and
>> edit it... it's pretty much implausible to believe emacs
>> *can't* do that. But then, I've always thought reality was
>> completely implausible. :^/
>
> PDF is not really meant for editing. It’s not even a data
> format. Rather, it’s an executable program that has
> instructions like “select this font” and “display this word
> in the selected font at this position on the page” and “make
> a new page”.
>
> You don’t normally edit executable programs, you compile
> them from source. In the same vein, to get a modified PDF,
> you find the source document from which it was produced,
> modify that, and re-export.

Still, they are editable at/from the PDF level as well, for
example with xournal. This is used for signing documents,
for example. It should not be confused or compared with
editing the source, that's another thing.

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