Import and Edit PDFs with OpenOffice

Posted by Tommy

October 25, 2008

One handy OpenOffice extension out there is Sun’s PDF Import Extension. Their description:

The PDF Import Extension allows modifying existing PDF files for which the original source files do not exist anymore. PDF documents are imported in Draw and Impress to preserve the layout and to allow basic editing. It is the perfect solution for changing dates, numbers or small portions of text.

There is another and even more important feature in this plugin, however. Most people don’t follow my advice and download OpenOffice, which means that I often have to export my files into PDFs. I do this for Impress presentations for my classes, for example. Some students, however, do use OpenOffice. Why should they be punished for their progressive attitude and superior brain power? Shouldn’t they get the originals? Well now they can:

The PDF Import extension will also enable the PDF export into a hybrid PDF file, which is a PDF with the embedded source file as ODF. Hybrid PDF files will be opened in StarOffice as an ODF file without any layout differences, while users without StarOffice can open the PDF part of the hybrid file.

It works perfectly, in my experience. It works so well, in fact, I wish I could just save my documents as Hybrid PDFs.

You can download the plugin here. You will need OpenOffice 3.0 for this to work.