[pdftex] \pdfstartlink attributes

George N. White III gnwiii at gmail.com
Fri Aug 15 00:01:21 CEST 2008


On Thu, Aug 14, 2008 at 9:34 AM, Gerree Pecht <gerree at math.princeton.edu> wrote:

> I work on a Linux OS ... does this apply to me?
>
> I was informed that I can't "edit" .pdf files from my system.

Back when pdf was new, many applications produced buggy
pdf, so editing was essential.   I used to do that using emacs,
and a very simple post-processsor to update the xref
table.

> What do I need to be able to edit a .pdf file on Linux?

Read the PDF reference carefully, and use an editor such
as emacs that respects binary files.  You may need to
write some simple scripts to process the files, so
knowledge of a scripting language that respects binary files
is also helpful.

> Is there a package that can be installed to accommodate such a
> luxury?  Your comments/help is appreciated.  Thanks in advance.

These days I rarely need to use emacs -- most of the changes
I need can be made using inkscape, whose native format is
svg, which has an uncanny resemblance to pdf, but is easier
to manipulate (you can also modify SVG with emacs if
inkscape is misbehaving, but again that is something I have not
needed in recent times).

-- 
George N. White III <aa056 at chebucto.ns.ca>
Head of St. Margarets Bay, Nova Scotia


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