how to edit multi-page pdf (2.10.18)

[977]

hi all,

i'm the dumbest person in the world.

why is that important?

because that means i only know how to do the easiest things in the world, of which i can't even do that

let me prove it;

using gimp 2.10.18;

i have a multi-page PDF. and i'm trying to edit a page thats NOT the first page

on the right side - lower column - i see all the pages there!!!!!!!!! (my view is set to the default view) (where the first row of buttons are layers/channels/paths)

when i click on any page thats NOT the first page - nothing happens.  i can't see that page in the center section (ya know where you want to make changes). only the first page is in the center section.

this obviously makes me feel like the dumbest person in the world as i can't do the simplest thing

please help 

thanks for reading

[PixLab]

(03-06-2024, 03:25 AM)977 Wrote: when i click on any page thats NOT the first page - nothing happens.  i can't see that page in the center section (ya know where you want to make changes). only the first page is in the center section.

Because they are Visible, you see that eye in front of each of the layer? (BTW they are called Layers, and that column, is called the Layers' Dialog )
click once on the eye in the layers' dialog and THAT layer and it will be non "visible" on the canvas, click again and that layer will be "visible" again.

BUT all the layers below won't be visible on the canvas because the first one on top is fully opaque, thus you cannot see thru

   

Shift + Click on an eye in the layers' dialog will make ALL others layers not visible, thus you will be able to see only the one remaining with an eye

   

Shift + Click on that eye again and all layers will become visible again

On a side note, I don't know what you are editing on the PDF, but with what you wrote in the beginning, it feels that you have to use an office software like a slide show maker and in my opinion it would be better to use Draw from the LibreOffice suite to edit your PDF (and you will be a lot more comfortable than using GIMP), all the text is accessible and each time you click on a page on the left column, this page will appear in the middle for editing, you can change an image, and many other things, then when finished you can export as PDF again

   

[977]

hi new friend patrice

thanks for that. i followed what you said and it worked i sincerely appreciate your detailed writeup

about your libre office draw suggestion - i'm using 6.4.7.2 and when i tried to open the pdf (21pages, 3.1mb) it froze up my computer. libre offfice shut down and i lost whatever info i didn't save on the multiple documents i had open.

computer has 6gig ram, 2.5ghz cpu, 240gig free hdd space

yes i would love to edit pdf on libre office draw and not learn complicated gimp. please help

thx patrice

so which os/gimp do you use

[rich2005]

@977

The question could be, What OS do you use ?  Gimp 2.10.18 can imply an older linux maybe ubuntu 18 or Mint 20. You could possibly update Gimp but might not be worth the effort if Gimp 2.10.18 works.

PDF's 
Gimp does not make good PDF's Any vector images and embedded text are converted to a bit map, one big picture. During the conversion if the pdf text font is missing then it is replaced and the document looks different.  LibreOffice (LO) is a bit better, text remains as editable text but that font replacement frequently happens.

When that happens try and identify the font used and install it. In linux put it in ~/.fonts and both Gimp and LO can use it.  In linux both Evince and Okular give font details in the PDF properties. 

Just my opinion. Split the document into separate pages. Edit the page you want. Recombine the pages into one document.  In linux I use PDFchain which is GUI also use command line PDFTK sometimes.  There are Windows equivalents.

[PixLab]

(03-06-2024, 05:29 AM)977 Wrote: hi new friend patrice

thanks for that. i followed what you said and it worked i sincerely appreciate your detailed writeup

about your libre office draw suggestion - i'm using 6.4.7.2 and when i tried to open the pdf (21pages, 3.1mb) it froze up my computer. libre offfice shut down and i lost whatever info i didn't save on the multiple documents i had open.

computer has 6gig ram, 2.5ghz cpu, 240gig free hdd space

yes i would love to edit pdf on libre office draw and not learn complicated gimp. please help

thx patrice

so which os/gimp do you use

my OS/GIMP/LO
Ubuntu-MATE 20.04 / GIMP 2.10.36 / LibreOffice 7.6.4.1

For every-else my thinking is exactly like Rich2005 said. I don't know your system, though, may be give some infos for us to know (if it's Microsoft, I'm out, I ditched it more than 15 years, thus I can't speak for it)
although I use PDF Arranger on my distro, it's just because I was not aware about PDFchain, but PDF Arranger seems to do the same things, and I'm happy with it (out of curiosity I might try PDFchain, though)