Editing pdf layouts?

[Bill Stearns]

Hi All
I’ve just starting dealing with a company that e-mails me their plaque/sign layouts as PDFs. I need to be able to ‘edit’ and scale their text in preparing their layouts for CorelDraw X5 & engraving. All I can find on the web are companies that sell PDF editing software ‘n charge a monthly fee. Don’t need nor want ‘nother monthly expense. BTW: I have Acrobat Pro - gives me an ‘editing’ button, but ‘gain that just brings up a place through which to order editing software - with a monthly fee. This leaves me trying to duplicate their PDF layouts in CorelDraw -side by side, opening up the possibilities for errors. By-passing ‘editing software’, are their any tricks you use to precisely duplicate someone else's PDF layouts? - Eager to hear! - thanks. Bill

[Bruce Clumpner]

Corel will open PDF's, and depending on what software created the files, can extract the art and text at scale. Try opening in your version, I don't remember what X5 can do. To make it easier, have your customer use your plaque's page size to get it close.

[Joe Pelonio]

I have opened many PDFs in Corel X3 going back many years, and then can edit, engrave and cut with no other programs required.

[Doug Fisher]

As the others have mentioned, Corel should be able to open and edit a .pdf.

If Corel still doesn't work and you want a .pdf editor that doesn't require a monthly fee, you might want download the free trial of PDFill and try it out. Its interface is a bit clunky in terms of graphics but it is pretty powerful if you are willing to invest time learning it. You need the full editor module.

[Kev Williams]

Whether or not you can edit a PDF in Corel is dependent on the source material saved to PDF. I've had many customers save PNG's or JPG's to PDF and believe I should be good to go... Nope! Must be vector graphics, or it's just a copy of a photo... :)

But yes, Corel will import PDF's -- but not always: AI files saved to PDF's won't open (usually) in Corel because they're compressed (so says Corel). A workaround for that problem is to use a PDF converter that will convert any document to PDF, just convert the AI to PDF and then Corel will open it :)

[John Lifer]

Whether or not you can edit a PDF in Corel is dependent on the source material saved to PDF. I've had many customers save PNG's or JPG's to PDF and believe I should be good to go... Nope! Must be vector graphics, or it's just a copy of a photo... :)

But yes, Corel will import PDF's -- but not always: AI files saved to PDF's won't open (usually) in Corel because they're compressed (so says Corel). A workaround for that problem is to use a PDF converter that will convert any document to PDF, just convert the AI to PDF and then Corel will open it :)


I've got a customer that uses some third party graphics program for monograms. She's been sending me pdf's of files for me to engrave.
In MOST cases, it is text, and I import the pdf, into Corel, ungroup, remove the top bmp, then I can weld and manipulate the text. yep, program saves a text as bmp on a separate layer, and sometimes I have a third blank layer (I expect white layer)
that I have to remove. I say MOST of the time, as she sent me two yesterday that I couldn't do anything with. So It JUST DEPENDS.
Her export initially to AI file was a disaster. Oh, Corel DOES recognize thing as a text, As I had to have the correct text installed for it to work right.

[Bill Stearns]

THANKS Everybody! -
I went at it again this morning. Turns out, I was importing my customers' PDFs into CorelDraw as non-editable "Curves". - I tried importing as "Text" - and, indeed, I seem to now be able to edit text type 'n size, etc. Sorry to have bothered you all with this. - but, thankfully, you caused me to learn something incredibly important 'bout PDFs! (BTW: the sales I'll be making - knock on wood- are expensive cast bronze plaques - so being able to use my customers' layouts will ensure no spelling errors on my part! - Good day all! Bill