altering designs saved as pdf files?

[George Elsmore]

what software are you using Lorraine? coreldraw?

[Warren Beard]

Hi Lorraine

Sometimes you can simply import them but I think it is all down to how the PDF was created.

Another way is to take a screen shot when the pdf is open, take into photo shop, extract what you need, then trace or use as required, does not always work but depends on image and what you are going to do with it.

Hope that helps, I’m sure somebody else might know better.

cheers

Warren

[George Elsmore]

acrobat professional has the facility to save a pdf as an eps then import and tweak to your little hearts content …providing it was a vector graphic in the first place 😉

[John Childs]

Lorraine,

I use Adobe Illustrator and when saving to pdf I get the option to either "Preserve Editing Capabilities" or not. Naturally I always make sure that box is unticked so that the vector information isn’t included.

It is a constant source of amazement to me how many sign companies leave the information in there to be stolen mercilessly. But thank heaven they do! 😀

[M Brown]

Hi.

Illustrator will load in PDF’s just fine so you can edit it, that’s if its a vector file, bitmaps will also load in but not editable. If you load it into Photoshop it wont be any better in editable terms as it will just be a bitmap. Corel will also import PDF’s but I dont think its that good at it.

You can export from Adobe Acrobat to an EPS if you have a full copy of Acrobat not just the reader part.

Hope this helps.

From
Mark

[Peter Normington]

Signlab imports pdfs ok
and as John points out, when exporting them, I always restrict the ability to edit and print.

Peter

[Lorraine Clinch]

Hi everyone, thanks for your replies. I am using Signlab v 7.0. I have Coreldraw 12, but not much good with it.

quote Peter Normington:

Signlab imports pdfs ok
and as John points out, when exporting them, I always restrict the ability to edit and print.

Peter

Peter, how do you import pdf’s into Signlab? I haven’t yet found a way of doing it. Maybe you have a later version?

[John Childs]

Lorraine,

If you want to mail the file over I will see what Illustrator makes of it.
At least I will be able to tell you whether the vectors are included or not.

[Peter Normington]

quote Lorraine Clinch:

Hi everyone, thanks for your replies. I am using Signlab v 7.0. I have Coreldraw 12, but not much good with it.

quote Peter Normington:

Signlab imports pdfs ok
and as John points out, when exporting them, I always restrict the ability to edit and print.

Peter

Peter, how do you import pdf’s into Signlab? I haven’t yet found a way of doing it. Maybe you have a later version?

I have 7.1 print and cut but you should be able to just drag and drop a pdf into signlab 7

if you want I can have a look as well as john, and see if it can be edited in signlab,

Peter

7.1 can publish to pdf’s as well

[Lorraine Clinch]

Hi John, thanks, I have emailed you.

Peter, I get the message ‘file extension not recognized’ if I import or drag & drop. The only way to export pdf’s is with a pdf writer.

[George Elsmore]

give me a shout if your still struggling i am sure i can convert them to something you can use 😀

[Peter Normington]

quote Lorraine Clinch:

Hi John, thanks, I have emailed you.

Peter, I get the message ‘file extension not recognized’ if I import or drag & drop. The only way to export pdf’s is with a pdf writer.

Perhaps pdf’s were only introduced with 7.1 then?

Peter

[Steve Morgan]

Lorraine,
I think that the pdf import and export was added to SL 7.1 as Peter said.
I use 7.1 so I can import and save as a cdl file which you could then open in your version of SL if you want to try that.

Steve

[Martin Pearson]

I’m surprised you can’t import PDFs into siglab 7, I thought that version 7 was fairly up to date, I use a program called Inspire Pro which was produced by Scanvec before Flexi and I can import PDFs into that with no problems at all, its got to be a lot older than signlab 7.
As for editing them once you have imported them you will still only be able to edit them if they have been saved with the edit function turned on, I believe the default setting is to leave the PDF editable which is why you can quite often import them and change them but if the edit function has been turned off as John does then you will still have to completely redraw them or vectirise them.

[Phill Fenton]

Lorraine – Corel can also open pdf files – simply do a file open (not file import). Once you’ve done that you can export from Corel as an eps to use in your design software.

[David Rowland]

PDF format has recently gone through another change, each time you see Adobe CS1/CS2/CS3 come out then you can expect PDF format to have been revised slightly.
Corel recently done SP2 of their software, some PDF improvements on their notes, but this is the main reason I upgrade Corel is for PDF handling.

Acrobat Pro will allow you to back save PDF to older versions and store as EPS or PS. There is a bit of software that the litho industry that is a plugin to Adobe Acrobat and it gives it more editing functionality (Pitstop pro) however the latest Acrobat Pro does now allow spelling changes in the Advanced Editing tool set.

This also applies to RIP’s, trying to keep them up to date so they can RIP customer files when they bring them in, however the problem only pops up occasionally for us.

[Lorraine Clinch]

Thanks for all your comments and help guys, I shall spend some time tomorrow going through your answers thoroughly, and try with Corel too.

Have a lovely weekend everyone, it’s nearly hometime!

[Andrew Bennett]

Corel will let you open .pdf’s alter them and save as .pdf again.

[John Childs]

They should be back with you now Lorraine. I wish I got stuff like that from all my clients.

[Lorraine Clinch]

Yes, thank you John, I shall look at them tomorrow. The guy was a bit fazed when I asked for a different format, so he’ll be happy, and makes me look a bit better also. Another beer owed! Cheers.
I must get to grips with this….

[Hugh Potter]

god, i hope this works, i’ve just opened a file to double check before sending to print, and the clip art images i spent hours on, have all gone, i just hope i can retrieve them from the pdf i sent the customer. 😥 😥 😥

phew, found the complete file saved under a duplicate file in another section of my works files, lord knows how it ended up there !

Hugh

[Aitor Asencor]

The best option to manipulate pdf is illustrator..

If you only have to change a typo error or minor changes you can use pitstop with acrobat pro.