How-to manipulate PDF files

Duli · #1 2007-03-14, 12:24 PM CDT

Hello,

I´ve found this nice how-to about "Manipulating PDFs with the PDF Toolkit"

The pdf toolkit is currently avaiable from the Extras repository.

So, a simple

Code:

yum install -y pdftk

should do the job.

There is also some GUI for those who do not want to work in the command line:

You can download the binary gui from the site and execute it. No need to install.

But, in order to execute the binary, you should first have these two packages installed:

Code:

yum install -y gdk-pixbuf gdk+

I find it useful.

Any other ideas for doing the same job?

Cheers,
Duli

ffhjeon · #2 2007-12-04, 05:36 AM CST

sorry, but I cannot install pdftk via yum.
It seems excluded from fedora 8 repo.
Or, I didn't install extra repo. If so, how can I install extra repo for fedora 8?

Duli · #3 2007-12-04, 05:42 AM CST

Hum... Check this site: http://www.pdfhacks.com/pdftk/#packages

It has some suse rpms. May work along with Fedora.

Cheers
Duli

pete_1967 · #4 2007-12-04, 05:44 AM CST

There's also PDFEdit available in Yum (http://pdfedit.petricek.net/pdfedit.index_e)

ffhjeon · #5 2007-12-04, 06:00 AM CST

Quote:

It has some suse rpms. May work along with Fedora.

I am not clear about RPMs. Are all .rpm packages from other distributions compatible to Fedora?

Quote:

There's also PDFEdit available in Yum

Yeah.. I installed pdfedit via Yum. And I need googling to find some tricks or tutorials, available by commands in terminal. For instances, some commands or scripts to combine multiple pdf files to one united pdf file.

leadgolem · #6 2007-12-04, 09:08 AM CST

Quote:

Originally Posted by ffhjeon

I am not clear about RPMs. Are all .rpm packages from other distributions compatible to Fedora?

No, different distro's use different packaging standards. They also contain fixes/modifications specific to that distro. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't.

If they don't, see if you can get a .src.rpm and try rebuilding it. Sometimes that works.

ffhjeon · #7 2007-12-04, 09:34 AM CST

Quote:

Originally Posted by leadgolem

Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't.

I see.
I have one more question. Is it safe? I mean, doesn't the rpm for other distro crash my fedora system, generally? (they can ignore very abnormal cases.)
I am worry about crashing my system by installing other distro's rpm package.

leadgolem · #8 2007-12-04, 10:22 AM CST

Use a yum and localinstall like this.

Code:

su
cd where/you/put/the/rpm
yum --nogpgcheck localinstall packagename.rpm

yum will look and see if you are going to try and overwrite something other then a config file. If you are, it will give you a conflict error.

It is possible to crash a system with foreign rpms, though in this case exceptionally unlikely. If that happens, reboot the system and run.

Code:

su
yum remove packagename

Generally if there is a problem with a foreign rpm, it either will not install, or the application will crash as soon as launched. It is really very rare for an application crash to take the whole system down.

The exception to this is with a foreign package that "updates" an existing system package. That can bork a lot of things. Adding applications though, is usually pretty safe.

ffhjeon · #9 2007-12-04, 10:23 PM CST

Thank you..

Now, I can get and install foreign rpms without fears.