Oracle PDF Import Extension (for OpenOffice 3.x)

Just what I'm looking for.

Installed with no problem.

Opening a pdf as described by other comments in this thread results in rubbish.

So, it doesn't work for me, unfortunately.

Also tried it in LibreOffice with same results.

Not sure if this has been mentioned already, however one thing that's worked for me is that I installed CutePDF Writer (on Windows) and I reprinted the PDF from Acrobat Reader to the CutePDF Writer (which is set as a printer in the Print dialogue). This of course just re-creates the PDF using CutePDF Writer, but for whatever reason, this re-created PDF renders correctly in OO Draw, where the original PDF didn't. Using this method I've been able to edit PDFs just fine.

After I first installed it (Windows XP SP2), it worked fine - could open PDFs from within Draw without doing anything special.

At some point (some time after upgrading to SP3, not sure if related) I could no longer open PDFs from within Draw. The File->Open dialog box does not include a 'PDF' type. I get the same ASCII Filter thing others mentioned.

However, if I use Writer instead, that File->Open dialog box does have the 'PDF' type - I can select PDFs from there, and they still open into Draw, same as always.

I am a fairly new Mac user with OS X 10.6. For several months, I have been trying to find something which would edit pdf files better than Preview does (for example, the content of a text box in Preview can only be "center aligned"). Skim and FormulatePro were two options I tried that were improvements over Preview in many respects, but wouldn't let me paste an image onto my pdf (such as, for example, if I wanted to put my digital signature on a document).

Then, I "discovered" the Oracle PDF Import Extension which I had installed in Open Office months ago, but hadn't really used. By "discovered," I mean I read on somebody's blog that you could use Open Office Draw to edit pdf files and I thought, "Hey, I wonder if that would work with my setup." (Boy, do I feel stupid.)

I have just started using this functionality, but in just an hour or so of playing around, I have found that it has far exceeded my expectations and, even, my immediate needs. Besides giving you (a) all the control over text and text boxes that you would expect from, say, a word processing program and (b) allowing you to paste images onto your pdf, Open Office Draw also includes layers!

The layer function threw me off for a bit, because, at first, I kept finding that my attempts to edit the document resulted in grabbing the raster image and moving it "off" of the underlying text layer (a function, I will admit, that I think will be worth exploiting someday, but wasn't what I was looking for at the moment). Then, I discovered that you can "lock" the layer so as to prevent this annoying occurrence. To create your edits, simply create a new layer (call it "MyEdits" or whatever you want) and you're in business.

Anybody who has done anything more than drawn a couple of lines and boxes on a page has discovered that editing the overlapping objects can be a real pain - if not an outright impossibility. Separating these overlapping objects through the use of different layers solves the problem.

The only downside to the use of Open Office Draw as a pdf editing tool that I can see is that you must import the pdf, save your edits in odg format, and then export it to pdf when you're done. I know that we would all like to have the capability of doing everything I just described directly to the native document, but, hey, for all the functionality I have been searching the internet for weeks to find, I think it's a reasonable trade off.

PDF-Import lässt sich nicht installieren.
Bekomme immer diese Fehlermeldung:
Dieser Mediatyp wird nicht unterstützt: application/vnd.sun-star.package-bundle 1.0.40

Ich benutze die Version 3.2.1

Can anyone point me to a Changelog or tell me what has changed in 1.0.4?

To those for whom the extension opens the PDF headers, the bug report is here:
http://www.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=116123
Please comment there so the issue can be resolved. Thanks!

For reference, the PDF headers look something like this:
%PDF-1.4
%����
8 0 obj
/Type/Annot
/Subtype/Link
/Border[0 0 0]
/C[0 1 1]
/A /S/URI


"If you take one of those files giving a General I/O error with pdfimport and process it through pdftk as in

pdftk file.pdf output file2.pdf

namely what should be a no op, then they work."

I am sorry i dont know what this means and I am getting this input output error . could someone explain. i dont know what pdftk is. do you mean save the original file as something else.

After reading some of the comments already submitted regarding this extension, I was a little apprehensive about trying it. But, I needed to modify a .pdf, under a time constraint, an expired acrobat reader and not wanting to spend money on a .pdf modifying program. After downloading the extension I ran into the same problem noted by some of the commenters; clicking on the .pdf file launched Oo writer with unusable text. No where in the download instructions does it tell you to first click on the extension in order to launch it previous to launching the .pdf. Once I properly installed the extension then chose to open the .pdf using Oo draw, then I was able to modify the document. I agree with previous comments, it is clunky but for the few modifications that I had to do it did the trick so I can't complain. A suggestion would be to include download instructions with the extension so that launching would be successful.

I have installed Oo 3.2.1 and also extension for PDF. But I cannot open pdf documents. When I try opening of PDF files through 'Oo' or even by changing the extension properties of PDF file, it opens up ASCII Filter Options. Is there any solution to over come this problem? My operating system is Windows XP Professional (SP3). Please help.

OO has long served as my primary word processor and document editor. Thanks!!
I'd love to edit .pdf with OO. I keep trying the PDF Import Extension; just tried it again, after fresh install of OO 3.2.1 on 64 bit Windows 7. It still can't open a simple seeming .pdf (no pictures, nothing embeded, just a 2 page static mostly text document).
Suggestions?

I emailed the creator, but I though I might find some help here as well. This is what I wrote (or at lest just about):

I was running 3.1 and was able to import PDFs to Draw, and after I upgraded to 3.2.1 I was only able to import PDFs to Write. I went on to fully uninstalling OO and reinstalling everything - this time, even with 3.2.1, I can only open PDFs with Draw. Is there a way to choose to have Writer or Draw open any given PDF?

While this change was helpful at first, and now fully gone, I have a PDF I would prefer to open in Draw and a few I want to open in Writer. I have tried opening a PDF from inside Writer and Draw and telling the PDF file to open using a different program than Acrobat -- this being Draw or Writer -- always depending on what one what working at the time. Both result in OO opening my file in the undesired program.

If I was able to pick the program to convert my PDF to it would be really helpful and I hope I can get this all worked out!

Thanks for the time in this matter~
Angil

Hello,
I have OO 3.2.1 and I believed I installed the plugin correctly though I have not been able to find out how to determine what plugins and what versions of them I have installed. Any help on that last part?

I have tried to open a pdf 6 times and it takes forever or OO stops responding. Whenever it has opened the formatting is all wrong with all the spaces between words deleted.

Windows 7 is the OS.

I am wondering if this extension is 64-bit compatible?

Thanks in advance for any help.

There are many comments of people that are not able to use this extension.
I am one of them. I'm using ubuntu 9.1 and Open Office 3.1. I downloaded the
sun-pdfimport.oxt file and installed it with the extension manager and ....
Nothing. The extension never appeared anywhere. No way to import a pdf file
neither with writer or draw or anything. Can you be more specific how you can import
a pdf file or the steps you did to install the extension. Thank you very much

I have Ubuntu 10.04 installed and attempted to install the 1.01 sun-pdfimport.oxt and am now unable to start OpenOffice now.

here are the steps I attempted.

I had the pdf-import 1.0 extension installed previously and it refused to uninstall/update under the extension manager.

I attempted to install the 1.01 extension using the command line.

( attempted both 'unopkg add sun-pdfimport.oxt' and 'sudo unopkg add sun-pdfimport.oxt', neither one showed up the extension in the extension manager.)

Open Office does not start with the normal loader at this point. Splash screen comes up, but goes away and nothing else happens.

Suggestions on how to correct this would be appreciated.

Thank you

****************

Update - Got this corrected by doing the following:

1. Removed Open Office using package manager
2. Deleted .openoffice,org folder in my home directory
3. Reinstalled Open Office via package manager

- The only negative is that I lost all my document history within the application. Since I know where all my documents reside, this is only a minor annoyance.

Hope this helps someone else out should this not be isolated to just my laptop.

To Krishnanath:

I followed your instructions to the letter regarding Importing the PDF Extension. On the very last step, (after I click accept for the License agreement), I get a message as follows: "Error: the status of this extension is unknown". As I was unwilling to go fruther with it (due to the error message), I removed the extension by clicking on "Remove" and then closing the Dialogue Box.
This is the first time I have encountered so much difficulty to simply install something, which I would have thought would be a pretty simple matter.

Any help from you or anybody else to assist me in getting it installed successfully and then possibly some notes as to how to use the Extension on a specific file ( Normally I would hope that one of the drop-down lists would show me the extension but I am not sure how it will work in this case).

Many thanks

PS: For the moment all I really want to do is to do the most basic EDIT on a PDF file (ie. delete a few lines from a PDF-box and add a couple of lines in a different PDF-Box so that I can add some text in the newly created lines within the PDF-Box. If anyone knows of some other software (other than Sun PDF Editor with its extension) that will allow me to do this I will be equally happy to take that though in the long run I would like to fix my current problem with the SUN PDF Extension

Thanks.

I may sound naive, but I already downloaded the application but I can't find how to use it. Will you be so kind to enlight me, please?

Super Ergänzung. Vielen Dank an die Entwickler.

This an amazing extension,I can use It even with encrypted pdf files(if I know the password of course) . The only sugesstion is to try to let it to replace the original file when we import a pdf file (until now you need to save the file with another name.pdf)
Thanck vry much to the developers

When I import a pdf file, the web links are gone. Is there means for correct that.

Excuse my english... :-)

I successfully installed this extension and editing my data. I am doing a simple spreadsheet type design, nothing fancy. When I export to a pdf it changes all the fonts to a cursive type from an arial.
Any ideas on what to do?
Randy

When I open a PDF document that contains a signature, with the extension installed, the signature is overlayed with the characters hm . Unfortunately, I cannot paste an example of the problem here.

Anyone else seeing extra characters associated with signatures in a PDF?

I installed this extension and when I try to File->Open a PDF file (2 pages, no password), I get a dialogue with the message:

General Error.
General input/output error
[OK]


Any idea what is wrong?

After I installed the extension, I exited OO, checked that there was no soffice process running, and tried to open a PDF with the above result. Also, there is no openoffice option when I right click for Open With.

Am running Windows Vista x64.

Sorry for my bad english, I am from Germany.
I use OpenOffice in the 3.1.1 version on my Windows Vista system,
and I want to install the sun-pdfimport.oxt , too.
I think, I did it right:
click the "download"-button,
open an application (I opened the Writer),
and saved the extension in a file.
Doubleclick on the file and the Extension Manager opened.
I scrolled down the licence, that the "accept" button appeared.
And then:
A little window with a white cross in a red circle appeared
and sayed: InvalidValueException

What's wrong?
Please help me.
Thanks a lot,
blueshark-diver

i successfully installed the sun extension.. but as soon as i open a pdf file.. a menu pop up asking for a password.. how was that?? any idea?

NOOobie's instructions for TonyV17's problem (and mine) work with a slight modification.

When beginning the download for Windows, select SAVE instead of OPEN. When it asks where you want to save it, the file name also appears. Change the name to sun-pdfimport.oxt and select a download location such as My Downloads under My Documents. Once the download is complete, close everything, go to where you saved the file and it will appear with the blue extension icon. Double left click on it and the extension will be automatically installed for you. (No need to open anything manually).

If you have your popup blocker on, you'll need to select the enable download in the blocked area at the top of your screen, but none of the popups are required to get the extension.

First of all, this is GREAT! There is of course still room for improvement, but this has been a long-awaited feature. Congratulations.

It seems that currently only the first page of a multipage PDF document is inserted. Is it planned to be improved in the future?

Thanks a lot

Downloaded, installed and worked painlessly.

Tested it on Mentor PADS Logic PDF outputs.
(Schematic drawing, with moderate complexity vector Graphics)

Some minor caveats, but it gave quite usable outputs.

Minor details where it is not quite exact :

* Line End style used was Round, but it imports as Square
* Text XY positioning was slightly moved from original location, relative to the lines.
* Polygon fill seemed to be skipped ?

Nice extension!.

Anyone getting windows installation errors like TonyV17, probably downloaded the file named sun-pdfimport.zip. Rename the file to sun-pdfimport.oxt and follow instructions krishnanathv gave. Cheers!

Thanks for the install instructions!

Have now managed to install but now keep getting a pop-up 'General Error. General input/output error.' whenever i try to open a PDF.

Am i doing something wrong???

Using Mac OS X 10.5.8 & OO 3.1.1

- UPDATE
Fixed it! :) Removed & deleted all previous attempts, went back to the download page, clicked the 'details' link instead and then 'Get It' from that page instead. The download now has the proper OO extention 'jigsaw piece' icon (all previous downloads just had generic icons) and opened & installed fine. PDF's open & edit great. It's a happy day :)

In Windows

1. Download the extension
2. Open any open office application like OpenOffice.org Calc
3. Click on Tools in the Top menu and select Extensions Manager
4. In the opened dialog, click on Add... button
5. Select the file which was downloaded in the first step
6. Scroll down the EULA content so that the Accept button is enabled
7. Click Accept
8. Open any PDF document with OpenOffice application like Calc. Right click on PDF document, click on OpenWith. Select any open office application.

Krishnanath

I would run my entire company using Oen Office as a basis - if it wasn' for the fact that the developers tend to think that everybody else knows what they are talking about.

This is what I want to do. I have downloaded the PDF extention and I want to use it. What do I do?

Give it me in steps from download to installation - treat me as stupid.

Vince

I have tried to install Pdf-Import, it will just not go in. It calls on at least three occasions that something is missing, but it just looks gibberish to me. Using Ooo 3.1.1. Build 9420.
I noticed that the files it asked for were :- MSVCN90.dll along with the other two very similar files. The end comment of the was "cannot get symbol:component_getImplementationEnvironment-nor". Have no idea what it is talking about! Can someone point me the right direction to get it installed and operable? Win XP SP3.

Thanks

TonyV17

Dear All,

I have installed the Extension and It shows in the Extension Manager but How can I Import the PDF files into My Open Office Application.

Please help me out for Usage of this Extension.

Regards,
InfraM

I wish this extension were available for OpenOffice 2.4.3 as my laptop only runs Windows 2000 with 196Megs of RAM.

I have some problems with rendering timetables with this extension. There is no text in tables. I can't find any bugzilla for this project, so I add this information here.
I added 2 screens to compare.
http://picasaweb.google.pl/lh/photo/3lHaNO_q6rTe9wo17Is13A?feat=directlink
http://picasaweb.google.pl/lh/photo/XDjYuly5zzB6XH8xTsdllw?feat=directlink

can someone tell me how to install an extension?

I enjoy working with this really useful extension, for which my thanks to its producers.
But I am now having a problem with v. 1.0 and OOo 3.1.1:
In Ubuntu 9.04 and OOo 3.1.1, I can import and read some .pdf files using version 0.4 of the extension, while this is not possible with version 1.0. (I have thus reinstalled v. 0.4). Is this a problem caused by some incompatibility between OOo 3.1.1 and v. 1.0 ?

Bought my laptop late last year with 64 bit Vista as the OS. I know what was I thinking should have blow it away and install Linux immediately. Since I bought the laptop I have not been able to print PDFs from it no matter what PDF program (Adobe, FoxIT, CutePDF, etc.) I used or how many times I uninstalled and reinstalled them. I tired a lot of suggested fixes but never got a good solution from MS or any forums and have been transferring PDF document to my desktop when I need to print. I install the Sun PDF import extension to my Open Office 3.0 program last week and today had the opportunity to use it to print out a State tax form that was quite complex. It printed perfectly, Thanks for developing this excellent extension

Preservist

Few workarounds needed to install this extension on openSUSE 11.0 (may be useful for other distributions).
It works for OpenOffice3 from OpenOffice_org opensuse repository.

1) Install libstlport from OpenOffice_org repository (I see full name as libstlport_gcc4)
2) Create file /etc/ld.so.conf.d/ooo3.conf with following line of text (root privileges needed)
/usr/lib/ooo3/ure/lib/

3) Run ldconfig as root (sudo /sbin/ldconfig)
4) Install "Sun PDF Import Extension" as usual.

I downloaded and installed OpenOffice 3.1 and then downloaded the Sun PDF Import Extension. Initially I successfully installed the extension, but was not able to see any 'Import PDF file' in the OpenOffice Draw menu. So, I disabled the extension. When I tried to install it again, the OpenOffice crashed. After that I tried several times to install the extension, but get the same result all the time. I am running Ubuntu 8.04. It will be of great help if anybody could give a solution.