FOSS pdf editor and converter

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Does anyone of a foss app that can convert pdfs to docs? I’ve done a general search and scanned the app list in the arch wiki. The only thing I’ve been able to find aside from apps that the other direction doc -> pdf is okular which can convert pdfs to pain text but nothing that can convert it directly to doc or docx. Also is anyone knows of a foss app that allows you to edit a pdf directly please share.

Libreoffice Draw comes very close to what I’m looking for but I was bummed to find out that it doesn’t seem to have the option to convert a pdf to doc or docx.

Edit: the request comes from my dad and he’s also asking for the ability to convert pdfs to excel files.

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Pandoc is the first thing that comes to mind, but it’s a CLI tool. If your dad’s not comfortable with the command line then there are a bunch of websites that do these kinds of conversion. I have no idea how secure they are though, or what they do with the documents you upload, so I wouldn’t suggest them for anything sensitive.

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Yeah that probably wouldn’t work because even if he was comfortable with the CLI his machine is windows and yes it’s sensitive data.

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Here’s you next conversation starter with your dad:

“Dad. We need a serious conversation about your computer system.”

Perhaps a Windows forum would be a better choice for Windows software solution questions.

And he’s using Windows!?

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That forum would probably scream adobe acrobat. I’m basically asking what is to acrobat as gimp is to photoshop? Therefore I thought asking on a linux forum was my best chance.

I know I tried to move him over to Linux once but he uses software that doesn’t have a linux version such as quickbooks and turbotax.

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Foxit Reader was my preferred PDF program in my Windows days. It’s free, and it can convert PDF to text. Getting from there to doc or docx isn’t so hard.

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Thanks I’ll show it to him and see what he thinks.

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Just wondering why someone want to do that? PDF is made for viewing content. If you convert it to docx/odt or whatever. There will be a loss of formatting more or less anyway.

But hey, calibre a ebook management tool. It can convert a pdf to docx.

Myself i hate l docx/doc files and convert them with antiword to plain text, so that it is readable for me.

The tool tabula could be something for this use case.

I hate also excel files. Therefore i have xls2csv.

Note: But keep in mind: i would never ever convert a pdf back to something else. PDF is made to make something viewable and not to edit it, like a WYSIWYG-Editor. If you want to reuse the text, use it as plain text.

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Thanks and yeah I hear you about wondering why someone would want to do that kind of conversion. But in another way it’s like asking why was Adobe Acrobat ever created and more importantly why do they charge such a premium for it. It’s one of the most expensive pieces of software I’ve ever seen and yet to me personally the functionality should be open source.

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I prefer unipdf (https://unipdf.com/) win app using wine or playonlinux.

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Those are both available as web versions and mobile apps. I use both QuickBooks Self-Employed and TurboTax Live Self-Employed that way. :wink:

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I think my sister was using PDFSAM for this job. It’s open source though there are some paid options. You can check if the basic version would be enough.

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Thanks for the info I will mention it to him.

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