Convert Microsoft to LINUX: Install PDF Editor

Let us suppose you want to edit a newsletter and move the pdf pages around. This often happens because there may be a different order of pages for the folded envelope version and the version you read via email. Instead of throwing away your money on photoshop you can use the Master PDF Editor and GIMP file manipulation program that comes with Linux.

Install the Latest Master PDF Editor

At the terminal prompt type:
$ wget -c code-industry.net/public/master-pdf-editor-3.4.12_i386.tar.gz
$ tar -xzvf master-pdf-editor-3.4.12_i386.tar.gz
$ cd master-pdf-editor-3
$ sudo chmod +x masterpdfeditor3
$ ./masterpdfeditor3 &

The above downloads the tarred gzipped file, untars it, changes to the directory where the executeable lives and sets it to be executable with the +x function. After launching it with the last line and putting it into background with the ampersand symbol, you should see it come up now as the Master PDF Editor. You are half way there now so relax.

Now in the Master PDF Editor click on Document | Export Page so you know have an exported PDF page-file for each page of the document. Now let us suppose that the first exported page-file contains actual pages 1 and 4, the second exported page-file contains actual pages 2 and 3.

Using GIMP to divide up the Page-files

First import the PDF file.
Use the cropping tool to crop the page you want with Shift C
Go ahead and hit return, it will ask you to save the file which you will first export as page_1.pdf for example. Do the same thing again to get a page_4.pdf file. Finally you can repeat this process for the page_2_3 file to generate a seperate exported page_2.pdf and page_3.pdf.

The final step is easy. Open up that master-pdf-editor again and go to Document | Insert PDF Page. If you put them in the wrong order, you can move them around also under the Document | Move tab. Finally go to Document | Delete Page if you got a blank page inserted in the beginning. Then save as file finished_email_newsleter.pdf

Create a Symbolic Link to Launch This

At the terminal prompt become root and create the link:
root@victor-900HA:/usr/bin# ln -s /home/victor/MasterPDFEditor/master-pdf-editor pdfeditor
root@victor-900HA:/usr/bin# exit

What you did above was to become root in the /usr/bin directory so you could create a symbolic link of pdfeditor to launch this program. You then exit root and go back to being a normal user. Launch by typing pdfeditor & in a terminal window. Enjoy!