[zeebe]

I was wondering if there are any pdf editors that do not cost a ton of money and open the document the way it shows. I am filling out a grant, and they say we must type the application but it is in pdf form. I emailed the company and they told me to use a typewriter. Our school doesn't have one. Any ideas?

[tr]

hahaha...never thought i'd hear the day when schools don't have typewriters.

is it just a regular pdf? or like a pdf form?
you could open it in illustrator or something, and overlay type on it. i dunno...

tr

[CheesePuff]

Yeah you could do that if you have Illustrator or Photoshop.

[VEGAN]

Originally posted by zeebe:
I was wondering if there are any pdf editors that do not cost a ton of money and open the document the way it shows. I am filling out a grant, and they say we must type the application but it is in pdf form. I emailed the company and they told me to use a typewriter. Our school doesn't have one. Any ideas?

Well, if you REALLY want, you can make a new PDF file with LaTeX [iTexMac] but that would be somewhat time consuming... given you would first have to learn how to do it...

[headbirth]

You might want to also email the people that produce PostView and push for them adding the markup and annotation features of Acrobat to their product. They told me they were checking into it.

[WJMoore]

Print the PDF. Then create a Word document or similar with the text in the right places. Print a few test copies to get all the text aligned with the fields in the form then whack the form in and print on it. Identical process to using a typewriter except harder to fine tune.

[Cadaver]

Originally posted by zeebe:
I was wondering if there are any pdf editors that do not cost a ton of money and open the document the way it shows. I am filling out a grant, and they say we must type the application but it is in pdf form. I emailed the company and they told me to use a typewriter. Our school doesn't have one. Any ideas?

I've had a few similar forms, but they were all PDF-based forms that could be filled out with the free Adobe Reader (aka Acrobat Reader) software.

Otherwise... it's off to Kinkos with ya.

Edit: if you're a student (or teacher), you can get Adobe Acrobat thru most educational channels for very, very cheap. I think I got the full version 5 last year for $49. Version 6 Professional cost me about $70 I think.

[huwb]

Perhaps you can try OmniGraffle. I just gave it a whirl: simply drop the PDF file onto a new document, then use the text tool to enter the fields you need. You can even export the result as PDF.

You may need to set the margins to 0 inches to fit the PDF file (you can do this under the Canvas Size inspector).

If you don't own OmniGraffle, you can get a trial licence from the Omni site. I think you can also run OmniGraffle, with up to 20 objects, without a license (I could not find this on their website, but it was certainly the case before I bought it).

[zeebe]

Thanks for all of the advice. What I decided to do was to open it in Photoshop and use the text tool to type in the answers.
Thanks again everyone.