[scribus-dev] Editable PDF

[Tamir Hassan]

Hi all,

On 6/13/19 1:45 AM, Leonard Rosenthol wrote:
>> It would be nice to clarify where Tamir is coming from with his idea on editable PDF, and where he wants to go
>>
> Agreed, Greg...
> 
> I can say that from my perspective, I don't see "Editable PDF" as a native file format for an application but instead as an interchange format that contains much more rich semantics and "editing context" so that the authoring apps would be able to do have more info for import, edit and export.  Something that leverages capabilities such as Tagged PDF (esp. attributes), Associated Files, etc.

My vision is to have a cross-application file format, where all commonly 
occuring features (text flow and stylesheets, grouping and layers for 
vectors, etc.) are standardized. It would thus be possible to use 
several applications to edit one document and choose the best one for 
the task, e.g. text edit using LibreOffice or an XML editor, vector 
graphics using Inkscape and final layout using Scribus, etc.

Much like OLE has done in the past, there would also need to be a way 
for applications to embed any app-specific metadata where necessary. I 
am thinking of objects such as charts, diagrams or possibly math 
(although for the latter, MathML or LaTeX would suffice.)

Greg wrote:
 > A perhaps somewhat sensible approach might be to create this editable 
PDF in Scribus or InDesign, then be able to make some minor edits with 
this new format using a text editor.

This sounds very much like an initial prototype, much like what I 
demonstrated in my DocEng paper:

http://tamirhassan.com/files/hassan-doceng2018-editable-portable.pdf
(see editablepdf.org/references)

Best,
Tamir


-- 
Dr. Tamir Hassan
Round-Trip PDF Solutions
Research, development and consulting for the generation, analysis and 
data extraction from PDF documents

Zirkusgasse 31, 1020 Wien, Austria
www.roundtrippdf.com
tamir at tamirhassan.com
+43 676 721 6288