How to delete (not just clear) sections of a document?

[tramhe]

How to delete a section of a document (e.g., the top half of a page, or a few paragraphs) and have everything below shift up (as occurs with a word processor)?

For example, I receive my VISA statements in PDF format, and I'd like to print them out after deleting sections that are blank or contain unimportant text, thereby reducing the total page count, often by half.

Can this be done with PDF-XChange Editor?

[Paul - Tracker Supp]

Hi tramhe,

welcome to the forums and thanks for the post.

How to delete a section of a document (e.g., the top half of a page, or a few paragraphs) and have everything below shift up (as occurs with a word processor)?
You have touched on a key point here in the wording of your question, namely (as occurs with a word processor). The fundamental concepts behind a Word Processing document and a PDF are very very different. A word processing document is designed to have flow. Every character is placed relative to those preceding and following it. Because of this, deleting 'chunks' of text will result in the document flowing as you describe.

A PDF is different. By design it was intended to present a consistent view of pages and their content. To achieve this every element on a PDF is located by a coordinate and has no 'knowledge' of any other element in the file. You could probably achieve something similar by copying your content to new pages and placing them in a suitable location but again there will be no 'flow'.

There is nothing that can be done to change this I'm afraid, it is inherent in the PDF format that all items are coordinate based. You will find the same 'issue' wit any PDF software I think you'll find.

I hope that helps.

[thomas e komsta]

> every element on a PDF is located by a coordinate and has no 'knowledge' of any other element in the file.

...which makes it sooooo easy to write code to edit a PDF where the user "sees" and wants to act on groups, blocks, paragraphs, sentences, etc.

Yea, right...

[tramhe]

Thanks for the explanations.

[Tracker Supp-Stefan]

Hi Tramhe, Thomas,

In fact it's not easy at all, and while most blocks of text on the same page can be recognized as such (even if there are e.g. 10+ actual separate object elements in the PDF structure that would look like a single block of text) - the PDF pages are separate objects themselves so no reflow can be done between pages. As a bonus - that's why it's also so easy to drag and drop pages to reorder them and keep all the content on each page intact - something you can't do with a text processor or not so easily at least!

So it's different formats, each with it's own particular strong sides and limitations.

Regards,
Stefan