Editing pdfs - sometimes work, sometimes not

DEVONthink
1

Hey, I try to edit/markup (mark, highlight, add comments) pdfs in my database. They are mostly imported from websites (government) and sometimes the edit section in DEVONthink is active, sometimes not.
I don’t see any differences within the PDF setting of such files.
In DEVONthink all of em are marked as “pdf+text” - no “lock/protection” active.

Please note that I want to edit pdfs within my “main” database - and later I would like to reference to this pdfs in my other groups and projects. I would like to use the functionality within DEVONthink and not third party app or the Mac viewer, if possible.

sorry, this is my first post - I did use the search functionality but could not find an answer.
thanks

2

Welcome to the DEVONthink Forum!

If you search for “edit pdf”, then to see all click on “more…” link. Then you can sort by whatever criteria you fancy.

I found one of the many posts, Pdf annotating tools grayed out which you might want to read rather than repeating all here.

In particular, see replies from DEVON Techologies’ @cgrunenberg My understanding is that DEVONthink uses PDFKit. http://pdfkit.org

Bottom line is that not all PDF’s are created the same, unfortunately.

2 Likes
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Thank you very much. That helped me out so much. - and I did learn what “annotating” does mean… :slight_smile:

/close

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Hi @dredhead I’ve had a similar issue although in my case I could see the pdf was locked. I don’t know if you’ve worked out yet, but if you open the pdf in your browser you can print a new version that’s “clean” and that you can then edit as you wish. My problem was also caused by government documents!

Here is the solution the forum figured out: