The Portable Freeware Collection Forums

[Mod note: BeCyHome.de BeCyPDFMetaEdit official website is gone; for further info, see viewtopic.php?p=101205#p101205)

Freeware PDF editor that runs on my USB drive:

Description: "The program loads PDF documents (conforming to specification 1.6) and allows editing of several settings like the metadata about author, title, subject and keywords of the document. Furthermore, one can customize the viewer preferences, the bookmarks, the page labels, the page transitions for slide shows and the encryption/permissions of a document."

www.becyhome.de/becypdfmetaedit/description_eng.htm

I'm not sure why this great little programme haven't been included in the list here yet?

None of the editors that are listed in the PDF editor section are really editors. Fox it and eXpert are fine programmes but they are basically readers aren't they?

I have yet to find another freeware programme that does the same as "BeCyPDFMetaedit", like adding bookmarks and changing the metadata of PDF files.

Keep in mind omissions aren't usually left out maliciously; sometimes the flood of programs just gets ahead of the site admins and they miss some. Also, if a purpose of a given program doesn't interest an admin it makes sense that they'd be less likely to check it and get it into the database.

Queue

I must have looked at it before, but not that I took the time to download BeCyPDFMetaEdit (and BeCyPDFAsm) it is WoW! It is most (not all) of PDFtkBuilder and so much more. I can finally add bookmarks easily, add page numbering, and all in a portable set.

The only problem (if it is a problem) are the names. The GUIs may be intuitive, but typing the names without typos is not!

Great find! Add my vote for adding both to the DB.

Finding freeware PDF editors is difficult, but with the BeCyPDF programmes + PDF Creator [ http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/ ] and Gios PDF Splitter/Merger [ http://www.paologios.com/products/psm.aspx ] one has the basic tools to be able to do professional PDF editing.

Interesting, but I don't understand it at all. It looks like a tag editor for PDF's and that's fine, but when I open a PDF, I can't see it at all in this program. I've used a lot of editors in my time, including line editors and I've never seen an editor that doesn't display some of content.

Can someone please direct me to a page display?

Since it's not a content editor, but a metadata editor, it doesn't show the content. It does correctly load the existing metadata. While a viewer would be nice so that you could see your changes more easily, it's probably either above the coding abilities of the programmer or s/he just preferred to keep the app small. To see your results, just save your changes and then open the file in a viewer. Since there's no other freeware that can do what this does, it's a small price to pay

As Cornflower mentioned, it's similar to PDFtkBuilder, which also does not show content. This has functions that PDFtkBuilder doesn't, but BeCyPDFAsm covers most of those.

Numanoid wrote:Finding freeware PDF editors is difficult, but with the BeCyPDF programmes + PDF Creator [ http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/ ] and Gios PDF Splitter/Merger [ http://www.paologios.com/products/psm.aspx ] one has the basic tools to be able to do professional PDF editing.

Note that Gios PDF Splitter/Merger requires .NET
I haven't downloaded the Gios product but from their screen shots and description, it looks like the BeCyPDFAsm (and mbtPdfAsm) product would have it beat hands down.

I do agree that a PDF printer drive along with PDF split/merge, metadata capabilities simulate much of what one might want with a PDF Editor. I've been doing that for a few years now with pdftkBuilder!

Thanks Numanoid, nice find!
I was searching for a tool exactly like BeCyPDFMetaEdit. Command line support is an extra joy.

However, the application stores two unimportant settings here:

Very cool program. Thanks.

I was looking for something like this. Before I just had TweakPDF.
http://www.coolpdf.com/tweakpdf.html

It says is supports down to Windows 98, so I don't think it needs .NET or anything fancy.
It doesn't offer as many options as BeCy, but sometimes you don't need all those options (If you just want to change the Title or something).

It writes a couple of settings to:
though.

Application name: BeCyPDFMetaEdit

Website: http://www.becyhome.de/download_eng.htm#becypdfmetaedit

Date tested: 2009-07-16

Status: Not portable

Reason: Writes settings to registry.

kiu wrote:Hi,

... and... except this :

if it did the job thoroughly, THEN it could be considered as a serious program...

I have modified the date + time meta-tags in a PDF with "BeCy-PDF-MetaEdit-2.37.0". Now, Foxit and some other PDF readers display the new date + time, at their Properties window or dialog box.

------ "OK", BUT ! :

when opened with "Acrobat 5" (which I used to create the PDF in the first place) : the EDITOR, not the reader, "well", that "modified" PDF STILL displays the original date + time !

So : more RELIABLE :


I finally used "Edit Pad (Pro)", to manuallay edit - to batch replace, in fact (reason : SEVERAL instances of the same date + time, within one and same PDF) - the original date + time.

Now and only now, all PDF readers AND editors, including "Acrobat 5", display the new date + time I want.


Regards,
Kiu



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It's hard to believe that you went through the effort of making your post so ugly and difficult to read. I can understand the grammatical errors if you are not a native English speaker, but the colours and paragraphs? There's no excuse for that.

Hi,
____________

Answer to : "It's hard to believe that you went through the effort of making your post so ugly and difficult to read. I can understand the grammatical errors if you are not a native English speaker, but the colours and paragraphs? There's no excuse for that." :
_____________

Look, Mr or Mrs yap-yap : I happen to have a point here - and it happens to be relevant. Now, if the developper eventually improves his program, my post will be or will have been : useful.

Since you might not understand "my strange syntax", let's make things clear one more time : that program does NOT actually modify the date and time of PDFs. Or not all the way - although it states that it's able to.

So far, I have read or found no post that complains about this flaw (or bug ?). What I took time to do is : check the software efficiency. Do you have any interesting opinion if not some advice, about that simple and obvious point, instead of posting totally useless "critics" ?

It seems - to me... - that a "grammatical argument" is rather "off topic" and, therefore, that it should be posted elsewhere. Name it so, or whatever, and go ahead. For now, I just expect(ed) that software to... work the way it's supposed to.

Regards,
Kiu



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