Watermarking pdfs on Linux--and software solutions for tasks

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Doranwen
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Watermarking pdfs on Linux--and software solutions for tasks

Post by Doranwen »

[Mods: If this doesn't fit here, please move where you see fit. I struggled with the appropriate subforum for this thread and finally settled on this one.]

This would be a help question, except I solved it myself. And in the process of solving it, realized that Linux might have a solution to a problem--but it might be impossible to find in a search, thereby not being of use to the users who need it.

I realized tonight that I needed to watermark a pdf. I figured, "OK, I've been able to find a way to do every other task in this project on Linux using free software; this should be no different." Yet when I searched, I got pages of sketchy sites with sketchier software (for Windows! despite putting in Linux as a keyword). And one link that told how to watermark a file on LibreOffice and create the pdf of it afterwards, something I could have figured out and which didn't help my case, since I already had the pdf and needed to just watermark it. It took finally running a search for freeware to do it (with Wine in mind), spotting an entry to the bottom of a list of possibilities that said it was portable and ran on Java, and knowing enough to think "ooh, that might have a Linux version then". I was right (and it works great!), but not every user would have figured this out. Someone less persistent might have given up by then.

The software in question, btw, is jPDF Tweak: http://sourceforge.net/projects/jpdftweak/
Hopefully by linking it here (the forums, at least, are usually found in search engines), future users who need to watermark pdfs will be able to find the solution easily.

Ultimately, the question still remains: how do we organize information on how to do various tasks so that it can be found by search engines efficiently? (Because it's pretty inefficient at present.) I have no quick solutions, and wouldn't have the time to work on one currently, but perhaps someone with more time might have some ideas. At the very least, add it to the best Linux software list on Gizmo's Freeware? Ultimately, what might be needed is something like that list--but with the focus on how to do different tasks, rather than just "the best software". So that someone could, perhaps, search "watermark pdf" and be given a list of the software that could do such a thing, ranked by how well they perform the needed task. If that already exists, I'd love the link--and to make sure that jPDF Tweak is included, if it isn't already.
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
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caf4926
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Re: Watermarking pdfs on Linux--and software solutions for t

Post by caf4926 »

Open the pdf in libre office draw
Add the mark you need
export as pdf again
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jimallyn
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Re: Watermarking pdfs on Linux--and software solutions for t

Post by jimallyn »

Good find!
“If the government were coming for your TVs and cars, then you'd be upset. But, as it is, they're only coming for your sons.” - Daniel Berrigan
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