# Trying to format a pdf from a scan



## usingpc (Aug 29, 2015)

I am scanning pages and then I need to crop them and rotate them and save as pdfs. My scanner utility doesn't seem to have that option and Acrobat doesn't either. I can take screen shots but I want pdfs, not jpegs. What are my options?


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## Confounded Also (Aug 19, 2015)

Look at LibreOffice. I know it can publish to PDF, but I'm not sure what capabilities it has for reading from scanners.


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## spunk.funk (May 13, 2010)

You can Scan into the free Photo editing software Irfanview (see YouTube attachment) Here you can crop, resize etc
You will not be able to Save as a PDF directly from Irfanview, but you can Download PDFCreator which will give you a virtual PDF printer you can send the edited photo to, to create a PDF.


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## Corday (Mar 3, 2010)

Some scanners have Optical Character Recognition (OCR) as a built in feature. Just scan into a Word type program and convert it to pdf if the program has the conversion built in such as Word Perfect which I use does.


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## Confounded Also (Aug 19, 2015)

spunk.funk said:


> You can Scan into the free Photo editing software Irfanview
> 
> You will not be able to Save as a PDF directly from Irfanview,



Yeah you can. Just needs a quick Plug-In:

https://www.irfanview.com/plugins.htm

I don't know what your YT link is for. I always go to the main site for downloads:

https://www.irfanview.com/


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## spunk.funk (May 13, 2010)

The YouTube video was to show the OP How to scan to Irfanview, if the OP is not familiar with the software. I also included the direct Download link for Irfanview in Post #3


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## usingpc (Aug 29, 2015)

Thanks guys. I took a hint from your suggestions and tried opening the scanned image in Photoshop and saving it as a pdf. It works! Just one thing though: what's a Photoshop PDF? Is it just a pdf that you can readily bring into Photoshop to edit? My main concern is that it will be the data size of a regular pdf and just as flexible, meaning I will be able to open it with the same software that opens regular pdfs, easy to upload and download, print, etc.


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## spunk.funk (May 13, 2010)

A *P*ortable *D*ocument* F*ile is the same whether it is made by _Adobe Photoshop _or _Adobe Acrobat _or any other PDF creator and it will be the same size as any other PDF file and open in any PDF reader like_ Adobe Reader_ or any other PDF reader.
If you scan the picture and edit it in Photoshop or any other Photo editing software then you save it as a finished PDF document. It will open in any PDF reader. You will not be able to edit the finished PDF unless you open it again in Photoshop or Acrobat.


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## Confounded Also (Aug 19, 2015)

A history of the PDF format shows that Adobe only fairly recently released it for use by others:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDF

There are now several programs in which they can be edited:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDF#Software


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## Stancestans (Apr 26, 2009)

spunk.funk said:


> A *P*ortable *D*ocument* F*ile is the same whether it is made by _Adobe Photoshop _or _Adobe Acrobat _or any other PDF creator and it will be the same size as any other PDF file and open in any PDF reader like_ Adobe Reader_ or any other PDF reader.
> If you scan the picture and edit it in Photoshop or any other Photo editing software then you save it as a finished PDF document. It will open in any PDF reader. You will not be able to edit the finished PDF unless you open it again in Photoshop or Acrobat.


*About Photoshop PDF format * 

You can use the Save As command to save RGB, indexed-color, CMYK, grayscale, Bitmap-mode, Lab color, and duotone images in Photoshop PDF format. Because the *Photoshop PDF document can preserve Photoshop data*, such as layers, alpha channels, notes, and spot color, you can open the document and edit the images in Photoshop CS2 or later.
_Source_: https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/using/saving-pdf-files.html


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## cpusrvc (Aug 5, 2005)

spunk.funk said:


> You can Scan into the free Photo editing software Irfanview (see YouTube attachment) Here you can crop, resize etc
> You will not be able to Save as a PDF directly from Irfanview, but you can Download PDFCreator which will give you a virtual PDF printer you can send the edited photo to, to create a PDF.


Irfanview is a great way to go because it's easy to use, and it reads and saves in almost every format, including PDF. You can scan, edit/crop, etc., and *save as PDF*. You can also read existing PDFs, then edit/crop and save back as PDF.


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## jah1350 (Apr 11, 2017)

I scan with "Epson Scan" as a .jpg. Then I use PaperPort 14.5 to crop, rotate, etc., then I save as a .pdf. Works great. I do this with invoices, registration code and more.


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## jenae (Jun 17, 2008)

Hi, yes add the plug in to InfranView. It is free, and easy to use, great program, deserves support.


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## sigman (Mar 30, 2011)

usingpc said:


> Thanks guys. I took a hint from your suggestions and tried opening the scanned image in Photoshop and saving it as a pdf. It works! Just one thing though: what's a Photoshop PDF? Is it just a pdf that you can readily bring into Photoshop to edit? My main concern is that it will be the data size of a regular pdf and just as flexible, meaning I will be able to open it with the same software that opens regular pdfs, easy to upload and download, print, etc.


 In case you didn't realize it Photoshop is Adobe software. The format you're getting is pure PDF.


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## [J5]OBHighflyer (Mar 11, 2008)

I just use doPDF printer from Free PDF Printer - Print to PDF with doPDF. I have been using the free version (yes, they do have a paid version) for years now and it works great. It hasn't ever failed me yet, whether it is a open file in Photoshop Elements, MS Draw, MS Word, MS Text, MS Office, a page on the Internet, etc. etc. You just send it to print and choose the doPDF printer and it will ask you where you want to name it and were to save the new .pdf file and then saves it as a .pdf and displays on your screen that same file for you to look at the make sure you approve of it. Like I said, I've been using it for years free and it is great IMHO.


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## jdsmort (Jul 29, 2008)

I use another freebee program, Faststone image viewer.. also easy to use.. but has no-one heard of MS Print to PDF????.. its standard on W10.. so all I do is scan to a jpg, then crop to what I want and print to PDF.. don't even have to save the cropped image.. just print. select the print to PDF and then discard changes...


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## sigman (Mar 30, 2011)

usingpc said:


> I am scanning pages and then I need to crop them and rotate them and save as pdfs. My scanner utility doesn't seem to have that option and Acrobat doesn't either. I can take screen shots but I want pdfs, not jpegs. What are my options?


Nobody has asked what brand scanner you have. HP printer-scanners comes with software that will scan directly into PDFs. Have you checked the software that came with your scanner?


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## Stancestans (Apr 26, 2009)

sigman said:


> Nobody has asked what brand scanner you have. HP printer-scanners comes with software that will scan directly into PDFs. Have you checked the software that came with your scanner?


It was already stated that the scanner software did not offer pdf as an output format. Asking for that information would have been pointless. BTW, I have a very old HP 3-in-1 Deskjet that also lacks pdf output.


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## usingpc (Aug 29, 2015)

sigman said:


> Nobody has asked what brand scanner you have. HP printer-scanners comes with software that will scan directly into PDFs. Have you checked the software that came with your scanner?


It's a Canon all-in-one type. Where would I find that setting?


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## spunk.funk (May 13, 2010)

Scanning with Photoshop is the easiest way to go since you have the software and you were successful scanning. it already,. 
In Photoshop, after scanning, Edit the document or picture the way you want it then Save As a PDF. If you don't like it, you can Open the PDF in Photoshop and edit it again.


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## usingpc (Aug 29, 2015)

spunk.funk said:


> Scanning with Photoshop is the easiest way to go since you have the software and you were successful scanning. it already,.
> In Photoshop, after scanning, Edit the document or picture the way you want it then Save As a PDF. If you don't like it, you can Open the PDF in Photoshop and edit it again.


I agree!


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## sigman (Mar 30, 2011)

usingpc said:


> It's a Canon all-in-one type. Where would I find that setting?


 It's not on the device. The HP comes with software that specifically runs the scanning function. You should check if your Canon does. You might be able to download it from the mfr website. Check for downloads for your specific model.


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## usingpc (Aug 29, 2015)

How about this: When I scan pages from a book consecutively, they are all bundled together as a continuous pdf. But the edges are messy. Is there a way I can go in and clean the pages with cropping and rotating within the pdf itself, or is it all recognized as a single continuous image?


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## Stancestans (Apr 26, 2009)

usingpc said:


> How about this: When I scan pages from a book consecutively, they are all bundled together as a continuous pdf. But the edges are messy. Is there a way I can go in and clean the pages with cropping and rotating within the pdf itself, or is it all recognized as a single continuous image?


 Each scanned page should be a page in the resultant pdf document. With the right software (pdf editor), you can accomplish that. You can have a look at https://www.pdfill.com/pdf_tools_free.html


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## jdsmort (Jul 29, 2008)

usingpc said:


> How about this: When I scan pages from a book consecutively, they are all bundled together as a continuous pdf. But the edges are messy. Is there a way I can go in and clean the pages with cropping and rotating within the pdf itself, or is it all recognized as a single continuous image?


I saw Stance's reply but I also see that the only problem with the PDF Tools program is that it only rotates in blocks of 90deg. 
Whenever I have a scan that needs an incremental rotation, I always use my Faststone Image Viewer as it has a rotating tool that allows degrees of rotation, not jut 90, 180, 270 etc... 
I will investigate how to easily create a .pdf with multiple images.. as if you need to use Faststone you need a .jpg file.
I note that in Photoshop you can also rotate by degrees, but have to specify an amount , so to get right it is hit-and-miss, whereas in faststone you can continue on the fly and get the result you need.
As you use W7, I will test on that platform to see if I can easily create a pdf from multiple .jpg files

I just checked.. and with Cutepdf Printer if you select multiple .jpg files and then print you can create a multiple paged .pdf file.. so the only thing you need to check on if you use this method is that the multiple pics are in the correct order.. 1,2,3,4.... .jpg.. so that they appear in the same order in the final file
Unfortunately, it seems, this would be a fairly long, time consuming job to do a whole book, but probably not as long as trying to rotate/crop in Photoshop.

I forgot to add.. you should be able to just scan to an image... .jpg file instead of multiple paged .pdf file.. whatever you are doing will take quite a bit of time, unfortunately...


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## usingpc (Aug 29, 2015)

I'm confused. Can I or can't I rotate an individual page within a stacked pdf (or whatever you'd call it)? Since I have to flip the book for every other page on the scanner bed, I have this issue. I do want the pdf continuous so it can be paged through like a presentation.


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## Stancestans (Apr 26, 2009)

usingpc said:


> I'm confused. Can I or can't I rotate an individual page within a stacked pdf (or whatever you'd call it)? Since I have to flip the book for every other page on the scanner bed, I have this issue. I do want the pdf continuous so it can be paged through like a presentation.


You can, using a pdf editor. Open the multi-page pdf document with the editor, rotate individual pages as desired and save the changes. Done.


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## joeten (Dec 4, 2008)

There is a list of free ones here https://www.lifewire.com/best-free-pdf-editors-4147622 with the pros and cons about them.


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## spunk.funk (May 13, 2010)

Since you have already scanned the document with Photoshop, you can open the saved document in Photoshop edit the pages you want and save them separately from the multi page PDF document as another PDF


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## sigman (Mar 30, 2011)

jenae said:


> Hi, yes add the plug in to InfranView. It is free, and easy to use, great program, deserves support.


. Here's a thing. In the 1980s before digital cameras were reasonably priced I was getting my film from Seatle Film Works. For one price you got your film processed and returned with a roll of blank film, prints and a CD with the images digitally stored. The problem was that the image format was .sfw which was proprietary and could only be read by their viewer which meant they couldn't be edited. I had a lot of CDs from two trips to Europe. After weeks of searching I came across Infraview which claimed to read .sfw format images. It did! It took many hours to convert the images but I then had easy to access files.


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## usingpc (Aug 29, 2015)

spunk.funk said:


> Since you have already scanned the document with Photoshop, you can open the saved document in Photoshop edit the pages you want and save them separately from the multi page PDF document as another PDF


I want the pdfs stacked together so one can page through them. I am trying to rotate and crop pages within the multi-page document. Can Photoshop do this?


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## joeten (Dec 4, 2008)

Try reading the various pieces of info here https://tag.wonderhowto.com/edit-pdf-with-photoshop/ sometimes it takes a leap of faith to just try something out, it's all part of the learning curve.


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## usingpc (Aug 29, 2015)

joeten said:


> Try reading the various pieces of info here https://tag.wonderhowto.com/edit-pdf-with-photoshop/ sometimes it takes a leap of faith to just try something out, it's all part of the learning curve.


Nothing there addresses the issue. The problem is that when I bring the pages into PS, they are treated as separate. I can edit them of course, but then they don't join back together as a set.


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## joeten (Dec 4, 2008)

A couple of videos here https://www.google.com/search?q=pho...g+pdf's&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-b-ab they may be of some help.


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## spunk.funk (May 13, 2010)

If you had the full version of Adobe Acrobat combined with Photoshop, you could accomplish this with ease.
Here is a free online version that allows you to combine your edited PDF documents into one document again. https://www.pdfmerge.com/


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## usingpc (Aug 29, 2015)

spunk.funk said:


> If you had the full version of Adobe Acrobat combined with Photoshop, you could accomplish this with ease.
> Here is a free online version that allows you to combine your edited PDF documents into one document again. https://www.pdfmerge.com/


Thanks for the help, but I tried it and you are asked to pay for the service to use it.


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## joeten (Dec 4, 2008)

Not sure what you did but there may be a limit to how many you can do, again It might also be there is some miscommunication here so let SF get back to you as he seldom gets his info mixed.


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## usingpc (Aug 29, 2015)

Figured it out! That first video shows how, indeed, you can combine documents into one pdf in PS. The key function is File>Automate>PDF Presentation.

Thank you so much!


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## joeten (Dec 4, 2008)

You are welcome, I will ask you to begin doing a little research on your own and if you become stuck or you do not quite understand then post your question, as I have just shown you a little digging on your own can give you some relevant info.


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## usingpc (Aug 29, 2015)

Honestly, I did a lot of searching for articles and videos without success.


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## Stancestans (Apr 26, 2009)

usingpc said:


> Honestly, I did a lot of searching for articles and videos without success.


I wonder which search engine and search terms you used. I'm getting a lot of helpful hits on "rotate pages in pdf", "merge pdf", "edit pdf in photoshop", "scan to multipage pdf"...


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## joeten (Dec 4, 2008)

The wording is key.


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## sigman (Mar 30, 2011)

Stancestans said:


> It was already stated that the scanner software did not offer pdf as an output format. Asking for that information would have been pointless. BTW, I have a very old HP 3-in-1 Deskjet that also lacks pdf output.


Very old may be the operative word. I have a five-year-old Officejet Pro 8500 that came with scanning software for producing PDF, JPEG and Editable text (OCR) outputs.


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## Stancestans (Apr 26, 2009)

sigman said:


> Very old may be the operative word.


Exactly, so let's not assume that the scanner is not very old.





> I have a five-year-old Officejet Pro 8500 that came with scanning software for producing PDF, JPEG and Editable text (OCR) outputs.


Now try twice as old, when pdf was still a proprietary format. I use it for bulk scans, just like OP, but because its scanner utility has no pdf output, I use it with third party software.


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## Stancestans (Apr 26, 2009)

usingpc said:


> I want the pdfs stacked together so one can page through them. I am trying to rotate and crop pages within the multi-page document. Can Photoshop do this?


The more options you have the merrier, right? NAPS2 will do that as well. You can use it as your scanner utility software, or import the multi-page pdf and rotate and crop individual pages as desired. It's way more lightweight and simpler than PS. It also allows you to rotate them to custom degrees up to 0.1 accuracy. It was my go-to utility in college and after for years before I acquired Acrobat, and worked superbly with my very old BenQ 5000B scanner.


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