Have a Linux machine :-)

Lounge
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This is true. While PDF is technically an open format, and largely derived from an earlier open format (PostScript), the specific features that most people closely associate with PDFs are proprietary Adobe features. Even if those features were otherwise mimicked, they wouldn’t work in Adobe’s ubiquitous reader without being signed by Adobe’s key (Adobe Acrobat software).

Years ago, I worked on a tool that did visual diffs of PDFs by rendering them to rasters and comparing pixels. The tool worked on Linux, but unfortunately it was developed as a commercial product so I can’t share it.

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Visual comparison is insufficient. I have a method to parse PDF text, used it a few times last year. All I need to do is compare the output.

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The upcoming Inkscape 1.2 release supports multi-page PDF editing (import & export). Right now, it’s in beta, but was hinted at being scheduled for release this week. Inkscape 1.2 has a ton of other features too, but multi-page is one of the big ones, along with on-page autoalignment & snapping.

It’s on the Flathub beta remote, which you can add with:

flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub-beta https://flathub.org/beta-repo/flathub-beta.flatpakrepo

(And then install Inkscape with flatpak install inkscape and choose the beta version from flathub-beta.)

…or you can just wait a few days. :wink:

For PDF in general, there are a lot of apps that use PDF in some form on Flathub. I’m partial to PDF Arranger for manipulating PDF pages (combining, splitting, rearranging, etc.).

Update

Inkscape 1.2 has been officially released! The blog post has a great overview (nicer and more polished than the release notes on the wiki): What you’ll find inside Inkscape version 1.2 | Inkscape

The release video showcases so many of the huge new features in motion:

(This release is so huge, with so many things I’ve been wanting in Inkscape for decades. It should’ve been called Inkscape 2.0, IMO. Regardless of the version, it’s amazing!)

Also, there’s a pull request to bump up Inkscape to version 1.2 on Flathub, so the update will most likely land today on Flathub (and this will probably be faster than most distros).

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24

Didn’t wayland only output full frames to the GPU? I’ve never experienced any kind of tearing under wayland and xwayland for that matter… X11 on the other hand…

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In X11, different DE’s compositors will handle it differently, you could try a different compositor on xfce(like picom), or a different desktop environment. KDE is on par if not lighter than xfce nowadays, so you could give it a try.

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@garrett Thanks. Inkscape is one of my favourite apps that I have used since its conception. At one point, it was really buggy and lost some of its features. That was when I stopped putting as much time into it. I lack practice and am no longer proficient in it.

@hatsnp Thanks. I may try a different compositor. Yes, I recall KDE running pleasantly last several times I used it. However, I am more of a fan of xfce and other DE for some reason. I suppose it is a matter of what I am used to…

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