One thing I should mention – one of the reasons I use PDF format is to MAKE IT DIFFICULT for other people to edit. That’s because some people if they use a word processor for READING the document, can inadvertently make changes to it and then pass the modified version on to other people. Or they can intentionally make what they consider to be corrections to the document and send that to other people, creating confusion. Like someone mentioned, PDFs are like printed paper and sometimes that’s good. Printed paper can be scanned and modified, but at least it’s not convenient to do so.
Hey, that is a good point.
I think it is possible to give a pdf a password… so you can contol who can read it.
Isn’t this password protection known as rather weak?
Adobe say
can provide a reasonable level of security for protecting sensitive
But like most there are ways around this, generally it works for most users
If you want a stronger password you can encrypt the pdf yourself. There are several crypt utilities, even vim will do it .
CORRECTION: What I originally stated was not right. I created a text document today with AbiWord containing centered lines of headings and paragraph text, and a graphic “paste”. choosing a font different than the default, saved it as a pdf, then re-opened the pdf and all that remained was the text, all in default paragraph font - no formatting, no graphic. I apologize for the lack of thorough testing before posting. What is true is that when you SAVE AS pdf, and continue to edit in the same window, the file name at top of screen changes to .pdf, and you can SAVE (as opposed to save as) to the pdf version of the file and it will continue to make more edits to the same pdf file. Once you close that window, AbiWord cannot effectively be used for further editing of that file. 
That is strange.? It works when you create the pdf, but you cant save then read it back without loss. ?
Thanks Jim for the correction.
I think this is what happens: when you create myfile.abw and save as pdf, it really exports it, and then it keeps the edited abw version in a temp file on the screen but labels it myfile.pdf, and if you do a save, it knows to export it a second time modifying the first export. Edits done to the on-screen myfile.pdf all get exported, but they do not go into the original myfile.abw. To get all your pdf edits into the original abw you would have to remember to save as myfile.abw, the edited myfile.pdf. They really don’t know how to edit a pdf, but they give the impression, by editing a temp version of myfile.abw and exporting it. It’s similar to what would happen if you really did edit the pdf, the original abw would not get edited. But the next day, AbiWord can’t correctly open the pdf file that it created yesterday, because it didn’t save the temporary edited abw file.
I think you should maybe change that to “Adobe Acrobat” - I see that too often - people just write “Adobe” when they mean Photoshop, or Illustrator - or - Acrobat, in this case… It’s like calling Ubuntu “Canonical”…
I kinda detest PDF format… ODF is way better…
Few years back i was in a contracting role - and - the timesheet system was editable PDF format - i.e. you needed something like Acrobat to enter your timesheet details and save… What a load of crap! I never found any such thing for Linux (and I didn’t have a Mac back then) - I had to either use Windows and Acrobat at the customer - or - run it through a Windows 7 VM…
Not just that PDF is UGLY - it’s a nasty attack vector for malicious code to wreak havoc and replicate itself…
Done. Edited the original… with acknowledgement.
I have never looked.
Is ODF editable?
I asked AI… it says yes
" Editing an .odf (OpenDocument Format) file, such as a
.odt (text), .ods (spreadsheet), or .odp (presentation), is straightforward as they are designed to be open-source and editable by multiple programs."
It suggests LIbreOffice, Google Docs, or Word. I suppose OpenOffice too.
Arent those multiple file types .odt, .ods, .odp going to be confusing?
OK, that is a good reason.
Is .odt somehow immune?
No, all libreoffice files can contain macros, just like word or excel which could run bad code and do system calls. Dont think they can cross platform and cause damage. Not sure about google sheets or docs never tried. Same with powerpoint format never done macros in that but guess they can exist.
Yes, but you are asked for permission to run them, at least in the default configuration.
How about adding a digital signature to the document to avoid this scenario?
Révision marking perhaps is better so you can see what they change.
I get many pdf files to put on our association website, where I have to copy all the text into a html document and reformat it to look correct, things like headings, bullet points etc. Yes I could just drop the pdf file in to download but that is not indexer contents just a file. Used to do that and users complained they could not easy read or find an entry hence the change. Many times its just a small changé in wording.
Yes. It depends on the actual use case.
Wasn’t Abiword unmaintained or looking for a new maintainer?
Reports say it has slowed.
Thanks for this suggestion; I will investigate digital signature – it’s new to me. –jk
Better idea would be to add a watermark to the background of the page. But none of these would stop someone who wanted to copy the text.