https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=169327
Bug ID: 169327
Summary: [META] Support for "use PDF pages as background
images" workflow
Product: LibreOffice
Version: unspecified
Hardware: All
OS: All
Status: UNCONFIRMED
Keywords: needsUXEval
Severity: enhancement
Priority: medium
Component: Draw
Assignee: [email protected]
Reporter: [email protected]
Depends on: 99746, 169324
Blocks: 107936, 113354
One common task many people face is filling in forms available as PDFs - but
not PDFs with fancy dynamic widgets, just regular forms one traditionally
prints out and fills manually. To fill such forms on your computer, you must
open the PDF in an application which is willing to treat its contents as
background, and let you add text, lines, check-marks, images (e.g. your
signature or photo) and so on.
There are two ways Draw could support this workflow:
I. With the PDF opened in Draw the 'regular' way:
* Content reproduction would need to be perfect
* User would need to be able to "freeze" the pre-existing content while
making
additions. This is currently achievable by selecting all PDF-importent
elements on each page, grouping, and in the object properties, protecting
the size and position. That is still not perfect, since that 'background'
is still selectable.
II. The hacky way: Page background images
* On each page, user sets the page background image to some page of the PDF
... except that this is not quite supported right now - only the
first page of the PDF is chosen when the PDF file is selected.
* The page size needs to be set to that of the PDF pages
III. A specialized way of opening a PDF
* Either a separate input filter, or a flag for the current input filter
would need to be set.
* The page size would be set to the PDF page size (and it will be a problem
if that's not uniform, since Draw only support a single uniform page
size)
* The user would not need to do anything after opening the page - just make
their additions
Approach (I.) is supposedly "usable" right now, but - the PDF import is far
from being faithful to the source. See bug 99746 and its dependents for a
plethora of issues. Also, it requires hassle on part of the user the
"background-ize" the opened PDF.
Approach (II.), although hacky, is the closest thing to working right now. If
one separates the PDF form into individual pages - it actually does work, with
the hassle limited to the page-separation, the setting-of-background-images and
the page resizing.
Approach (III.) is something we don't have at all, but - would be the most
convenient (and discoverable) for users.
These approach are not mutually exclusive, and the 'blockers' for each of them
are worthy bugs to resolve / features to have, in their own right. I propose
this meta-bug for tracking them all.
An app which supports this as its native (and only) mode of operation is
Xournal++: https://github.com/xournalpp/xournalpp . I personally often use it
over Draw for filling forms, but - when I think about, I really shouldn't have
to.
Referenced Bugs:
https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=99746
[Bug 99746] [META] PDF import filter in Draw
https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=107936
[Bug 107936] [META] Page-level bugs and enhancements
https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=113354
[Bug 113354] [META] Impress/Draw feature enhancements
https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=169324
[Bug 169324] Need ability to resize page to fit contents
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