This is my first time using Writer. I converted a pdf to be able to edit it. I now have extra blank pages that I can’t delete since they are not self-deleting as I’m used to in Word. I checked online help and all that I found was " Choose Page - Delete Page Right-click on the page thumbnail and choose Delete Page which does not seem to exist in Writer. Any help is appreciated.
A PDF is not an editable document. At its best, LO takes it as a graphical collection of “slides” (because PDF rendering is “frozen”) and consequently opens it in Draw. Your editing possibilities are rather limited and often do not achieve your intended goal.
If you somehow forced open in any component other than Draw, you won’t be able to handle the PDF as you expect… In Draw, you can effectively delete “pages” or “slides” by right-clicking on their thumbnail. But don’t hope too much, you’ll need to export again to PDF and this may damage further the document.
I converted the pdf to a text document prior to opening it in Writer. I was a technical writer for 35 years and I know that pdf files can be edited even before converting them to text files because on numerous occasions I have done it. You just need the correct tools to do it. I have also converted numerous pdf documents to text documents. You just need the correct tools to do it.
I used PDF24
Then if your PDF is now a text document, it can be opened in Writer. However, all the original formatting is lost. Therefore, page breaks no longer occur in the same positions (unless you took measures to restore them, but I fear this is direct formatting).
Pages are not primary objects in Writer. They are kind of necessary “evil” to cope with limited sheet space: text flow is quantised to sheet area (minus margins). Since page do not exist as “objects”, you can’t delete them as such. You must play with the text flow to eliminate some contents and Writer will reflow text. Note also that some automatically inserted blank pages can’t be suppressed: they are needed to obey page parity (odd-numbered pages at right, even-numbered pages at left, even if you don’t request duplex printing).
I can’t be more specific because you didn’t mention OS name, LO version and file format (you said it is text but did not tell if it was store .txt, .doc(x) or .odt). And idea about your file layout and formatting would help further suggest solutions. If possible, attach a 2-page sample (with “neutral” contents if you deem it provate).
Windows 11, LO version 7.3.5.2 (x64), text file format is .odt. The file is just text. When the pdf was converted to text, there were text boxes included which I’ve found is the case when pdf files are converted to text files.
I think I have found a solution. I deleted page breaks. From what you posted about obeying page parity, I presume that Writer doesn’t handle 1-page documents, that the minimum is 2 pages even if page 2 is blank?
No, the parity constraint is taken only into account on “special” page breaks with forced page number. A 1-page document is just that: a 1-page document.
I have no experience with pdf-to-text conversion but I sort of remember a question here with such a document attached. It ended up as a set of text frames (in the best case) or boxes (and this case is unmanageable “centrally”) to reflect text positioning in the page. Unfortunately, this visual-fidelity approach does not provide a consistent text flow (you only get random bits without links between each other, notably no continuous text flow).
I don’t remember the anchor mode for the frames or boxes. So, the situation may be even worse than what I “technically” describe.
With PDF24 you can convert a PDF file directly into unformatted text.
Yes, you probably solved it.
As you seem to know, the PDF format typically makes for a “graphically rigid” document. When converting to other format, it is not surprising that “hard” page breaks are inserted in the converted content. The conversion tool usually can find no clue of whether the page breaks were intentional from the author’s hand (hard break) or consequential to natural content flow (soft break).
Depending on tool, you may have the option to choose between “rigid” and “reflow” conversion strategy. I don’t know PDF24 specifically, but @Hrbrgr looks to have the knowledge.
If you will, tick your own comment (which I quoted above) as the solution. It helps other users and helpers to navigate the service.