Comments on: Is there any way to remove background images from a PDF file?

Question: Is there any way to remove background images from a PDF file?

signal — Tue, 25 May 2004 12:41:44 -0800

Is there any way to remove background images from a PDF file? I downloaded some documentation for the Mambo Server, and it has an incredibly annoying, large, pixelated orangeish logo as a BG on every page, which doesn't help readability one bit. Have tried inserting a new white background in Acrobat, but it ends up behind the original one.

By: grimley

grimley — Tue, 25 May 2004 13:40:10 -0800

see if you can open it in illustrator. if it's not protected, you should be able to isolate the background and remove it. You may have to ungroup and remove clipping masks, but eventually you will be able to select the image.

By: signal

signal — Tue, 25 May 2004 13:48:53 -0800

Thing is, grimley, they're multipage PDF files, and Illustrator can only handle one page at the time (I think)).

By: cairnish

cairnish — Tue, 25 May 2004 13:50:45 -0800

Can't answer the PDF question. I downloaded the RTF from MOSForge and removed the watermark using Word. View the header and then delete the graphic.

By: grimley

grimley — Tue, 25 May 2004 13:52:47 -0800

i know it sounds like a pain, but you could open each page as an illustrator file, delete the logo, save it as a pdf, and then reassemble the file in acrobat. as far as I know not even acrobat 6 pro can delete portions of a pdf. hope this helps.

By: cairnish

cairnish — Tue, 25 May 2004 13:57:02 -0800

RTF version.

By: signal

signal — Tue, 25 May 2004 14:27:50 -0800

cairnish: thanks, that makes more sense than mucking about with the PDF.

By: skylar

skylar — Wed, 26 May 2004 01:06:51 -0800

I have deleted images from PDFs before using Acrobat (NB Acrobat, not Acrobat Reader) - just grab the image using the touch up image tool and hit delete. Not sure if it works the same with a watermark but it should do.