PDF Letterhead Into Pages or Word template?

Software
1

We have a very nice letterhead which we only have printed on paper, no digital copy.

I have a scan of it, as a PDF, but what I would like to do is use it in Pages (preferably) or Word.

So far I have not been able to figure out how to do this, although I assume it must be possible and I’m just not finding it.

Anyone have any tips, tricks, or pointers?

2

You should be able to convert it to an image, then add it.

3

Maybe I’m misunderstanding what you’re asking but I can just drag and drop any pdf into a pages document and it’s treated like an image.

4

If you want to add it specifically to the header section in a Pages document you can open up the document set-up, make sure header is turned on, go to more options then click in the header area and paste it. I’d guess drag and drop would work. Paste definitely does.

5

You can open the PDF in Word, then save as a docx and import it to Pages.

1 Like
6

You could get a good digital recreation done inexpensively from somewhere like Fiverr. It should be easier to perfectly position in your .docx header/footer/sidebars as well, compared to a scan: Fiverr / Search Results for 'recreate letterhead'

7

So, originally, I was trying to use the entire scanned 8.5x11 as like the ‘background’ of a Pages document (almost like a watermark, I guess?)

Then, after reading these comments, I realized that was dumb, and I just converted the PDF to a PNG and trimmed it down to just the header part, which I was able to drop into a Pages document.

Some days the brain doesn’t work as well as others.

5 Likes
8

Ha, we all have those days! Just an FYI, no need to convert to PNG, you should be able to just drop a pdf in straight. Also, no need to trim down (though I guess that could cut file size) because once in the document you can double tap or double click to use the cropping tool in Pages. Works like a charm for cropping and repositioning images.

1 Like
9

One advantage to converting to a PNG and then trimming is file size reduction. Cropping a PDF does not actually remove any content. It just makes the cropped-out content not visible which means the size on disk is still the same.

Cropping a PNG removes the content which means the resulting image takes less space on disk than the original.

10

Not exactly the way your asking for, but this is how I do it.

I do have a digital version (pdf) of my letterhead. To use that in a Pages (or, in my case Word) document (kind of…), I save the document as a pdf. And apply the letterhead pdf as a background using pdftk.

Your Pages doc doesn’t contain the letterhead in this way. That could be a disadvantage. However, I think/believe/assume the quality of the end result is better this way.

11

I’d be interested in knowing how that works, if you’d be willing to share it. I have only very limited experience with pdftk.

12

Does PDFTK work on an M1 mac?

13

I had to Google this (too). That’s a nifty website for those kind of questions, you know. But apparently, pdftk is not compiled for the M1. However, there is pdftk-java which is compatible. That being said, I personally loathe anything Java.

@tjluoma I’m using it in an Alfred Workflow like this (this is the script step, obviously):

for f in "$@"
do
    DIRNAME="$(dirname "$f")"
	FILENAME="$(basename "$f")"
	TMPNAME="$(basename "$f" .pdf)_frbg.pdf"
    /usr/local/bin/pdftk "$f" multibackground /Users/myuser/Documents/Backgrounds/Letterhead.pdf output "$DIRNAME"/"$TMPNAME"
	mv "$f" "/Users/myuser/.Trash/"
	mv "$DIRNAME"/"$TMPNAME" "$DIRNAME"/"$FILENAME"
done

It applies the background and throws away the temporary file, i.e. the one without the background. I’m using the multibackground option, as my letterhead pdf has multiple pages: a true letterhead page and a followup page with basically just a logo and footer.

1 Like
14

Nice! Thank you @vco1!

You can get a non-Java version of pdftk to work on M1-based Macs, but it’s a little confusing.

If you go to the main PDFTK website, it will offer you this download:

https://www.pdflabs.com/tools/pdftk-the-pdf-toolkit/pdftk_server-2.02-mac_osx-10.6-setup.pkg

That’s not a clickable link because I don’t want you to download that. It won’t work, because that is a 32-bit version that won’t run after Mojave. (10.6 refers to Snow Leopard, which came out approximately 75 years ago).

Fortunately I stumbled across (and bookmarked!) both https://stackoverflow.com/a/58236185/284595 and https://gist.github.com/jvenator/9672772a631c117da151 point to this 64-bit download which point to the correct download:

https://www.pdflabs.com/tools/pdftk-the-pdf-toolkit/pdftk_server-2.02-mac_osx-10.11-setup.pkg

That one is 64-bit and will work via Rosetta on M1-based Macs.

2 Likes
15

I was trying to save a Pages document as a PDF last night but couldn’t figure out how to do it , TJ. Any pointers?

I wanted to make use of on of the apps you recommended- Booklets. It makes booklets of PDF’s.

I don’t have the PDF app although I use to.

16

You can use the Print menu and the choose “Save as PDF” or use Pages’ export feature to get a PDF.

1 Like
17

Thanks ever so much, TJ!