LibreOffice 5.3 will add one more vector-based format that can be inserted as
an image into documents: PDF. First, thanks to PMG who made
this work possible. On the user interface you can now select PDF files when
you choose e.g. Writer’s Insert → Image option:
The first page of the PDF document will be shown, which is handy if the PDF
file is basically used as a vector image format.
Similarly to the SVG feature, the original vector image is stored in the
document, but when saving to ODF, a replacement PNG file is also generated to
be backwards compatible with older ODF readers. The image context menu → Save
menu item allows to extract your original PDF data from the image, too:
And that’s it, as long as you save your document in ODF, your PDF-as-an-image
will be kept without loosing any data. As usual, you can try this right now
with a 5.3 daily build. :-)
However, if you’re interested in how this is implemented, keep reading…