Whats the best Adobe-Acrobat-like free program?

[Retinend]

I want to create a good-looking portfolio pedophile PDF file, where I can

-freely drag images around and transform them
-add text and have all the benefits of a word processor
-hyperlink a Contents page, linking page numbers to the individual pages, in the resulting PDF page
-a feature to import specific pages from other PDFs, while keeping the page format consistent

...but obviously I don't want to spend any money on it. What are my options?

[Petey Pate]

My workplace doesn't have an Adobe license so they use Kofax Power PDF which has basically all the same features as Acrobat. I'm not sure if the free version has editing capabilities though.

[Retinend]

@Petey Pate for me as an individual it's 140 dollars. But I'm tempted. Worth it, you think?

[All Surrogate]

If you have Microsoft Word, you can create your document in that and then export to PDF. Then use something like PDFsam (free version) to splice in the external PDF pages.

I presume open-source document editors, like Libre Office, can export to PDF too, so you wouldn't need Microsoft Word.

[Retinend]

If you have Microsoft Word, you can create your document in that and then export to PDF. Then use something like PDFsam (free version) to splice in the external PDF pages.

I presume open-source document editors, like Libre Office, can export to PDF too, so you wouldn't need Microsoft Word.

The problem is that word processors have such limited options for arranging text and images next to each other. My portfolio is very visual.

[Uncle TechTip]

Could you build it in HTML/CSS and then print to pdf?

[Retinend]

Could you build it in HTML/CSS and then print to pdf?

No. No skills there - I can only work with designer tools.

[QDRPHNC]

Figma is a free piece of design software you can use for the layout, then export to PDF. Fairly intuitive.

[Retinend]

Figma seems pretty good so far. At first I was confused by how to make a page, but now I learn the proper term here is "frame" (hashtag button in the top left). From there it is similar to Adobe XD, which I am familiar with.