Adobe Acrobat for a DUMMY! HELP!

[KKsm...@adobeforums.com]

I'm desperately needing some help. I have this Adobe Acrobat pdf file sent to me, and I need to edit the text. I have never used Adobe Acrobat before (ever!) and I feel so stupid!

How can select text and then change it! I'm able to highlight the text but it won't let me make any changes. I'm sorry yall, this is new to me. I need to take one of those online tutorials, I just don't have the time.

[graffiti]

Make sure you are using the "Touchup text tool". This will only work if you have the "exact" font that is used in the document installed on your system.

Be warned, any major edits are best made in the original document. Acrobat isn't made for anything other than minor edits.

Also, there is a chance that there could be security applied to the document preventing any edits. You can check that by going to File>Document Properties>Security.

[KKsm...@adobeforums.com]

It is protected by password. *rats*
Can I convert it to a word doc?

[J.R. Sanford]

Make sure that the file.pdf has editable text by going to Edit > Select ALL

If the text doesn't highlight, then go to Document > Recognize Text Using OCR

Make sure your are searching for "Formatted Text and Graphics" in the Edit button

After it's done, you should be able to use the Touchup Text Tool to highlight text and make changes

[J.R. Sanford]

Security? I don't think you'll be able to do anything except print it, scan to PDF, OCR, then make changes as I outlined before (If printing is allowed).

[KKsm...@adobeforums.com]

:( can't.
When I go to "Recognize Text Using OCR" it won't enable me to select anything after that in the drop down box. (probably due to security)

[steve_...@adobeforums.com]

Its more likely that you can't OCR because its a 'proper' pdf, not a scan.
As JRS says, you'll have to print it, scan it, create a new pdf and then OCR to get around the security (or just scan and use dedicated OCR software that will work on the tif image to produce an editable pdf or a Word file.)

[KKsm...@adobeforums.com]

Okay, yall are great. I did print, scan, created new file, then OCR'd. I was even able to go in and edit the text. BUT how do I get the red 'mark'through lines to go away on my changes and insert the new text that's in the bubble window?

[steve_...@adobeforums.com]

The things that you describe are Annotations (mark-ups), not edits. You need the Touch Up Text tool on the Advanced Editing toolbar (select the text, then right-click for Properties if you need to change the colour or size). If you edit more than a few characters the formatting is likely to turn to custard and you'll need to move blocks with the Touch Up Object tool. About that time, most people realise that editing should not be done in Acrobat!

[Andrea Dearwechter]

I am in the same boat as KK. I was sent an PDF that needed to have three lines of text removed and I figured that out. Now I have three "lines" of open spaces. How do I remove them so that the paragraph lines up correctly? Oh I am running 6.0 standard and from all I read this is not an editing program but I have no other option and have to make this work.

Thanks!

[steve_...@adobeforums.com]

You could find someone with Acrobat ver5 which was much better for editing (that should start an argument!). You can try to select blocks of text to move with the Touch-Up Object tool. Used in conjunction with the left and right Ctrl keys and maybe even the Shift key seems to have some largely unpredictable effect on the ability to select smaller blocks. You could attempt to cut and paste sections of text into the space, or you could print it out, cut & paste (literally!) and scan it back to pdf!

[Andrea Dearwechter]

Thanks you so much for your reply. I did some playing around and figured out that the problem had to do with the program the pdf was created from. The original doc was created in IN Design and when I tried to edit it it would not take those white spaces out but when I tried to edit a PDF created in word it worked exactly the way Word works in that when you delete you are able to backspace through or just highlight and delete.

I am going to try the suggestions you gave... thanks so much!