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Participant
October 6, 2016
Question

Can't Edit Text in Acrobat Pro DC

  • October 6, 2016
  • 4 replies
  • 67331 views

Yes i know this question keeps getting asked, but there never seems to be a proper answer to it.

I've searched thru the forums and watched the tutorials but nothing seems to really address the issue.

So, here's my problem. When I select Edit PDF in some PDF's and select a piece of text, I can't edit it.

I can delete it, copy it and paste it but I can't edit it.

When I select the text I get what looks like an image selection box. So I suspect DC is treating it as an image instead of text.

Someone please tell me if this is so, so I can stop wondering why nothing's working.

I've tried all the tips for optimising, and I get a message saying it has already been optimised.

On other PDF's I can edit the text no problem, but on a bout 50% of pdf's that I open the edit text function doesn't work.

If anyone can tell me what's going on, that would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

4 replies

Participant
August 26, 2021

This is a pain in the ass for me too!

 

Frank Vitale
Known Participant
January 21, 2023

Yep same problem, I add text and images, then go to edit the text and it refuses to let me. I have to delete the text and insert new text to replace it. The really frustrating part is I'm building doc and it's going nice and smooth, no issues and then all of a sudden my text is off limits, cant edit at all... so sloppy of adobe and so frustrating. The app needs serious help. 

Participant
October 24, 2019

Our office now has the same problem.  Hasn't been a problem for years.  All of a sudden now we can't edit the text after it's initial creation. It seems to have JUST started a week ago.

Participant
February 13, 2018

Acrobat 9 Pro:

So turns out that text is really text objects that can be edited but you need the Illustrator program to do it . I have Adobe 9 and when I click on the last of the text editing tools - it lets me select the object - then I can right click and say edit object and It will open Illustrator. Then I just save after my text edits and the object is updated in the pdf file with my new edits. (Icon is a pencil in a text box) Touch up text object tool. This may have changed in a later version of Acrobat

Karl Heinz  Kremer
Community Expert
Community Expert
October 6, 2016

There are different reasons why something that looks like text does not behave like text. The most common problem is that you are actually looking at an image or a picture of text. In this case, you can very likely (this depends on the quality of the image) run OCR and then after that you should be able to edit this text. The important thing here is to run OCR with the "Editable Text and Images" setting in the OCR settings. Otherwise you end up with text that is stored "behind" the original image.

If OCR does not work, chances are you are dealing with text that was converted to "outlines". In this case, the text was converted from true text (which you can edit) to vector drawings, that have nothing to do with text anymore (but still look like text). In this case, you are out of luck. Your only option in this case is to convert the complete page (or the complete documents) to a high resolution image file (e.g. a 600dpi TIFF image), and then import this image again into Acrobat (and therefore converting it to PDF), and then running OCR on that.

chrisk5290903
Participant
February 10, 2017

Im having an issue. I try to delete a few letter and it goes nutty. the text shifts right then the entire format is off.

its in a box and I select the text I want to delete and it shifts and the text is still there and its overlapped total mess.

help me please : ) NEW GUY

try67
Community Expert
Community Expert
February 10, 2017

Yes, this can happen when trying to edit PDF files. Basically there's nothing that can be done about it, unless you re-create the file, either from the source file (the best option), or by exporting it to another format, editing it there and then creating a new PDF from it.