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srf72
New Participant
April 13, 2020
Question

How to stop Acrobat from breaking up text into two or more bounding boxes?

  • April 13, 2020
  • 3 replies
  • 3086 views

When I create text of two to three lines in Adobe Pro DC, Adobe breaks it up into two bounding boxes making it difficult to copy and paste as needed. How do I stop this from happening?

 

    3 replies

    L
    luis36272959vegi
    New Participant
    March 31, 2025

    For what I see here, It seems that Acrobat´s PDF file format just can´t handle text as for writing. So ironical that the file format most texts and books come in, can´t handle text. I was trying to make corrections to my own novel, after my editor sent me the proof for publishing and guess what! It was a PDF file. I tried to work the text in there, but after struggling for weeks and ending up in a messy tangle of broken up lines and bounding boxes, I just copied all into Microsoft Word and practically started over. So frustrating and to come here to find out that´s simply not possible?

    LASR
      Amal.
      Community Manager
      Amal.Community Manager
      Community Manager
      March 31, 2025

      Hi there

       

       

      Hope you're doing well, and thanks for reaching out.

      Is this issue happening with one specific PDF or with all PDFs? Please try opening a different PDF to check. Also, if possible, sharing a short video of the steps you're taking and the issue itself would help us understand the problem better.

      PDFs are mainly designed to keep document formatting consistent across different devices rather than for heavy text editing. While Acrobat allows some text editing, it can be tricky—especially with complex layouts, multiple fonts, or PDFs that weren’t originally meant to be edited.

      Since you're making extensive changes (like editing a novel), converting the PDF to Word (as you did) is usually the best option. Acrobat’s Export PDF feature helps retain formatting better than copy-pasting.

      If you often need to edit PDFs, it might be helpful to ask for the original source file (Word, InDesign, etc.) before it's converted to PDF. That way, you can make changes more easily before finalizing it.

       

      Hope this information will help.

      L
      LazerBoi
      New Participant
      April 10, 2025

      This is pretty much a worthless comment.  I get PDFs from a variety of sources, e.g. parts vendors, drawings done in Solidworks, documents from Word saved as PDFs, etc., and I edit them to include pertinent information for me to reference later.  A vendor would simply laugh at me for making such a request, and the text put in drawings has already been formatted a very specific way.  Having Adobe come in and stupidly ruin all that is just idiotic.  I have entered a block of text, formatted a specific way.  How difficult is it to NOT COMPLICATE things and leave the block of text as a SINGLE BLOCK OF TEXT?  I'm sorry, I really get fed up with software companies thinking they know more about how users do their jobs.

        J
        James5C5F
        New Participant
        December 21, 2022

        Same thing happens in acrobat.  I create a text box with 4-5 lines of text and after I save it, it breakes the text up into several boxes, usually in broken sentences, forcing me to go in and re-type everything.  VERY frustrating.

          ls_rbls
          Community Expert
          ls_rblsCommunity Expert
          Community Expert
          April 13, 2020

          Hi,

           

          Are you referring when you  add text to a document using "Edit Text & Images"?

           

          The PDF seems to break Text boxes into separate text layers when you add other objects to the form using the Prepare Form" tool correct?

           

          This seems to happen when you 've used a form that was created with other software. I was able to recreate the issue in my Acrobat by creating a new blank PDF. Then added text by copying and pasting from a Word document. Added objects , dropdown menus check boxes and fillable text field objects.

           

          And for the text that I copied into this form I open Edit Text & Images, right-clicked on the bounding box, and from the context menu selected "Send backward" , just in case this had anything to do if when you add  text  and images to the page they overlap as layers. 

           

          Then I opened Prepare form tool and continue to add more objects. Selected Edit Text & Images again and it remained unbroken. So, I thibnk this is directly related to what the document was created with (but don't fully quote me on this  I may be wrong).

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