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Can't Edit Some Text in PDF

Community Beginner ,
Dec 19, 2017 Dec 19, 2017

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I have a PDF that was given to me to make some minor text edits.  I don't have the original doc.

I open the PDF in Acrobat DC, then choose Edit PDF.  The text in the document is inside various boxes, as you expect.  I have the Show Bounding Boxes option checked.  But there is this one bit of text that I cannot select.  It doesn't have a bounding box around it, so I can't do anything with this text. 

Is this a bug in Acrobat?  Is there any way to fix this?  I tried exporting to Word, but formatting gets so messed up, it isn't a good option.  I would be happy to put a box with some text over the text I can't edit, but you cannot set a background color in a bounding box, at least not that I can find.

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Edit and convert PDFs

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correct answers 1 Correct answer

Community Expert , Dec 19, 2017 Dec 19, 2017

It's part of a text field. Go to Form Edit mode and you'll see it.

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Community Expert ,
Dec 19, 2017 Dec 19, 2017

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Are you able to select that text with the mouse? If not, it's most likely

an image, not real text.

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Community Beginner ,
Dec 19, 2017 Dec 19, 2017

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No, it is not an image.  I can select images, which have the bounding box, and move them around, delete them etc.

This text is completely unreachable.

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Community Expert ,
Dec 19, 2017 Dec 19, 2017

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Can you share the file in question with us (using Dropbox, Google Drive, etc.)?

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Community Beginner ,
Dec 19, 2017 Dec 19, 2017

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Here is a stripped down page with the offending text "575 Anton..."

Dropbox - PDF Test

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Community Expert ,
Dec 19, 2017 Dec 19, 2017

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It's part of a text field. Go to Form Edit mode and you'll see it.

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Community Beginner ,
Dec 19, 2017 Dec 19, 2017

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Jeez, a read-only text box - wth?  This is why I prefer starting with origin docs, not PDFs with litter in them.

Thanks, try67!

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Community Expert ,
Dec 19, 2017 Dec 19, 2017

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Form fields are not "litter" but an important feature of PDF files.

Anyway, you can flatten the file to convert it to static contents, if you wish.

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Community Beginner ,
Dec 19, 2017 Dec 19, 2017

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Yeah we do PDF forms all the time.  But a form field with read-only text in a doc where it 'should' have been just text, that's just junk that wasn't needed.  That's why I didn't look at the form editor; this doc wasn't supposed to have fields there.

Thanks again.

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Dec 19, 2017 Dec 19, 2017

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There is a real world application for read-only text forms fields. Very often, JavaScript is used to selectively make a text field read-only or fillable based on previous activities in the form. It is actually quite useful although it obviously is a problem if you don't know about it and you are trying to edit a PDF file.

          - Dov

- Dov Isaacs, former Adobe Principal Scientist (April 30, 1990 - May 30, 2021)

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Community Beginner ,
Dec 19, 2017 Dec 19, 2017

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No such js in this doc.  And it isn't a user form type of doc.  This was just some previous person messing around and leaving me a problem to solve.  Not the only one, this PDF also had features that caused Acrobat to put up font error messages, the ever popular "unknown error" message, and even crash a couple of times.  It's a fun one!

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LEGEND ,
Dec 19, 2017 Dec 19, 2017

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It looks like this form might be used by many different law offices and each law office can easily change the address to their particular office. As noted this is a real world application of having one form that can be updated for a specific location. Note that the field's value is set by using the "Default Value" on the form field's "Option" tab. This approach is used to keep the field's value if the form is reset. If I were creating this form I would have included form fields for the dates, social security numbers, and client names filed in if the client wanted to.

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Community Beginner ,
Dec 19, 2017 Dec 19, 2017

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I think you guys are missing the idea that this isn't that kind of document.  It isn't a "form" in the sense of PDF forms.  All the rest of the text is static, and when they want it changed, they threw it over to an Acrobat person to edit changes directly in the text.  Maybe someone else was trying to get to what you are talking about, but they didn't, and now that the doc is mine to maintain, I have to fix leftover issues.

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LEGEND ,
Dec 19, 2017 Dec 19, 2017

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When you start "editing" text you might come to appreciate form fields. Editing text is not always as easy as it is in Word. If your system does not have the exact font for the text you are attempting to edit, you cannot edit the text. Also PDF text does not flow like it does in a Word document.

Maybe the "left over issues" are because you do not understand the PDF format.

If you need to edit PDF documents, it is far easier to go back to the document in the authoring/creating application and edit it there than to even use the PDF editing tools.

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Community Beginner ,
Dec 19, 2017 Dec 19, 2017

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Did you see this little quote of mine from above?  "This is why I prefer starting with origin docs,"

Maybe you don't understand what I mean there, I am referring to "the document in the authoring/creating application"...what I would have liked to use if they were available.  But they are not.  So we edit the PDF.  And we deal with all the issues, which are problems with the doc, or Acrobat, not us.

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New Here ,
Mar 29, 2021 Mar 29, 2021

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This is what worked for me. 

File Save As .tiff.

Right click on this new .tiff file and choose Convert to Adobe PDF.

Open the file

Click Edit PDF. 

You should be able to edit text now.

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New Here ,
Apr 05, 2022 Apr 05, 2022

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This worked perfectly - and so easy:) Thanks!

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New Here ,
Apr 29, 2022 Apr 29, 2022

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when it is TIFF how to choose convert to Adobe PDF - i don't have that option 

 

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New Here ,
Jul 05, 2022 Jul 05, 2022

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That doesn't work. Not sure if this  is a side effect of June Windows updates, but I cannot edit any text in any pdf documents. There are a mishmash of image and text borders. Text that I have been able to edit regularly for years will not edit now. When I convert the tiff to acrobat, the whole document is an image and no text is editable. I'm using Acrobat Pro XI. I hate DC.

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Community Expert ,
Jul 06, 2022 Jul 06, 2022

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> When I convert the tiff to acrobat, the whole document is an image and no text is editable.

Right, because it's an image... You need to run Text Recognition on it first to be able to edit it as text.

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New Here ,
Oct 07, 2022 Oct 07, 2022

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Thanks Johnny!  Your instructions enabled me to edit my PDF when Adobe was of no help.

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New Here ,
Oct 27, 2023 Oct 27, 2023

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Thank you for this simple and quick fix! Worked perfectly!

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New Here ,
Jan 18, 2024 Jan 18, 2024

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Tried this but after conversion to .tiff and opened as pdf, some fields got deformed. I saved it as .jpg instead the edited in Paint (covered the text to be edited) then converted back to pdf. Problem solved.

 

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New Here ,
May 25, 2023 May 25, 2023

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Same here can't edit pdf and I paid for the service can anyone help

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New Here ,
Sep 26, 2023 Sep 26, 2023

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I have the same issue, but with my problem, I think it's my Adobe PDF "printer" messing things up.  It's not even a .pdf from someone else, I'm creating it!  It will put a bounding box around half a line of text, but not the other half or half a line, then half of the line below.  You'd think that it would all be renderable text considering it's the same document, same font, etc. being "printed".

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