Can't Edit Some Text in PDF

[PacSD]

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.

[try67]

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

an image, not real text.

[PacSD]

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.

[try67]

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

[PacSD]

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

Dropbox - PDF Test

[try67 · Accepted solution]

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

[PacSD]

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

Thanks, try67!

[try67]

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.

[PacSD]

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.

[Dov Isaacs]

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

[PacSD]

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!

[gkaiseril]

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.

[PacSD]

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.

[gkaiseril]

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.

[PacSD]

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.

[johnnylakis]

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.

[lea anng48370340]

This worked perfectly - and so easy:) Thanks!

[Lampros5FD7]

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

[wtfadobe89701]

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.

[try67]

> 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.

[stevef85914325]

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

[33212184p522]

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

[Sarah30076834qm6x]

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

[Elaine32545341gj0t]

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".