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PacSD
Participating Frequently
December 19, 2017
Answered

Can't Edit Some Text in PDF

  • December 19, 2017
  • 4 replies
  • 97614 views

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.

    Correct answer 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.

    4 replies

    E
    Elaine32545341gj0t
    New Participant
    September 26, 2023

    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".

    S
    Sarah30076834qm6x
    New Participant
    May 26, 2023

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

    J
    johnnylakisCorrect answer
    New Participant
    March 29, 2021

    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.

      L
      lea anng48370340
      New Participant
      April 5, 2022

      This worked perfectly - and so easy:) Thanks!

      try67
      try67
      Adobe Expert
      December 19, 2017

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

      an image, not real text.

      P
      PacSDAuthor
      Participating Frequently
      December 19, 2017

      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.

      P
      PacSDAuthor
      Participating Frequently
      December 19, 2017

      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.


      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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