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markg52760617
Participant
October 6, 2016
Question

Can't Edit Text in Acrobat Pro DC

  • October 6, 2016
  • 4 replies
  • 67401 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

    D
    default6xva1togtrht
    Participant
    August 26, 2021

    This is a pain in the ass for me too!

     

      Frank Vitale
      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. 

        A
        AO-Stephen
        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.

          B
          brownla
          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
          Karl Heinz KremerCommunity 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.

            S
            superscah
            Participant
            September 25, 2019
            I'm sorry but this is not a helpful answer. Everyone who uses Acrobat DC knows that you can add text to it and once you save the file, afterward (seconds later) you almost always will discover that some of that text just entered is now uneditable. Converting one page to a tiff image as you suggest, while it may work, creates too big a file to email, and takes too much time when you need to get a document or form updated and signed and out the door. There is actually a very quick workaround to this, though, that takes very little effort (literally, a few seconds) and no additional file space or converting the file -- everyone can figure it out. If i write it here, Adobe will no doubt figure out a way to make even that not work, because over the last 10 years Adobe has pretty much ruined everything it has touched. Years ago I never thought it would come to this but Adobe, yes, you have brought us to this. The real question is, why doesn't Adobe want its programs to be great for its users? Adobe knows this is a problem that is fixable. Why can't they fix it? Why is everything a hassle? From what I've seen, Adobe now believes things only need to be "good enough." Adobe used to be synonymous with excellence, with great graphics editors. Nowadays, we use Adobe because we have to. We don't like it. And this stupid little problem is just one of the many reasons for that.
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              Brunettin
              Known Participant
              September 23, 2020

              Wait. You're saying you have a workaround for this but you're not going to tell us?

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