Delete text boxes containing given text on all pages?

[default8vs53aq7isom]

Is there a way to automatically delete all text boxes in a document that contain a specified phrase?

Basically like this online tool http://www.pdfdu.com/pdf-delete-text.aspx

[Amal.]

Hi there

Hope you are doing well and sorry for the trouble. As described you want to delete the text box with specified phrase on all pages.

- Have you created this PDF file or have you got it from a different user?

- Is it the comment text box, that you are trying to delete? If yes, please select all of the text boxes you want to delete in the PDF file > Right Click > Select Delete.

You may also checkout the similar discussion here https://answers.acrobatusers.com/How-delete-text-page-header-footer-q200920.aspx

Let us know if you are referring to something else.

Regards

Amal

[default8vs53aq7isom]

Hi and thank you for your reply.

I should have clarified it is not a comment text box that I am trying to delete, just a plain old text box. 

More precisely, I would like to remove the entire textbox containing a specified word/phrase. 

I am attaching a short pdf file that illustrates this problem. I would like to delete all the text boxes saying "deleteme 2 of 17", "deleteme 3 of 17",...  i.e. the boxes are different every time, but they all contain the word "deleteme".   Blind text pdf with text to remove 

Now if use the online service linked in my original post, that will do the job. But I need to do this for longer and larger documents above the online service limit (also, surprisingly  their premium version lacks this feature, so I can't use that).

[Thom Parker]

In the PDF page content that phrase is a text run. Not a text box. there is go guarentee that any text on a PDF will be in the same run with any other.  How it's setup depends entirely on the application that created it and the application that it is edited in. 

But, you could say that the text is in a block of text that is separate from all the other text on the page. I do not know of any tool that will do this specifically, but you could write a custom plug-in to do this.  

However, if you want to redact the phrase "deleteme # of #", then you can create a custom redaction pattern. 

Here's an article on the topic:

https://www.alnd.uscourts.gov/sites/alnd/files/Using_Redaction_in_Adobe_Acrobat_X_White_Paper.pdf

[JR Boulay]

Acrobat's Redact tools are made for you.

[default8vs53aq7isom]

Thank you for your reply. However that is not quite was I was asking. This tool only removes the specified word/phrase, whereas I would like to remove the entire textbox containing a specified word/phrase. 

I am attaching a short pdf file that illustrates this problem. I would like to delete all the text boxes saying "deleteme 2 of 17", "deleteme 3 of 17",...  i.e. the boxes are different every time, but they all contain the word "deleteme".   Blind text pdf with text to remove 

Now if use the online service linked in my original post, that will do the job. But I need to do this for longer and larger documents above the online service limit (also, surprisingly  their premium version lacks this feature, so I can't use that).

[Test Screen Name]

PDF files DO NOT CONTAIN TEXT BOXES. They certainly seem to, because every time you click Edit, the page shows boxes. But Acrobat makes the boxes by looking at the text on the page, and dividing it up "conveniently" into chunks for editing. So

1. The boxes may not be what you think of as the text flow

2. The boxes may change, especially after any edit (this is a constant complaint, especially if boxes are moved closer together)

3. It may change any time, especially on updates to Acrobat.

4. Other software may well make different guesses about what is a box, if it even has that concept.

[try67]

You can create your own custom redaction patterns, but it requires knowing how to write Regular Expressions, and also knowing where to find the internal XML files that define these patterns in Acrobat. As TSN mentioned, though, there's no way to tell the application to delete a "box", simply because these boxes don't actually exist in the file, but are created ad-hoc by Acrobat each time you edit the file's static contents.

[Sebastian23766601p2tm]

Hello,

Wanted to see if you were able to find a solution. I have repeating text boxes in my PDF that make the accessbility feature of read out loud not fluid. Hope all is well.

Best,

Sebastian