Find and Replace ALL

[satvikv26561728]

I have a 33 page pdf which has ~2500 instances of the word "XYZ". I want to replace all XYZ with ABC. How can I do that? I am using Acrobat 11 pro.

[CtDave]

Open the Find dialog (Ctrl or Cmd + F).

Enter "XYZ". For the replace with use "ABC".

Click "next" and then "replace" . Continue with click'n the "replace next".

One at a time - click & it is replaced, click & it is replaced, ...., until it is done.

Be well...

[Bill12]

Basically there is not a find and replace in Acrobat. You have to find, type the replacement, and continue as mentioned. For what you want to do, it is generally recommended you go back to the original document for the change and create a new PDF.

[oleksandrk47624650]

I can't believe this shit is possible in 2016. Really, no "Replace All" is a commercial product you charge $15 a month?

[CtDave]

@$15/month you're not in Acrobat eh.

Regardless, Acrobat "works" PDF.

PDF (See ISO 32000-1 (coming soon is -2)) *is not* a word processor file format.

Expecting PDF to behave like a word processing file format does not alter that.

[oleksandrk47624650]

What do you mean? It's $15 per month.

Argument what Acrobat is and what it isn't makes no sense. Existence of this topic speak for itself.

[Test Screen Name · Accepted solution]

Hmm, thanks for pointing out the price reduction. The original poster was asking about an older version. But certainly if you expect Acrobat to be like Word-for-PDFs you will have nothing but pain and disappointment. Marketing of course talk up the limited desperate-last-resort editing as if it's a great thing but it's vital to keep ORIGINALS for editing then remaking PDF.

[lunda]

hehehe - The title says SOLVED and the topic ends at what acrobat is and is not....what about replace all ? Have we forgotten that its ADOBE after all...they are still in the prehistoric world.... they will take about 18000 years more to come up with replace all option...till then you can do.... replace next... about 300 times if you have 300 pages. As simple as that. That should be chosen as the right answer.

[Jay.villasana]

If you have Acrobat Pro DC- you can use the redact tool to search and remove text. The tool gives you the option to select all instances of the text or select instances individually. Then you can redact the searched text throughout the entire document.

[Jay.villasana]

If you have Acrobat Pro DC- you can use the redact tool to search and remove text. The tool gives you the option to select all instances of the text or select instances individually. Then you can redact the searched text throughout the entire document.

[try67]

That doesn't replace the text, though, only removes it...

[Thom Parker]

There is an interesting twist to the Redact tool.  With a script you can specify individual overlay text on each readact annot. Which is a kind of replacment. You could also replace the redacts with Free Text annots with an opaque background, then flatten them out. Not perfect, but something. 

It's also interesting that noone on this thread has pointed out that Acrobat is not a content creation tool. And the real solution is to change the original document. 

[try67]

That's true, but since the redaction tool doesn't "re-flow" the text if the new text is not the same length as the old one, the result will look weird. Also, it can't match font or color, so that's another issue...

And yes, doing such a task in Acrobat is not a good idea and not what the application was built for.

[hutcherson.]

4 years later, still the same.

[christopherb70298142]

Seriously.  Is it that hard?  Replace All is important.