How do I move or delete text boxes in Acrobat DC?

Forum|Forum|3 years ago
September 15, 2022
3 replies
33976 views

I'm trying to edit the layout of a PDF in Adobe Acrobat Pro DC on Windows 11 and have spent DAYS trying to figure out how to move or delete text boxes. No matter what I do, the only thing Acrobat seems to allow is editing the text within a text box.

Let me be crystal clear: I am not asking how to edit text within a text box; every tutorial I could find on the subject seems only to talk about editing the actual text. What I'm asking is how to select a text box and either move it to a different position or delete it altogether. Photoshop, for example, has the text edit tool and the object selection tool; if Acrobat has a similar object selection tool, I'll be damned if I can find it.

Thanks in advance.

Correct answer alexander_duerregger

Hi! You can do that with the edit PDF Tool. You need to grad the box at the border to move it. I attached a Screen Recording where you can see what i am doing. (The software is in german but you should be able to find it)

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Daniel McIntosh

Participant

its 2023 and I have the same question. acrobat has turned into the worst unusable bit of software. shocking

reidmoto

Participant

I can't comprehend why it's so difficult to reposition a text box. Apparently, the "secret" is to put the cursor inside the text box and it changes into a pointer but avoid the handles. I still can't move text boxes easily and am starting to agree with you Daniel.

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dawn_219361

Participant

Hey Reidmoto. This was driving me insane as well. Actually, just position your cursor on the (thin) border of the text box, not inside the box. The cursor will then change into a positioning tool. It's silly.

For the ignorant, like me, it may be necessary to point out one more step. When you are trying to delete a text box after you have been doing some other things with the text, you may be clicked into another tool, like "pan", for instance. You need to click on the text box tool again. Then the border of the text box will be visible and you will be able to follow kirk16B8's advice above.

Amal.

Legend

Hi @EdTCS

++ Adding to the discussion

If its a PDF form and you have editing rights, open the PDF file > go to Tools > Prepare form and then you would be able to move or delete the text box.

Hope it will help

Regards

Amal