Participant

Question

Line of text moves down 2 mm when editing PDF text in Adobe DC Pro

Forum|Forum|4 years ago
January 1, 2022
6 replies
5522 views

When I edit text, i.e. replace or add even one character, the entire line shifts 1-2 mm down closer to the next line.
Here you can see the first black line moved down (on the right):

This happens when I edit a PDF doc I received, with the font Bebas Neue Pro.

(I had to activate this font in Adobe Cloud Fonts before I could used it for editing.)

Note: the issue doesn't happen when I edit a PDF doc which uses Arial font.

Is there any way to fix this behaviour?

Unfortunately I don't have access to the original source document and I must make corrections on this PDF.

Edit and convert PDFs

This topic has been closed for replies.

L

Libby359281800iyw

Participant

I have the same issue using PT Sans which I do have installed. Frustruating!

JR Boulay

Community Expert

Je reconnais que c'est déroutant, j'ai essayé d'autres logiciels concurrents d'Acrobat Pro pour tester : au mieux c'est pareil et sinon c'est pire.

Alors je me suis fait une raison en me disant que c'est certainement dû à la structure du format PDF ou à quelque chose de ce genre.

Acrobate du PDF, InDesigner et Photoshopographe

G

gil100Author

Participant

In fact, isn't there some utility that extract just the text from a PDF,
lets you change it, and lets you inject it back to the file, without touching the formatting at all?
Could be just a script. It doesn't even need to render the file itself.

Such a tool would solve this problem.

Luke Jennings3

Community Expert

Sometimes the best option is to place the pdf into InDesign, set new copy*, delete the existing copy in Acrobat, and export to a new PDF.

*Set the new copy in a different color, so you can get a perfect spacing match with the existing type, get the font and size using the Output Preview tool (Object inspector).

G

gil100Author

Participant

I (and the person whom I am trying to help) don't have InDesign.

JR Boulay

Community Expert

Dans ces cas là je coupe le texte qui est en noir et je le colle avec l'outil Ajout de texte, de façon à obtenir deux blocs de texte séparés que je peux ajuster finement.

Acrobate du PDF, InDesigner et Photoshopographe

G

gil100Author

Participant

I tried that, but if I cut out a section of text, the other text blocks move around, and so I have to re-adjust the positions
after adding the text again, and it never gets back to the exact positions as before.
I strive to make the minimal changes to layout, as I am only supposed to correct text issues.
I don't understand why replacing or adding a single character should corrupt the lines flow.

Dave Creamer of IDEAS

Community Expert

Welcome to the wonderful world of editing PDFs...

Check your line space and paragraph spacing for inconsistency.

It's possible the hidden line ending (paragraph return, soft return, space) may be set differently depending on how it was formatted. Click on the red type three times to select the entire paragraph. If all the text highlights, it isn't separate paragraphs. Click and drag the red text and make sure you get any hidden characters at the end. Check to see if it's all the same.

If you can't get it figured out, copy the black text, click the Add Text tool, click on an open area on your page, then paste. If that works, place a ruler guide at the base lines of the black text. Delete the old black text and position the new text, in it's separate box, where it should be.

David Creamer: Community Expert (ACI and ACE 1995-2023)

G

gil100Author

Participant

Thanks for your advices.
The steps above did not resolve the issue: I can indeed copy the text to a new text section, and get the lines there evenly spaced but I want to keep the original layout and just do local corrections (spelling, wording, punctuation, etc.).

However I tried more, and found a way to undo the bizarre vertical displacement of just one line:
After changing the text, and seeing the unwanted downward shift, select the text of the entire section (e.g. black text betwen two red headers), change its font to any other font, and change back to the original font (Bebas Neue Pro in my case).
This resolves the shift, but unfortunately the resulting text lines are not completly aligned with the original (I compare through screenshots): although the lines are generally in the original place, a close check with a ruler shows that each line was slightly shifted down.
Perhaps I can try to change and restore other formatting options of the entire section, like line spacing.

But when you have to do that procedure for every little fix in a few dense pages, it becomes too tedious.

Why does the spacing of characters and lines change at all when I just replace one letter in the same original font?

BTW The entire paragraph is selected together.

Sign up

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Sign in to Adobe Community

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Scanning file for viruses.

This file cannot be downloaded