How to edit PDF files

Report · Jun 09, 2018

Hello out there!?

I started a proofreading/copyediting business last October and my son, who is 30, convinced me to buy an iMac. However, he's never around to help me use it, and he wants me to learn to figure things out on my own. I get it, but I'm 68. While I can be somewhat productive, I don't always understand the terminology or how things work. In addition, I am a visual learner. Up until now, I have edited my clients' documents using either Google.docs or Word's Track Changes. But yesterday I was offered a project that requires me to edit from a PDF. I was told I would need to have Adobe Acrobat Reader and that I could use the Free program. I spent time with Apple Support earlier and they helped me to download it. I even printed the directions from Adobe, "How to edit PDF files" so I wouldn't have to rely on my memory.

But, when I open the PDF that was sent to me as an example or open other PDF's that have been downloaded and then try to follow the directions I printed, I'm still unable to make any changes.

Can you help me? I need to know how to do this or I won't get the project offered to me. Once I learned how to get into the documents with Google.docs or Word, I had no problem. I need to know what I am doing by end of day, tomorrow.

Please help. I tried contacting Adobe, but the only option I was given was to go to the Community Forum. When I hit Post

Report · Jun 09, 2018

As far as I know, the only thing you can do with the free Reader is put information in boxes that were created in the PDF to allow user input... such as entering information in a PDF to print or send back... an example being a registration form

Again as far as I know, the free Reader does not allow you to edit the contents of a PDF... for that, you need to buy Acrobat

Report · Jun 09, 2018

Thank you, John. Have a great evening wherever you are.

Leah

On Sat, Jun 9, 2018 at 5:46 PM, John T Smith <forums_noreply@adobe.com>

Report · Jun 10, 2018

You would need Acrobat to actually edit a file, but even then it's not a good idea. PDF files were never meant to be edited in an extensive way and doing so is very risky. The way it needs to be done is to edit the original file used to create the PDF and then produce a new PDF from it.