editing imported PDF file [HOW-TO]

[Guest]

Hello.
I'm a newbie in Illustrator (but with quite a bit of experience in CorelDRAW).

I have a multipage PDF document that needs to be edited in a vast way. Most likely, it was generated using InDesign (I can't be sure of that, because metadata of this specific file were cleaned). Text was converted into curves.

I'm importing this document into Illustrator (all pages) leaving "Import PDF pages as links for optimal performance" checkbox unchecked.
As the result, I'm receiving one layer with all pages named <linked file>. If I use a selection (or direct selection) tool and hover over the page, a big blue x cross shows. Though pages are unlocked, I can't edit anything there at all (except the page position). I would like to break all objects apart, getting direct access to each of them (I need to delete all old text and type a new one). What should I do? Kind regards.

[Ton Frederiks]

Uncheck the link option when opening the PDF, but be prepared, Illustrator is not a PDF editor.

[Monika Gause]

You need to embed the linked files. If you select one you can hit the Embed button in the Properties panel or the Control panel. Then check out the result in the layers panel. It will be a mess. Ungroup and release clipping masks as needed and then delete what you do not need.

Depending on what kind of project this is and how many pages and so on, you might want to check out:

Place the pages in InDesign.

Draw a rectangle over the original to hide it. Or mask the parts of the pages using the image frame.

Make new text objects.

[Guest]

Thank you, ungrouping and releasing clipping masks helped.

I want to avoid drawing rectangles over the original objects to hide them or masking the parts of the pages using the image frames. In this situation, almost everyone will be able to retrieve PDFs old content. It will also affect the file size. Am I wrong?

[Monika Gause]

Yes, it will affect the file size.

Another thing you could do is use PDFMarkz to get your PDFs into InDesign. Then you can actually delete the text and build a new set of ID templates to do proper layouts.

It's not for free, but it should pay off in the end.

https://markzware.com/products/pdfmarkz/ 

[Bobby Henderson]

In a perfect world you would have access to the original InDesign INDD file (and any linked assets). Like Ton said, Illustrator is not a PDF editor even though you can place PDF files or even re-use art elements contained inside of them. It sounds like you could be looking at a pretty time consuming task. Does the PDF file have a lot of pages?

If I was in your position I would import and re-build one page at a time. Since the text was already converted to outlines you won't have to worry about missing fonts, but it could also mean re-typing all the text if any of the verbiage has to be changed. The big blue X you describe sounds like a large clipping mask. Usually any placed PDF pages in Illustrator will be contained in multiple levels of clipping masks and/or clipping groups. Astute Graphics' Vector First Aid plugin could handle a lot of those issues. But it won't solve every problem. Some clipping masks or clipping groups can create a mess of their own when released.

[Guest]

Well, the documents are not very big itself, 4 pages usually. But there are dozens of them. I have to translate a bundle of leaflets with the whole company offer. The new text will be typed with extended Latin character set, comparing to the basic Latin character set of the original. I won't be provided with InDesign files because the agency doesn't have them anymore. Some of the leaflets were saved as PDF files with text preserved. Unfortunately, most of them were exported with text turned into curve and, while opened in Acrobat, they look a little bit weird (fonts have wavy outlines and vector objects (frames, boxes etc.) are turned into raster; I don't see such problems in Illustrator nor CorelDRAW).

And you are right about clipping masks and clipping groups - I see them all over the document.

[Bobby Henderson]

That project sounds like a real pain in the ***. Regarding the odd text previews in Acrobat, it's common for some portions of outlined text and other vector objects to get converted into stroked open paths. A straight ruling line or a capital "I" character are two examples of objects that get treated like this when output in PDF.

[Jay26079195ii3f]

If the text can be dismissed due to the fact thats its mostly outine, you may want to export the images using Acrobat DC. Using Acrobat if its included with your CC subscription is a start. But you will have to place the images back manually in the right location. Then rebuild the document from scratch. Usually, we use PDF2ID in such cases to simply extract the images and rebuild the files in InDesign (know you are using Illustrator but its painful for text heavy files) as least the images are in tact along with the size/location. Really depends on how you want to automate. You can even try the Acrobat OCR process and you may have some luck with the oultined text.