Edit existing pdf with either Illustrator or InDesign

[nannasloth123456]

We've lost the original InDesign-file and only have the document in a pdf-version.

Can I open and edit this document in either Illustrator or InDesign? Or rather my question is: Can I EDIT it? I have no problem opening the document and viewing all pages, but I can't seem to find the editing tool that all the tutorials are talking about. I just end up with four large pictures on 4 pages...

I am fairly new to the Adobe programmes, so please elaborate when using terms from the apps 🙂

Thank you!!

[SJRiegel]

You cannot edit an InDesign PDF with InDesign. 

A certain type of minor edits can be done with Acrobat, but for the best flexiblity going forward, your best bet would be to rebuilt the document in InDesign.

You can use Photoshop to extract the images from the PDF, as long as it was exported as high-res.

[Steve Werner]

There are third party products that can do a conversion from PDF to InDesign.

Keep in mind that in a translation/conversion, not everything can be restored to the original InDesign format:

From Recosoft, PDF2ID:

PDF2ID - PDF to InDesign, How to convert PDF to InDesign, Convert PDF to InDesign

From Markzware, PDF2DTP:

https://markzware.com/products/pdf2dtp/

There are not inexpensive, they can be very useful for some.

[Jongware]

nannasloth123456  wrote

[…] Can I open and edit this document in either Illustrator or InDesign? Or rather my question is: Can I EDIT it? I have no problem opening the document and viewing all pages, but I can't seem to find the editing tool that all the tutorials are talking about. I just end up with four large pictures on 4 pages...

The "editing tool" that you saw must have been the one from Acrobat Pro. InDesign does not have such a tool.

Your issue pops up here just about every other week; read the most recent one for what you currently can do with your data, and what may be possible if you spend a little money on the right tool(s) for this job: Can I import an existing Adobe PDF document into InDesign? -- do note that spending a bit of time and money now might save you a whole lot of trouble in the near future.

[Bill Silbert]

If when you open the pdf in Illustrator and switch to the outline mode (toggle Command (Mac)/Control (PC)-Y to go between Preview and Outline) you see only blank boxes then you will not be able you edit the pdf at all. This would be because the pdf you are working with is only an image and not something with editable text and objects. If you do see editable text in Illustrator's outline mode then be aware that most of the text will consist of multiple insertion points making it a chore to copy and paste it into flowing text.

[Jongware]

@Bill: my experiences thus far with InDesign-generated PDFs are very good. I can use a simple Copy command to faithfully get all of the text and most of the formatting out of its own PDFs. Even copying entire tables is no problem as this has vastly improved with the latest version of Acrobat Pro.

So, no pressing need to go through Illustrator. If the original PDF contains vector art, you can place these pages immediately as "illustrations" back into a new ID file. If the original PDF contains bitmap images, these can be extracted en masse from the PDF, edited one by one with Photoshop and saved as new files, or again placed unmodified, using the old PDF itself as source.