Can you open and edit a pdf document in indesign?

[bettinad29313416]

A customer sent us data as a PDF and thinks it can be opened in indesign and easily processed further. I am not familiar with this function. Can someone help me here?

[jmlevy]

No, you cannot open a PDF in InDesign unless you get a third-party plugin (PDF2ID). You can place a PDF in an InDesign document, but you won't be able to edit it.

[bettinad29313416]

Thank you for your prompt reply. I thought I didn't know a new important function. 😉

[Eugene Tyson · Accepted solution]

No you would need Recosoft software or DTP2InDesign - you can look both up.

Other option would be to get Affinity Publishere - and you can do that there.

[Dov Isaacs]

Note that these third party “solutions” cannot necessarily completely “open” a PDF file for editing in InDesign. There are numerous PDF features that are not supported by InDesign at all, including some Illustrator gradient features!

The output from these third party plug-ins may require significant manual touch-up to be usable!

[Luke Jennings3]

Open the PDF in Acrobat and go to File> Properties> Description, this will tell you which application produced the PDF. If Illustrator is the original application, you can open and edit the PDF in Illustrator (if you have all needed fonts & links), you can also make minor edits in Acrobat. If they are sending you data from an Excel file, saved as a PDF, ask them to send you the Excel file instead. Note, you can export a PDF as text, Excel workbook, or other formats from Acrobat, but having the original file is preferred.

[Dov Isaacs]

Note that this is not quite right. The only PDF files that can safely be edited in Adobe Illustrator are PDF files that adhere to the following rules:

(1)  The PDF file was saved from the current or a previous version of Adobe Illustrator with the Preserve Illustrator Editing Capabilities option enabled (this is not optional!).

(2)  The PDF file has not been modified in any way whatsoever in Acrobat or any other program after having been saved from Illustrator!

(3)  All fonts used by text in the PDF file (and thus the original Illustrator document) are installed on the system on which the editing of the PDF file will occur (no, it won't use the fonts embedded in the PDF file!).

(4)  If the original Illustrator file had links to other objects (such as images, PDF files, etc.), those objects must also be available to Illustrator when doing the editing.