how to edit a file someone else created

[rahnea1972]

I had someone edit my book using inDesign (which I do not have due to my lack of understanding of it), but it will not load into KDP because the fonts he used are too large and there are blank pages.  The program he suggested to me to edit in is for programmers and uses codes (which I have NO undestanding of).  Is there a way I can edit my pdf book file so that I can get it uploaded and for sale? 

[Anna Lander]

PDF can be edited by Adobe Acrobat DC
Here is Help: https://helpx.adobe.com/support/acrobat.html
You can get a trial version and then decide if you need it more.

If you have a working InDesign file, you also can use a trial and help. starting from Adobe.com and your localization.

[Dov Isaacs]

I would take any advice to “edit a book” already in PDF format with Acrobat with a ton or two of salt, at least!

Yes, Acrobat has some editing capabilities, but they are for simple “touch up” of content. PDF is a Final Form File Format and absolutely not an Editable Document Format. Acrobat's text editing doesn't handle pair kerning, OpenType typographical features, hyphenation, justification, or even simple page reflow. Furthermore, all fonts used in the original document (from which the PDF file was created) must be installed on the system running Acrobat for the text to be at all editable.

It's one thing to do simple text edits to a one page office memo or a price correction to a sign in PDF format, but it is something else to talk about editing a book in PDF format. No way!

By the way, we absolutely have no idea what that person who edited (and possibly messed up) your InDesign document is talking about in terms of a program to edit and InDesign document using “codes.”

            - Dov 

[Anna Lander]

yes, surely, but TS told about removing blank pages, this job is quite doable in Acrobat 🙂

[Randy Hagan]

I guess it depends on what the original poster considers "edits."

If:

1) Copy changes go onto one page to the next, Acrobat can cause big problems because PDFs generate pages as separate, discrete units. Adding half a paragraph to the bottom of one page and the rest to the top of the next is an exacting and difficult chore in and of itself. Now apply that to a copyfit issue that runs, say, 20 pages to the end of a chapter and the task becomes miserably problematic.

Or ...

2) Cut three or four lines out of a paragraph. Which will, at best, bring the page up those number of lines and you'll have to cut and paste copy to fill the blank for the resulting 20 or so pages. That's a royal pain if the text frame in the PDF is actually a single-column thread from top to bottom. And don't forget to stay away from the separate folio information high and low for each of those pages.

Then consider ...

3) If the page is broken down into separate frames for each paragraph? Which could happen on any page, or any number of pages in the chapter? It's now insufferable and just about impossible to seamlessly fix because now you're only copying/pasting text within frames, you're having to move frames manually to maintain spacing consistently bwtween those paragraph-deep text frames.

Plus ...

4) If there are graphics breaking up the text it will introduce a whole new level of misery to the job. Take that picture with a rectangular black border and a cutline below. The border box will doubtlessly be a separate element than the picture in the PDF. Or four, one for each line segment surrounding the picture, depending on how the PDF is generated. And there's a fighting chance it will be generated completely differently in the PDF from one picture to the next.

I've edited PDFs for clients before. It's a painful (and if you can bill for it) profitable process. If you can't bill for it, it's not worth the efffort. But I would only do that as the absolute last resort. Depending on the book layout, I'd rather re-construct it from scratch. Because, truly, editing long-documentation PDFs is fraught with peril.

[Randy Hagan]

While it's technically possible to edit PDF files directly using Adobe Acrobat Pro, describing it as cumbersome and problematic would be charitable at best.

You can, however, with reader-enabled PDF files apply suggested edits over the top of your PDF content — strikethroughs, sticky notes with suggested additions/edits, highlighting tools and drawing tools — which would let you tell your book editor what you want done with your book layouts. Additionally, printing it with your markups would give you a hard-copy record to accompany the digital trail you create marking up the PDFs with your desired edits.

However, your editor will have to provide PDFs which enable these features for you to use for markup/editing purposes. And I would strongly recommend relying on your editor to apply those edits to the original InDesign files, then having your editor provide a set of revised PDF files to confirm the edits have been made. Proof the revised PDFs carefully to ensure you're happy with the results.

There is no third-party application which will allow you to make edits directly to the InDesign files. You'll need Adobe InDesign to do that. And as I wrote earlier, editing PDFs directly is fraught with peril. Providing markups, and having the editors provide revised PDFs to confirm changes are made, is a proven and widely-accepted commercial workflow.

I know this isn't the answer you're looking for, but I hope this helps.

Randy