How to Edit a PDF

One of the best reasons to send someone a PDF instead of a Word doc is so that when they open it, it looks exactly as you intended. The formatting, the font, everything. But for those on the receiving end who want to tweak a word or two, it can be a huge pain to make changes. So just how do you edit a PDF?

PDF (portable document format) is an open-source format so while Adobe Acrobat is popular, it’s far from the only program out there. Let’s start with Adobe first, though.

Adobe Acrobat
If you’ve gotten really lucky, you’re working with an unlocked PDF and editing it is as simple as opening the PDF, selecting Tools, Content Editing, and the Edit Text & Images tool. Just click on the areas you wish to edit and the tools you need will appear.

If the PDF is locked, you can try to select copy it, create a new document, and then paste the content in. Go to Edit, then Select All, right click and choose Copy. Go to File, then New, right click, and then choose Paste. Be sure to save the document.

 

Free PDF Editors
Download a free PDF editor; LibreOffice is a good one. Open up LibreOffice, then go to File, Open, and select the PDF you wish to work with. When you go to edit the document, the tools you need will appear automatically. To save, select the PDF icon in the toolbar, name the PDF, and click Save.

PDFUnlock
You’ve tried to straight edit the PDF, you tried copying it, and no dice. It’s time to move on to PDFUnlock. This is a browser-based solution where you can either type in the URL of the PDF, select it from your desktop, or upload it from Dropbox or Google Drive. Then select Unlock. When PDFUnlock is done, save the file and open it for editing in whatever PDF editor you have.

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Microsoft Word
The last method involves converting the PDF to Word and then editing in that program. This is doable in Word 2013 and you can see our complete guide on converting a PDF into a Word doc.

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