Converting a PDF document

I would like to modify a PDF document that I have saved. How do I do it ??

Modify how? Preview has some basic annotation functionality built-in.

Modify a PDF document

I want to add and change text.

PDF has a very limited editing capacity, even with Acrobat Pro, mainly geared towards fine-tuning it during pre-press work. Editing is complex, unreliable and basically the best way to do it, is BEFORE the PDF is created, which is not much help, when there's no access to original file, obviously.

To actually edit the text, you need to have that particular font on your system, embedded subset not being restricted (or full font embedded), etc, etc. Formatting most likely will go haywire, again depending on how the PDF was created. To preserve the formatting, and if you only want to remove a certain part of the text, best to select the 'no colour' option in properties - that will keep the document structure intact.

Adding text, on the other hand, is very easy, it's a function called Typewriter in Acrobat, and there are similar ones in other PDF apps, starting with Preview, of course (Show Edit Toolbar --> Text Tools).

On the Mac, you might take a look at PDFPen, which may meet your needs -- the demo should let you know if its for you. Not cheap, but a really good product.

For VERY simple annotation (highlighting for example), Preview could do the job. It's free and built right into your Mac, as Van noted.

earley said:

I would like to modify a PDF document that I have saved. How do I do it ??

Click to expand...

PDF Editor Mac Free| Top 5 Free PDF Editor for Mac OS X (Mavericks )

- Nick

Color me stupid
chas: I downloaded the trial version of PDFPen but I can't change, delete, or add text
pigoo: PDF Editor is not free, it cost $49.95t

Or you could upload it to google docs or Google drive, which can turn the pdf back into a word doc

louishen said:

Or you could upload it to google docs or Google drive, which can turn the pdf back into a word doc

Click to expand...

This is an interesting solution but I'd caution that this may lead to weird results. I've tried this before and sometimes, as would be expected, GD can produce some creative results. It's quite good but it gets flustered if the document isn't really well formatted as text.

earley said:

pigoo: PDF Editor is not free, it cost $49.95t

Click to expand...

My point was…DO A GOOGLE SEARCH! There are both free and pay for options available.

This thread is now 18 hours old…when a 10 second Google search will give you answers. I did a Google search for you…and provided a link to get you started. Even if one of the options in the link is $49.95…you never said in your original post that the solution had to be free.

The link I provided has 5 different apps listed. If you don't like one of them since it costs $49.95…then check out the other 4!

- Nick

After years of using dozens of PDF to word converters and trying every trick in the book, the quickest, cleanest and best conversion I've found to date is to open the (readable) PDF doc in Preview, select all, copy and paste into a new blank word doc. It's just about perfect: no lost space at LF/CR. There are a few artifacts now and then, but this is by far the easiest method I've found and it's REALLY SIMPLE!

Give it a try.

Jay Gamel