"How can I edit my PDF documents?"

By Rowan Hanna
PDF Store Support Team
Issue 18 for 2005

In the old days, PDF-philes considered this question a heresy: "Surely you don't mean to edit a PDF -- go back to the source document and re-generate it!" The PDF format's very resistance to editing had been part of what made is such a good print format. Of course, the times, they are a-changin', and PDF editing is now a very real part of our lives and the industry. With the amount of post-PDF manipulation done for some of the more dynamic documents, going all the way back to the source can be a costly and time-consuming process.

In case that's a little unclear, let me give you an example: you've designed a slick, graphically-rich document, filled with links, bookmarks and funky JavaScript; you may even have taken advantage of PDF's ability to include video and audio elements. While there are shortcuts available for some of these elements -- for instance, the ability of Acrobat's PDF Maker macros to generate bookmarks and convert hyperlinks from MS Office documents -- the more complex items like JavaScript must generally be applied after the conversion to PDF. What to do if you need to change references to a company name scattered throughout the document after adding all of this wondrous functionality? Go back to the source and start again? What if the source document is unavailable?

Commercial viewing tools like Acrobat and Nitro PDF Professional PDF editor software can handle simple editing jobs, but if you need to update slabs of text or are concerned with its alignment and reflow behavior (e.g. forms), you probably need to look elsewhere. One of the strongest PDF text-editing solutions on the market is Infix PDF Editor, which is a true PDF word processor. It even allows users to mark-up boxes around which text will flow. This can be particularly useful if you want to avoid having your text run over images or tables! As for our example, the full search-and-replace option is also sure to prove handy.

Watch this space! Until next time, please browse PDF Store's Edit & Prepare PDF aisle for the complete range of PDF editing tools.