How to Edit Text in an Editable PDF

Sometimes you open a pdf you found or purchased online that is editable. However, you are not sure how easy that is going to be to do yourself and are hesitant to mess with it. Since I have been creating my own editable pdfs for myself lately I thought it would be a good idea to share how to make changes to them and any others you may find online.

Step One in Editing an Editable PDF

Your first step is to open the file in Adobe Acrobat Reader. Although there are other pdf readers out there, they may not have all the features of Adobe that allow changes to be made.

Step Two

You will see blue areas of the file. This is the area to click on and start typing.

HIghlight to edit text in editable pdf

Step Three

Once you have typed something, click and highlight that text.

Changing text in editable pdf

Step Four

Now press CTRL-E for PCs. I understand that CMD-E works for Macs, but have not tested it.

A Form Field Text Properties section will now pop up where you can make changes to highlighted areas of text. You can change color, alignment, font, font size, make text bold, italic, and underline.

You can choose any font you have on your computer as well as typing in a font size if you want a larger size than shown. Be aware that fonts that are too large will not fit.

If you want the text properties to continue in the next text box you will either need to choose them all again in the next box or you can save some time. Copy and paste the text from your first box into the next one. Now the next box has the same text properties and you can just edit it with the text you want.

Not every editable pdf will allow you all of these changes.  It all depends upon what settings the file creator set.  For example, my editable books (such as my Fall Book shown above) have a specific font set so that it will match what is in the book, but my labels allow you to make many changes.

Rainbow Watercolor Chevron Decor Bundle

The labels shown in the example are contained in my Rainbow Decor Bundle.

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