How To Edit A PDF Document

For many years companies and personal computer users have been using Adobe’s Portable Document Format (PDF) as a consistently solid platform for distributing word processed or graphically produced documents. The beauty of the PDF file type is that it is possible to open, view, save and print the file on almost every computer in the world, whether it is a PC or a Mac or another model.

Generally, a user who wishes to create a PDF document first creates the file on a word processor or a publication package, before either using specialist software to convert the file to PDF or, in the case of modern versions of Microsoft’s Office Suite, using the built in feature to save the file in this format.

So the PDF file type is very useful, until the day that you decide that you need to edit an existing document. Adobe designed the PDF file type to be non-editable (that is, unless you pay for the Adobe Acrobat software package)so  that people could distribute their publications such as catalogues, brochures, flyers, e-books or posters without having to worry that the recipient may accidentally delete a section of their copy, or inadvertently change a part of it.

This is great in its place; however, pretty much since the advent of PDF as a file type, computer users have been scratching their heads and asking the question: “is there a way to edit a PDF document?” For a long time the answer was “yes, but...” with the ‘but’ being a list of compromises you would have to make to the flow, the format or the content of the PDF file. All that has changed since 2008 when Adobe officially made PDF ‘open standard’, effectively meaning that software companies could create products that could edit PDF documents in a variety of ways.

Naturally, when something becomes open standard the door opens to many products that don’t do as advertised or are inferior in a number of ways. On the other hand, when something becomes open standard there will be a few software companies who excel and make products that do everything you would want them to do - and even some things that you hadn’t thought of.

If you want to edit a PDF, you should be looking for software that allows you to edit the PDF as though it were in a word processor. There is great software about, not even necessarily expensive software, which will end the frustration of editing a PDF by allowing you to edit text, move and resize graphics, reorganise your paragraphs, copy and paste between PDF files and fix those niggling little mistakes.

Sure, some of the software on the market is expensive and some might not do everything you would want it to do, but there will be software that can do everything we’ve talked about here at a reasonable price; there is even software that will let you have a free trial first. Now you know how easy it is to edit PDF documents.