Are you looking to change something on a PDF file before you turn it in? Do you need to edit a typo on a file that you already saved as a PDF? Keep reading for a guide on how to make a PDF editable.
More people are getting used to working from home or remote offices. Employees aren’t the only ones who are appreciative of this change of work style. More business owners are also seeing the productivity boost of remote work.
Because of this shift, the norm now is to share and receive files via the internet. The PDF format is one of the most common and popular file formats for sharing documents and other files. Here, we’ll show you how to edit PDF files.
- What Are PDF Files?
Before we talk about editing PDF files, let’s discuss what they are. You may have a vague understanding of PDF as a type of file extension. Indeed, the PDF or Portable Document Format file is a type of file extension.
Adobe created the PDF format as a universal format. That way, you didn’t have to download and install the needed software to read a PDF file. Adobe also created it to preserve the layout or formatting of the document, no matter what device you viewed it on.
You may also know that PDFs are often difficult to edit. The reason is that they’re often used to distribute read-only documents. As mentioned, it preserves the layout of a page when you open it on a different computer or device.
Applications forms, eBooks, and user manuals often come as PDFs. If you scan documents, they often also get saved in the PDF file format. With that said, let’s move on to the question of how can you edit PDF files.
- Reasons to Learn How to Make a PDF Editable
Americans send over 188,000,000 emails every minute. However, as you know, there is a limit to the size of the file you can attach in an email. Editing a PDF may be the solution to getting past those pesky data limits on emails.
Some scanned documents may need post-scan editing. You may need to enhance it by tweaking its brightness and contrast, hue, or other elements. If you didn’t know how to make a scanned file saved as a PDF editable, you can’t enhance the document.
In other cases, you may need to edit a few typos or errors in a PDF document. You don’t want to encode the whole thing again because you didn’t know how to make a PDF file editable. Learning the methods of creating an editable PDF file will save you time, effort, and money.
- How to Edit PDFs With Adobe Acrobat
Adobe Acrobat is one of the most popular programs for editing PDF files. Created by the same company that made the PDF file, Adobe Acrobat is the best choice for editing PDFs. Get Acrobat Standard for $12.99 per month or buy the Pro version for $14.99 per month.
The best thing about using Adobe Acrobat is that you don’t need anything else to make a PDF editable. Once you have Acrobat, the PDF is already editable. You only need to open it on the program.
On Acrobat, you can edit the text and images to your liking. You can also add notes, highlights, and other annotations on the document. If you need to crop, reorder, delete, or rotate PDF pages, you can do it on Acrobat as well.
You can combine PDFs on Acrobat. If you have to split a big PDF file, Acrobat can split it for you. On automatic, you save them as several PDF files.
To make the PDF editable on Acrobat, open the file on the program first. Check the right-hand toolbar for the “Edit PDF” option and click on it. Once you do this, the file is now editable.
- Convert Your PDF File to Edit It
If you want to learn how to make a PDF editable, you need to learn how to convert it into other formats. This is useful if you need to do a lot of editing on Word, Photoshop, or other programs. It’s also the most efficient for you if you’re used to working on such programs.
You can use an online PDF editor or Acrobat for this purpose. Many online PDF editors are quick and easy to use. An online PDF editor is the best option if you don’t have Acrobat on your computer.
Once you’ve converted the file into the desired format, open it on the program of your choice. If it’s an image file that needs editing, use Photoshop or other image-editing software. If it’s a document, use Word or Pages.
If you want more control over how you edit a PDF, the key is converting the PDF into a different file format. Turn it into a spreadsheet, word document, or image file.
This way, you can open it on programs dedicated to editing such file formats. You can learn more about PDF conversion here.
- Edit Your PDF File Online
The internet also offers PDF editors if you don’t have the time to convert PDFs or download Acrobat. Get on your browser and search for an online PDF editor. Some of the best choices include:
- Sejda
- Smallpdf
- SodaPDF
- PDFescape
- FormSwift
Search any of these PDF editors on the web and enter their websites. Follow the instructions on each website for editing PDFs. You may find limits on the upload size and others.
The general steps to follow are to upload the PDF, edit it on the browser, and save it. You may also find other PDF editors online that you may have to download first. Other notable free PDF editors include PDF Candy, Inkscape, and PDF-XChange Editor.
Create an Editable PDF File
That ends this guide on how to make a PDF editable and the different ways to do it. We hope you enjoyed learning more about PDF files. We hope this knowledge we shared with you may serve you well in your job and other activities.
Do you want to read further on how to make specific edits to PDF files? We have a post for that as well. Check out our other content for more guides like this.
