Trying to put text in a PDF

[fustercluck]

Often in the past i've seen lots of PDF files that need to be filled out. Rebates, Job applications, etc. But of course adobe reader won't let you do this (it's called reader and not writer afterall). I've looked at a lot of other options but none of them sound too good. I've done it before by copying and pasting parts of the PDF file into something like photoshop then adding the text myself and saving it, but that's kinda tricky to do (hard to align the pages correctly) and would take a lot of work to do that with a long PDF file.

I wish there was a simple way. If there is, I haven't found it yet.

 

[MrChad]

Adobe's Reader will let you do this if the PDF is specifically built to be form-fillable.

Foxit's PDF Reader lets you annotate any PDF, however. I've never used it, but many forum members recommend it highly.

 

[WolverineGator]

Foxit PDF Reader does the job (for printing out)

 

[shortylickens]

Those rebates and job applications are designed to be printed and filled out. Whoever sent them to you didnt want you editing the original document which is why they used PDF and not something else. They know very few people have Acrobat or Acrobat Pro.

If you absolutely can't print it then I would recommend an annotator like the others have suggested. The problem is, those annotations are still designed to be printed and I dont know of any such program that will overwrite the original file or save the annotations to a seperate file.

The other option is to try letting Word import the file to text but it will likely screw it up, which is exactly what you were trying to avoid. I guess you already discovered that working with PDF in a graphics program is a pain in the butt.

 

[fustercluck]

It seems like companies would want to have forms you can fill out via keyboard, no spelling errors, no hard to read handwriting. Ah well, I'll make due. Thanks anyway.

 

[JW310]

Originally posted by: shortylickens
Those rebates and job applications are designed to be printed and filled out. Whoever sent them to you didnt want you editing the original document which is why they used PDF and not something else. They know very few people have Acrobat or Acrobat Pro.

If you absolutely can't print it then I would recommend an annotator like the others have suggested. The problem is, those annotations are still designed to be printed and I dont know of any such program that will overwrite the original file or save the annotations to a seperate file.

The other option is to try letting Word import the file to text but it will likely screw it up, which is exactly what you were trying to avoid. I guess you already discovered that working with PDF in a graphics program is a pain in the butt.

It's possible to create PDF files that have fillable form fields without allowing the rest of the document to be edited. However, unless things have changed, it's not something that Acrobat automatically does upon creating the PDF file.