# Adobe Acrobat question **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 16, 2000, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adobe-acrobat-question/45828 "2000-12-16T00:31:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![chief](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/df788c/32.png) [@chief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chief)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2000, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adobe-acrobat-question/45828/1 "2000-12-16T00:31:29Z")
I need to edit a small part of text on an adobe acrobat file. is there any way to do this? ---
**Author:** ![Rhythmdvl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/85f322/32.png) [@Rhythmdvl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhythmdvl)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2000, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adobe-acrobat-question/45828/2 "2000-12-16T00:40:13Z")
Yes, but you need Adobe’s software to do it. Reader is free, and allows people to distribute PDFs across machines with reckless abandon. Adobe makes some of their money by selling such things as Adobe Distiller, Acrobat Writer, etc. You need one of those to write to / edit a PDF file. (This actually comes in handy if you want to distribute a document to a group of folks, but don’t necessarily want them making changes. We send things to our Adobe Writer-less clients that way quite frequently. Leaves us in control of the document.) Go to [http://www.adobe.com](http://www.adobe.com) for more details as to the right software. I don’t know offhand if there is any third party software that can do the trick for you. Good luck! ---
**Author:** ![Saltire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saltire/32/553_2.png) [@Saltire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saltire)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2000, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adobe-acrobat-question/45828/3 "2000-12-16T00:44:18Z")
You can also do some editing using Adobe’s Illustrator drawing program. Just open the PDF as if it were a native Illustrator file (In other words, don’t use the Place command. If you do, it won’t be editable.) Then, save out as a new PDF. If you already have Illustrator, try it out. If not, go for the full version of Acrobat. It can do a lot more with your PDF’s than just correct typos (though it will, of course, do that). ---
**Author:** ![SmackFu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/53a042/32.png) [@SmackFu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmackFu)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2000, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adobe-acrobat-question/45828/4 "2000-12-16T01:15:18Z")
It should probably be pointed out that Acrobat costs around $230 (Illustrator is twice that). Unfortunately there is no other good way to do it. ---
**Author:** ![rjk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ed655f/32.png) [@rjk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjk)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2000, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adobe-acrobat-question/45828/5 "2000-12-16T03:09:03Z")
Adobe Distiller isn’t quite the only way to make PDF files. See [http://www.ctrlp.com/](http://www.ctrlp.com/) for a free alternative. (You have to register.) I hear that the files are larger than Adobe’s, but they apparently work. Getting the text out to modify it is harder. ---
**Author:** ![handy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5a626/32.png) [@handy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handy)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2000, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adobe-acrobat-question/45828/6 "2000-12-16T16:51:56Z")
Or you could ask someone on the board to modify it for you. You can easily get the text out free & fast using the Adobe Access web site, or PDFtoHTML, which has a free site you can upload it & it converts it into html & emails it back to you. ---
**Author:** ![SmackFu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/53a042/32.png) [@SmackFu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmackFu)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2000, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adobe-acrobat-question/45828/7 "2000-12-16T17:54:17Z")
Damn! You’re smart, handy. That’s definitely the best way.