# Adobe Question for the Gifted and Talented SDMB Guru's! **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 31, 2003, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adobe-question-for-the-gifted-and-talented-sdmb-gurus/192167 "2003-07-31T17:05:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Phlosphr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c68b51/32.png) [@Phlosphr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Phlosphr)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2003, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adobe-question-for-the-gifted-and-talented-sdmb-gurus/192167/1 "2003-07-31T17:05:11Z")
I have a file in Adobe Acrobat 5.0 It has a brown background. How do I change it to white? Or can I convert it to a word Doc. somehow? Thank you all! You guys ROCK!! BYW. **Astro** - the monitor looks fantastic!!! ---
**Author:** ![Phlosphr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c68b51/32.png) [@Phlosphr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Phlosphr)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2003, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adobe-question-for-the-gifted-and-talented-sdmb-gurus/192167/2 "2003-07-31T18:01:04Z")
pleeeeze!!! ---
**Author:** ![Waverly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/57b2e6/32.png) [@Waverly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waverly)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2003, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adobe-question-for-the-gifted-and-talented-sdmb-gurus/192167/3 "2003-07-31T18:05:25Z")
You are missing a bit of information here. If you just have Acrobat reader, you can’t do it within Acrobat. Depending upon the protection, you should be able to copy the text, using the text or column select tool, formatting and all to an open Word document. If there are graphics, they require a separate copy and paste (protection permitting) to the Word document using the graphic select tool. If you have the full Acrobat program, it will still depend upon the protection set by the creator, but you can do it directly within the program and resave. ---
**Author:** ![Phlosphr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c68b51/32.png) [@Phlosphr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Phlosphr)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2003, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adobe-question-for-the-gifted-and-talented-sdmb-gurus/192167/4 "2003-07-31T18:24:18Z")
Yes it’s acrobat reader, but I dlo have Adobe photoshop as well if that helps. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2003, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adobe-question-for-the-gifted-and-talented-sdmb-gurus/192167/5 "2003-07-31T18:28:19Z")
The Adobve website has several user forums for their products, including [Acrobat](http://www.adobe.com/support/forums/main.html), if you don’t get an answer here. P.S. The plural of _guru_ is _gurus_. ---
**Author:** ![Waverly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/57b2e6/32.png) [@Waverly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waverly)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2003, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adobe-question-for-the-gifted-and-talented-sdmb-gurus/192167/6 "2003-07-31T21:49:11Z")
Photoshop can’t help with a locked Acrobat file. If you can use the text select tool (it’s one of the buttons under the menu) it’s not locked. If the tool doesn’t work or ‘copy’ is greyed out, you are out of luck. It may be possible to crack, but that is beyond what I know how to do. ---
**Author:** ![paperbackwriter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/53a042/32.png) [@paperbackwriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/paperbackwriter)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2003, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adobe-question-for-the-gifted-and-talented-sdmb-gurus/192167/7 "2003-07-31T21:56:14Z")
Short answer: you can’t do it. Slightly longer answer: Acrobat Reader is not an editing tool, and has no authoring abilities. Whatcha gots there is a document that was created in Framemaker, Pagemaker, Word, or some other tool and exported or converted to the pdf format. The background was set in that other tool, Acrobat just passes that document property along. If the document is not locked, then you can do as **Waverly** suggests and copy-and-paste the text into a Word document. Note, however, that Acrobat 5.0 allowed authors to disable selecting text. Adobe Photoshop is a completely different beast and has no effect on the Reader.