5 Responses

1. PDF Files
   Sharon

   Adobe acrobat uses .pdf files. There is very little software that will allow you to edit them. The reason is that .pdf is upposed to be a universal format which will allow you to create readable files from almost anything.

   If you search the web for pdf format you will see the available software advertised. Good luck!

   Regards,
   Nick tt4t

2. Editing pdfs
   Hi Sharon
   Pdfs are universally-readable files generated from content created by applications such as Word, Quark Xpresss, Pagemaker, Illustrator or Freehand.
   Adobe Acrobat (the writing versions – which you have to pay for) is the most common software used to create pdfs, although there are other 3rd party products. The Acrobat pdf Reader (which doesn’t allow you to change anything) is free. The 2 versions of Acrobat writer do allow a certain amount of editing (eg minor text changes, adding bookmarks, links, ToCs and inserting forms that users can fill in & print).
   But to make major changes to the content, you really need to go back to the source file (ie the Word, Quark Xpress etc file) from which the pdf was orginally created. If you don’t have this original, there are various way of exporting the text and graphics from the pdf into a format more suited to content creation.
   If you want any help with this, don’t hesitate to contact us at info@word-smiths.co.uk (or call 01873 857556).

   Jane

3. Couple of options – But beware
   Sharon,

   Neither of the approach’s I describe below maintain the formatting very well, but you can try
   from within Adobe Acrobat Reader (I have 5.1)

   1) File, Export document to Text. So effectively you exported the text to a .txt file which has absoloutly none of the formatting information and you can go and get with Word or other WP.

   2) Edit, Select All then Edit, Copy. Now open up word and paste into a new document. This time you’ve copy and pasted to a new document and some of the formatting remains like the bolding and I think font information.

   Some of these may not work as there also seems to be a number of security options that the originator of the document can set which look like they could inhhibit the options available to you.

   Just a friendly word of warning though.

   Ahead of doing this I think you need to be concerned with Copyright and other legal issues. The question I think I would be asking is why is this document in this form and why would the originator not let me have the original so I can edit it if I asked them.

   The answers to these questions may mean you’re OK, but I think they are worth asking just to help keep you on the right side.

   Regards,

4. I’ve just found this.
   Sharon,

   By chance I’ve just found this little product for around £40

   http://www.scansoft.co.uk/marketplace/pdfconverter/

   Don’t know how well it works or if at all, but may be worth a look.

5. Solid PDF Converter
   There is a program called Solid PDF Converter on the February 2004 PC Plus computer magazine cover DVD that converts pdf files into Microsoft Word documents.