How to Edit Existing Text in PDF for Free

Editing existing text in a PDF is a lifesaver when you spot a typo, need to update info, or just want to say it better.

On this page, you’ll learn some free and effective ways to edit existing text in PDF like you would in Microsoft Word.

Edit PDF Text in the Same Font for Free

PDFgear is a free and powerful PDF editor for you to change, delete, and format text in PDFs for free. 

It allows you to preserve the original document formatting and layout when modifying PDF text, make it unique among PDF editors.

Video Tutorial

PDFgear workson Windows and Mac, now get it to get started!

Step 1. Download and install PDFgear on your computer. Launch PDFgear, and click Open File to select the PDF file you want to edit.

Step 2. Go to the Edit toolbox and select the Edit Text option from there, and you’ll be led to the text editing window.

Step 3. Select and edit the text in the PDF, and the original text font and styles will preserved while doing so.

Step 4. Select text and click the font type, font color, and font size options to format the text.

Step 5. Use Enter on the keyboard to start a new line and type in text in the same font.

Once done editing, click Exit editing to confirm the changes.

Step 6. Lastly, click the top-left Save as button to save the PDF with edited text.

Edit Existing Text in PDF on Mobile

If you intend to edit existing text in PDF on mobile phones or tablets, PDFgear offers a dedicated app for that.

PDFgear mobile app allows you to edit and format text in PDF on iPhone and Androoid in a precise way, with minumum fat-fingering, unlike many many other online services.

Now get PDFgear app from Apple Store or Google Play.

Step 1. Open PDFgear app on your mobile, tap the lower right Plus icon to add the PDF to PDFgear, then tap on it to open it.

Step 2. Tap Edit in the top-right corner.

Step 3. Tap the top Annotate button and switch to the Edit Text mode.

Step 4. Tap on the block of text that you intend to edit, and tap Edit in the pop-up window.

Step 5. Once done, tap the top-left < button and tap Save.

Step 6. Lastly, tap the triple dots button in the top-right corner to save the modified PDF.

Edit Existing Text in PDF in Microsoft Word

Microsoft Word is a word processing application that is part of the Microsoft Office suite, it has a native PDF to Word converter feature for you to edit PDF in Word.

If you already have activated Microsoft Word on your computer, this method allows you to edit existing text in PDF without additional software installation.

The only drawback is that there might be potential text formatting issues. However, you can use PDFgear to convert PDF to Word without losing formatting.

Step 1. Open Microsoft Word program, go to File > Open > Browse, and select the PDF from your device.

Step 2. Click OK to allow Microsoft Word to convert your PDF to an editable format.

Step 3. Click Edit Anyway above to enable text editing.

Step 4. Edit and format text as you would. There are also options in Word to add and edit images.

Step 5. Once done editing, go to File > Save as > Browse. Select save as type as .pdf, and click Save to save it back to PDF format.

Edit Existing Text in PDF with Adobe Acrobat

Adobe Acrobat empowers users to modify existing text, including deletion, editing, text size adjustments, and even image edits, much like a word processing document.

Note that the text editing features requires the premium plan Adobe Acrobat Pro, and it’s not available in Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Step 1. Launch Adobe Acrobat on your computer and open the PDF file you wish to edit. Alternatively, right-click on the PDF file and select “Open with Adobe Acrobat.”

Step 2. Click on the “Edit PDF” tool located in the toolbar. Highlight the text you intend to change by clicking and dragging your mouse to select the desired text.

Step 3. Once the text is selected, you can make changes directly within the text box. You have the flexibility to delete, add, or modify the text as needed.

Additionally, you can adjust text size, font, and formatting using the text editing tools provided in Adobe Acrobat. After making your edits, save the PDF document.

FAQs

Why are you still unable to edit the text in your PDF?

There may be three reasons to consider:

1. Scanned PDF or Image-Based PDF. These types of PDFs cannot be edited directly. Though expensive, you can use Adobe Acrobat to edit them directly without converting. Alternatively, you can use PDFgear to convert PDFs to editable Word documents and then make your edits.

2. Read-Only PDF: If the PDF. is set to read-only, you will need to ask the owner to remove the restrictions or save a copy of the PDF and then edit that copy.

3. Password-protected PDF. You need to enter the correct password to unlock and edit the PDF.

Can I edit PDF text on Mac using Preview?

No, you can’t. The Preview app on Mac doesn’t offer a text editing feature. As a workaround, you can add additional text to a PDF using text boxes in Preview.

Can I change the font and text color while editing a PDF?

Absolutely yes! PDFgear offers all these powerful features for everyone. You can change text colors, fonts, sizes, and locations, make text bold or italic, and much more.

How can I tell if my PDF is scanned or editable?

Try selecting the text with your mouse. If you can’t highlight individual words or letters, it’s probably a scanned image. You’ll need OCR to make it editable.

Is it possible to edit all text at once in a PDF, like find and replace?

PDFgear allows you to find text in PDF at once, but not edit them. It’s often necessary to edit manually, page by page.