How to Edit Text in a PDF Document – PDF-Suite

PDF Suite provides users with a full-text editing experience. You can add new text to your PDFs or edit what’s already on the page. You can then format that text to make sure it fits the look and feel of your document.

In this article you’ll find the following topics explained:

How Text Works in PDFs
Adding Text
Editing Text
Changing Text Font
Text Formatting
Text Annotation (Underline, Highlight & Strikethrough)
Managing Text Boxes
Paragraph Formatting Options

How Text Works in PDFs

Each page of your PDF is an open template. Similar to Microsoft PowerPoint, your PDF will be made up of different elements on each page. These elements include images, form fields, and text boxes.

When a Text Box is added to a page you’ll be able to type into that box like you were using Microsoft Word. Any text you see is found in multiple text boxes that can be placed anywhere on the page.

All text boxes will have a blue border.

You can resize this text box or move it around your document.

Move the mouse cursor to one of the circles on the border, hold down the mouse button, and drag your cursor to resize (or rotate) the text box.
Place the cursor anywhere else on the border to move the text box.

Adding Text

If you want to be able to type on your PDF page, you'll need to first create a new text box. There are 2 ways to go about this.

Switch into Edit Mode.
Then double-click on an empty part of your document.

Open the Edit Tab.
Pick Type Text.
Click into your document.

You'll see a new empty text box on the page. You can start typing and text will appear in the box.

Editing Text

Changing Existing Text

When you receive a PDF that already has text, you can easily make any changes to it. Since any text is inside a text box, you'll need to first access the text box.

Switch into Edit Mode.
Click on any text in your document.

You'll see the outline for the text box appear along with the familiar flashing line signaling where in the paragraph your edits will appear. You can now make any text changes.

Deleting Text

While the text box is open you can easily delete any text.

Hold down the left mouse button and drag your cursor to select text.
Use the Backspace or Delete key to remove the text.

You are also able to delete an entire text box, including all text in that section.

Right-click on the blue border of the text box.
Choose Delete.

Changing Text Font

You can change the font of your text with a few clicks.

Select the text that needs a new font.
- Press and hold the CTRL key and then press the A key to select all the text in a text box at once.
Open the Edit Tab.
Click on the Font Dropdown.
Choose the Font you'd like to use.

The text will update with your new font.

Text Formatting

Bold/Italics

You will be able to bold or italicize any standard font used in PDF Suite. Certain custom fonts are created in a way where you need to choose the bold or italicized version of that font. When you select your text you'll know immediately if bold and italics are available.

If the buttons are still clickable, you can apply bold or italics (some fonts may let you do one and not the other). When the features are grayed out, look for a version a bold or italicized version of your font in your font list.

Select the text you want to Bold or Italicize.
Choose the B to bold.
Choose the I to italicize.

Font Color

Select the text that needs a new color.
Click the color selector.
Choose your new color.

Superscript/Subscript

Select that text that should be set to subscript or superscript.
Choose the left option for Superscript.
The right option will set the text as Subscript.

Horizontal Scaling

This option will let you select the text, and proportionately increase or decrease its size, while maintaining other formatting.

Select the text you want to scale.
Choose an option from the dropdown.
- You can also type a number directly into the box.

Character Spacing

This will let you modify the distance between characters in your document. When set to 0, it will use standard spacing. Positive numbers will increase the spacing and going below zero will decrease the spacing.

Select the text that needs new character spacing.
Choose an option from the dropdown.
- You can also type a number directly into the box.

Text Annotations (Underline, Highlight & Strikethrough)

We separated these typical text formatting options because in the PDF universe features like highlighting text behave differently than in a standard text editor like Microsoft Word.

These features are actually annotations that are placed on top of the text. This means the text doesn't actually change as you underline it, instead an underline element is added to your document.

Underline, Highlight and Strikethrough all behave the same.

Select the text that needs to be annotated.
Choose the feature you want to use.
Select the color you want to use.

You can add a comment to any annotation you've added to your PDF.

You may have noticed that deleting the text you've annotated will not remove the annotation. You'll have to also delete that element.

Right-click on the annotation.
Choose Remove.

Managing Text Boxes

A PDF page is an open template. You can place your text boxes anywhere on that page. You can resize them so they are the perfect fit.

Click on your text box to select it.
Place the mouse cursor over any of the circles on the border, then press the mouse button and drag your mouse to change the text box size.
Place your mouse cursor anywhere else on the border, then press the mouse button and drag the mouse to move your text box around the document.

That should all be pretty familiar. You may come across moments where you have multiple text boxes on the same page. You can merge all these text boxes into a single one if this will make it simpler to manage this text.

Start selecting text and make sure to select text in each text box you want to merge.
Choose Merge Text Blocks.

Merging text boxes will likely throw off your document formatting. You will likely need to resize your text box to make everything fit.

Paragraph Formatting Options

Any paragraph formatting options will only be applied to the text box you are working on.

Text Justification

You can justify the text inside a text box. You can align text to the left, right, and center. You can also pace out your text with the justification option.

Select the text you want to justify.
Choose the alignment option.

Line Spacing

The Line Spacing tool will control the distance above and below lines of text.

Select the text that should be impacted.
Click the dropdown and choose an option (or enter a number manually).

First Line Indent

The first line indent option will replicate the experience of starting a new paragraph, where the first word has a space before it. This feature makes it much easier for users to identify when paragraphs start. You will need to select all paragraphs in a text block to make this change.

Select each paragraph that needs a first-line indent.
Choose an option from the dropdown or type a number into the box.

Space Between Paragraphs

Similar to line spacing, the space between paragraphs feature will let you control the space between the paragraphs in a text box.

Select all the paragraphs in your text box.
Choose an option from the dropdown or type a number into the box.

Bullet Points/Numbered Lists

PDF Suite will let you create bullet points or numbered lists. To prepare your list, you'll need to separate each item into its own paragraph. Make sure to hit the Enter key at end of each entry to your list to start a new paragraph.

You can use the Space Between Paragraphs setting to manage the distance between your bullet point list.

Select each line of text for your list.
Choose the dropdown for bullet points and pick one from the list.

Otherwise, choose the numbered list option and pick the appropriate formatting.