Transfer info from PDF doc to Appleworks

[oolala]

Hi,

I've created a Will using an online kit. The final version is in PDF format. I can't print it out as is, because I want to edit out one line and since I cannot do the editing directly in the PDF I have to cleanly copy/paste transfer the PDF version onto a new document like Appleworks 6, where I can delete that line. Is there any way to do this? I've spent a long time experimenting with this and it's just not happening. I don't want to lose the exact format from the PDF version, because then I'd have to typeset my new appleworks or text edit doc from scratch.

Can it be done? If so, exactly how. Please explain it to me like I'm six.

Thanks.

I'm on Mac OS 10.5.8

 

[joshjohnson]

Hi,

I've created a Will using an online kit. The final version is in PDF format. I can't print it out as is, because I want to edit out one line and since I cannot do the editing directly in the PDF I have to cleanly copy/paste transfer the PDF version onto a new document like Appleworks 6, where I can delete that line. Is there any way to do this? I've spent a long time experimenting with this and it's just not happening. I don't want to lose the exact format from the PDF version, because then I'd have to typeset my new appleworks or text edit doc from scratch.

Can it be done? If so, exactly how. Please explain it to me like I'm six.

Thanks.

I'm on Mac OS 10.5.8

Editing a PDF the way you want is extremely difficult without Adobe Acrobat, which is worth as much cash as Final Cut Pro X, or more. If it's at all possible, i'd just re-create the original document from scratch, using whatever software or website you originally used, but here goes:

It depends on the PDF, but they are inherently hard/impossible to edit. Try opening the PDF in Preview, click the selection tool in the toolbar, drag the mouse across the entire PDF, starting from the upper left, and ending in the lower right of the last page, being sure the whole thing highlights with whatever selection color you have. Choose edit menu>copy then try opening Pages or Microsoft Word and setup a new document, then choose edit>paste.

If you don't own either Pages or Word, you can try Appleworks. Appleworks is really old and creaky now and may have many issues pereserving or even rendering any formatting, be sure you're running the latest version. Link to the last appleworks update: http://support.apple.com/downloads/AppleWorks_6_2_9_for_Mac

If you find Appleworks is not rendering the PDF pasted text as you desire, or the pasted text has no formatting, or there's nothing happening or the Paste menu command is greyed out, you can always have Preview export the PDF as a JPEG or TIFF, (tiff is a less compressed version, but less compatable with appleworks possibly)and then use the "whiteout" approach: if you own an image editor like adobe photoshop or photoshop elements open the new jpeg or tiff in photoshop then use a white opaque brush to paint out the line you don't want, or open the JPEG or TIFF in Appleworks drawing make a new document, import the image of your PDF, make sure it shows up correctly (it's centered on the page, etc.) then make a new text object over the part you wish to edit or turn blank, match the font using the font menu if you want to type something else there (all the fonts on your system have a preview of what they look like as their name in the font menu) and type your edit. Be sure the opacity of the new text object is 100% so you can't see what's behind it, and that the text matches the typography of the rest of the document if you typed anything besides the spacebar. I think Appleworks can do this, but i haven't done anything in it in years and i can't recall the exact sequence of commands AND i'm in bootcamp Win Vista for a game

Also, online help is your friend, you can try googling for tips, but i'd almost use the Help menu or the wayback machine at www.archive.org and look for the appleworks user group, apple's support pages, and other such things.

Sorry for the long post.

 

[kakamobson]

This app is a highly accurate and easy to use OCR software. You need choose a language and then drag an image into the left window. Finally, the text result will be shown on the right window and you can edit or save it as a document.
it supports many languages: English, French, Chinese Simplified, Chinese Traditional, Dutch, Spanish, Indonesian, Italian, Greek, Portuguese, German, turkish,Serbian, Russian, Japanese, Korea, Slovenian,Romanian,Hungarian,Finnish,Bulgarian, Polish, Swedish and so on.
it supports many image formats: png, tif, jpg, bmp, pdf and so on. Tif may be have the best quality.


http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ocr/id424608147?mt=12#

 

[oolala]

Hi again Josh,

I actually have Adobe Acrobat 7.0 Professional but I've no idea how to use it. Once I open up the PDF within Acrobat what exactly do I do? Can I accurately edit from there?

I did discover that the PDF document uses font Nimbus SanL - Reg and SanL - Bold. I don't have these fonts. Is having them a must before I continue this project?

 

[joshjohnson]

Hi again Josh,

I actually have Adobe Acrobat 7.0 Professional but I've no idea how to use it. Once I open up the PDF within Acrobat what exactly do I do? Can I accurately edit from there?

I did discover that the PDF document uses font Nimbus SanL - Reg and SanL - Bold. I don't have these fonts. Is having them a must before I continue this project?

Having the fonts is only needed if you need to amend the PDF with additional text I think. I have no experience with Acrobat, and really only kinda know of it as a magical program by Adobe that can do wonderus things with PDFs , you might try emailing some guru or googling a user group, it's not like nobody uses Acrobat, kinda like Photoshop, it's a standard.

 

[oolala]

Hi Josh,

I'll learn about Acrobat, but in the meantime can you coach me a bit more about editing in Pages? I opened the PDF, selected and copied it as you suggested and pasted it into Pages. I was delighted to see that it remained formatted. Yesterday I put it into CS2 Illustrator and because I didn't have the fonts loaded it shifted things. But with Pages it did not change anything. So far so good. However, I've been playing with the program but I'm not getting anywhere.

How do I delete a line at the end of a paragraph, for instance? The type has come in as one box object with a light blue bounding box and several blue and black squares around the box.

Now what?

 

[joshjohnson]

Hi Josh,

I'll learn about Acrobat, but in the meantime can you coach me a bit more about editing in Pages? I opened the PDF, selected and copied it as you suggested and pasted it into Pages. I was delighted to see that it remained formatted. Yesterday I put it into CS2 Illustrator and because I didn't have the fonts loaded it shifted things. But with Pages it did not change anything. So far so good. However, I've been playing with the program but I'm not getting anywhere.

How do I delete a line at the end of a paragraph, for instance? The type has come in as one box object with a light blue bounding box and several blue and black squares around the box.

Now what?

Congratulations, you sucessfully pasted a PDF in to a Pages document. The trouble, it sounds like, is Pages is treating it like a PDF object, meaning it's just as if you printed the PDF out, cut out the text, and taped it onto a new piece of paper, making it just as editable as my metaphor.
Using Page Layout view, after centering and sizing the PDF using the "little boxes", create a new text object and drag it to be over the line you want to "delete", hit the spacebar over the text, then go to format>font>show fonts, and change the document color to white, draging the opacity slider a bit to make the effect stick, the icon looks like a page with the corner turned. This will have the same effect as using white-out on a real life document.
Further editing requires the font used in the PDF, as it won't look right otherwise, or you can try matching fonts using the same fonts toolbox, it shows a prieview of the fonts on your system as you click through each one.
Be sure you magnify the section of the document you're working on using the view menu to be sure you're not overwriting the part you want to keep using the font size controls to regulate how big or small the "whiteout" is.

This is not editing the original, as it will remain intact under your work, really just obscuring the text by putting something over the top of it. it's hardly ideal and may need some work to match things up, but worth the time if you can't re-create the PDF original.

I have Pages '08 so 09 might have better tools, or differing names but the fonts toolbox should be the same as it's provided by OS X.

 

[joshjohnson]

I run Mac OS 10.6.7 so a few things might be different, but I don't see much being too different till Lion.

 

[MisterMe]

Hi again Josh,

I actually have Adobe Acrobat 7.0 Professional but I've no idea how to use it. Once I open up the PDF within Acrobat what exactly do I do? Can I accurately edit from there?

I did discover that the PDF document uses font Nimbus SanL - Reg and SanL - Bold. I don't have these fonts. Is having them a must before I continue this project?

Adobe Acrobat 7.0 Professional is old, but it will do the job. AppleWorks 6 is even older and will not do the job. My suggestion to you to forget about the other stuff, launch Acrobat Pro, and learn to use it.

 

[oolala]

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[joshjohnson]

Your best bet is to google the font's exact name then and use Acrobat. there are numerous places that you can buy fonts from, but i don't know of any, sorry. As for Pages, make sure you are not letting it wrap the text around the PDF, there's a setting somewhere that, when toggled, will let you type over the pictures instead of having the text flow around them. I am afraid i don't know what the setting or switch in Pages is, if it has one.

You always can use Photoshop to literally paint over the line you want to erase. Make the PDF the background, then make a new transparent layer and paint in it, being sure the brush itself is 100% opaque. The new layer will preserve the original PDF as-is in case you make a mistake because you can delete the brush layer and start again.I think Appleworks paint will let you draw any way you like, but it has no layers and is a destructive edit if done there.