How to Edit With Adobe Acrobat

The Portable Document Format (PDF), a popular computer file format used to store documents containing text and graphics, was first developed in 1993 by the Adobe company. PDF files are "portable" in that they retain their typesetting and overall appearance across different software tools and operating systems, and when printed. Adobe Acrobat was first released in 1993 as well, and is still the company's principal tool for PDF creation and editing.

• 1

  Launch Adobe Acrobat from your Start Menu or Desktop. To open a file for editing, click the manila folder icon near the top left corner of the window (or choose "Open..." from the "File" menu), then find and choose a PDF file you would like to edit and click "Open". Alternately, you can start a new PDF from scratch by selecting the "From Blank Page" command in the "Create PDF" submenu of the "File" menu.

• 2

  Use the Select, Hand, and Marquee Zoom tools to navigate through and select parts of the document. These tools appear by default in the middle of the window near the top, but if they are not visible, access the "Toolbars" submenu of the "View" menu, then check the "Select & Zoom" item to reveal them. The Select tool is used to select objects and text in the document. The Hand tool can be click-dragged in any direction to pan your view of the document, and the Marquee Zoom tool will zoom your view of the document in with a click, or out with "Ctrl"-click. You can edit the main text of the document by selecting it with the Select tool and typing, just as with most graphical word processors.

• 3

  Use the typesetting tools in the "New Document" toolbar to write the principal text that fills the body of the document if you're starting a PDF from scratch. This toolbar appears by default just above the main viewing area. All of the tools commonly found in word processors are here, allowing you to specify the font, size, style, and alignment of the type.

• 4

  Activate the "Comment & Markup" toolbar in the "Toolbars" submenu of the "View" menu to reveal tools for adding text and graphics objects to the PDF. Also activate the "Properties Bar" in the same menu, or press "Ctrl"-E to customize the appearance of these objects. Use the various "Comment & Markup" tools to add text areas, geometric shapes, comments, and freehand drawings to the document. As each of these tools is selected from the "Comment & Markup" toolbar, its parameters appear in the "Properties Bar" toolbar. For example, the Rectangle tool has parameters for the fill color, line color, line style, line thickness, and opacity. You can click and drag in the document view to create a rectangle. The other tools also work by clicking and/or dragging, either in an arbitrary area of the document or to select some text, as with the Highlight Text tool.

• 5

  Select and manipulate objects you've created, using the Select Object tool, accessible in the "Advanced Editing" submenu of the "Tools" menu. Once an object is selected, you can click and drag with this tool to move the object around, and drag the handles around the boundary of the selection box to resize the object. You can select multiple objects by dragging a box around them with this tool, or by "Ctrl"-clicking multiple objects. Access and adjust the properties of a selected object by double-clicking it with this tool. Double-click on the text in a text box to edit it. Remove selected objects by pressing Delete.

• 6

  Add multimedia content, like audio, video or Adobe Flash files to your document, using the respective tools in the "Multimedia" submenu of the "Tools" menu. These tools work like the "Comment & Markup" tools, by clicking and dragging in the document to create objects. A dialog will allow you to specify the external media used with the object as you create it. Multimedia objects created with these tools can be moved and manipulated using the Select Object tool as described in Step 5.

• 7

  Save the PDF file with your edits by clicking the grey floppy disk button in the toolbar near the top left corner of the window, choosing "Save" from the "File" menu, or pressing "Ctrl"-S. If you've created this file from scratch, you will be prompted to specify a name and location for it the first time you save it.