As promised, this post is about editing pdf files.  How many times has someone sent you a pdf file which you have then had to edit it?  Happens to me all the time.  Put simply, you cannot alter a pdf document.  You have to create a new document, copy the text across, make the relevant changes and save it as a pdf again, using one of the methods mentioned in my last post.  This is a step by step guide to this process.

When you open the pdf file it will open in Adobe PDF Reader.  You need to copy the text you want and paste it into your word processing software.  To select the text click on the select button on the tool bar (see image below).  Click and drag over the text you want to select. 

 Alternatively, go to Edit-Select All then use your normal method to copy to the clipboard (e.g. go to the Edit menu and select copy, or use ctrl-c).  A quick way of selecting and copying the text is to go to Edit-Copy file to clipboard.

Go to your word processing programme and paste the text into the document.  Make the desired changes and when done, save your document as a pdf again (see previous post).

Another way to edit pdf files is to use an online pdf converter like this one:  http://www.investintech.com/.  The programme will convert into a range of file formats which you can then edit to your heart's desire.  Note that you will probably lose formatting information whichever method you use. 

Finally, you can use Google Documents, which I have written about before.  Click here to learn how to upload a pdf.  Make sure you tick the box next to 'Convert text from pdf....'

Google will extract the text from the pdf which you can then edit.  When you are ready, you can choose File-Download to export the file to your computer as a pdf.

I have heard about programmes that allow you do edit a pdf directly, but feedback from these has been poor, especially if you are wanting to make substantial changes.

When creating pdfs make sure you keep the original so you can edit it easily without losing your formatting.