Can I edit text in a PDF using Preview in MacOS?

TidBITS Talk
1

Here’s the situation. I have a PDF file that I generated from PowerPoint in my Dropbox folder. I’ve already distributed the Dropbox link via a newsletter. But I want to change one small part of the text.

I don’t want to resave it from PowerPoint as a PDF because if use the replacement file to overwrite the current PDF it changes the Dropbox link I shared.

If I open it in Preview, I can select the text, but I can’t edit it because Preview doesn’t seem to have that ability, like a paid app which I don’t have.

Is there an easy solution for this?

Thanks.

2

Mr. Lerner, tricky situation indeed!
First thing that pops to mind would be to overlay the to-be-changed text with a text box with a background color matching the document background and matching font and save.
Operationally a tad tricky too, if some folks have downloaded the first pdf already, they won’t get the change but maybe that’s no big deal. Or you could mark the pdf as changed/version 2 etc.
I used to get manual updates at work that had black lines on side margins where something was changed and if I recall right in the footer was a date/version number.
For this, maybe you could simply make the replacement text a slightly different color or bold etc. Or maybe not that important!

3

Have you tried using the Dropbox web interface? I don’t know if this still applies:

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4

I had been thinking of trying that, but I see there is a followup suggestion. Thanks.

5

Thank you! I thought I remembered seeing that somewhere. I just tried it and it worked right away. And the version in my Finder also synced with the version replaced via the web. And I confirmed that the link I sent everybody still worked and showed the correction.

A great point to remember!

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