I must say, it went quite smoothly. Yay!
My favorite proofreader (AKA my husband) was asking me some questions about how certain things would work for the users of the document such as, "What if they want to change the font?" I said sure they can do that, no problem. That got me thinking though, will people know how easy it is to make changes?
No worries! I'm stepping in to help with an easy overview for working with an editable PDF created by someone other than yourself.
What program do I need to make edits?
You will need to use Adobe Acrobat Reader in order to open the editable PDF. The good news is that it is a free program. You can download the most current version HERE. Note to Mac users, the 'Preview' feature that opens by default is not the same as the Adobe Reader.How does it work?
When an author creates an editable PDF, they are allowing you to change one or more portions of their document. They get to decide what is editable. It could be the whole document, certain sections or even just a signature box.When you open the file in Acrobat Reader, you will see blue boxes wherever an editable field has been placed. To make text changes, just click in the box and type your own content. In the example shown below, starter text and suggestions were typed in by the document author (me!). That text can simply be deleted by the user once they are ready to type in their own words.
In addition to typing your own words you might be able to change the text attributes. If the author of the file has allowed it, you can access a Properties Bar to change things such as the font type, size, color, etc. To access the Properties Bar, click in an editable text field. Then, right click in an empty space on the menu bar above. A box will pop-up. As shown in the example below, you should select Show Properties Bar.
Once the Properties Bar is accessible, highlight the text that you would like to change. Then click on the feature on the Properties Bar to apply it to that highlighted text. Take a look at some attributes below that can be edited using the Properties Bar.
Easy-peasy, right!? If you are curious about the document used in the examples, it is my Substitute Survival Guide Flipbook.
Happy Teaching!
