Working with text – as comfortably as with a word processor
A PDF file consists of one or more pages. A page can contain text, images, tables and drawings. You can edit all of these elements with FlexiPDF. The first section of this blog article is about the text.
With FlexiPDF you can edit text as if you were using a word processor. After opening a PDF file, select the text editing tool from the toolbar, and you're ready to go!
You can now simply click on existing text and start writing. Enter text, highlight text portions you want to work with, and delete, copy or move them. You can also select an area with the mouse, giving you a new text frame that you can immediately fill with text.
Since plain text is rather boring, FlexiPDF lets you format it as you like. Adding text formatting such as bold and italic is just as easy as changing fonts. The color of each text element can be selected twice: once for the normal fill color, and secondly the color of the outline of the letters.
Change tracking included
If you later want to see what changes you have made to the text, turn on the built-in change-tracking function. This works similar to TextMaker by highlighting text that has been modified or deleted. Activate change tracking with the File > Preferences > Editing command. In the dialog box that appears, place a checkmark in front of "Show changed text in" and select the color in which the changes should appear:
As you will see in the following screenshot, all edited text is automatically marked – here with red:
Text editing across sections and pages
The weakness of some other PDF editors is to offer only individual text blocks or frames for editing, but not the entire body of text as a logical unit.
FlexiPDF, on the other hand, allows you to edit text across paragraphs, columns and pages. You link the paragraphs of existing PDF files together so that they represent a single block of text. This has the advantage that inserting and deleting text does not simply result in longer lines, but the text body is extended or shortened downwards, even over several pages, as you are accustomed to in TextMaker or any other word processor.
Just click the Text link tool:
Then you can select the textboxes to form a contiguous body of text:
This is the same as if you had several linked text frames in TextMaker. Text flows automatically between these frames.
However, you can go a step further: after these steps, select Text > Text Box > Merge Vertically to get a continuous text frame. FlexiPDF adjusts the paragraph spacing between the former text frames so that the layout of the page is not changed.
Integrated spell check
FlexiPDF helps you create PDF documents that are free of spelling and typing errors. To check text for spelling errors, first make sure that you have set the correct language. To do so, select File > Preferences, activate the "Spelling" tab and set the language of the PDF file here:
Then run Edit > Check spelling to perform a spell check.
Comment and highlight
You often work on PDFs in a team, and every colleague has comments to make. To ensure that no important information is lost along the way, you can use FlexiPDF to insert various types of comments and highlights into PDF documents.
Just click one of the icons in the Comment toolbar:
In addition to text comments, various drawings are also available, as well as a text highlighter and stamps, both preset and customized.
Note: If you find that you do not see a certain toolbar, you can use the menu item View > Toolbars to activate it.
Arrange pages
With FlexiPDF, you can easily insert, move and delete pages. This is particularly convenient with the Thumbnails sidebar. To display it, select View > Thumbnails. Here you can now re-order pages with simple drag-and-drop. At the top of the thumbnails, you'll also find buttons to insert, delete, and rotate pages:
Create new PDF documents
FlexiPDF lets you not only edit existing PDFs, but also make new ones. You can create PDF files from any Windows application that has a print function.
Whether it is a web browser, an e-mail program or a business application, just select the "Print" command in the program and pick the "FlexiPDF" printer driver:
This won't create a print-out in the usual sense, but saves the current content into a PDF file that is then opened in FlexiPDF for further viewing and editing.
Images and drawings
With FlexiPDF you can insert, position and edit images and drawings just as easily as in a word processor. Insert new images with the command Object > Picture > Insert and create new drawings with the tools under Tools > Drawing.
If you activate the Drawing toolbar with View > Toolbars, things become even easier: this toolbar offers all drawing tools in one place and shows them permanently.
Tip: If you insert images straight from your mobile phone or digital camera, this often results in unnecessarily large PDF files. In case you want to create small PDFs for posting on the internet, reduce the quality of embedded images to save space. Select Object > Image > Resample to find numerous options to reduce file size.
Search and replace
Any free PDF reader finds text in a PDF file. FlexiPDF can do more, like search for text in a particular font or formatting... or make global replacements in several documents simultaneously... or replace a font with another font instantly.
Under Edit > Find & Replace > Find select "Font" to search only for text locations created with a specific formatting:
If you want to search multiple documents for a particular term, you can find the appropriate options under Edit > Find & Replace > Replace in Files.
It is just as easy to replace fonts. Click Edit > Find & Replace > Replace Font to open a dialog box that allows you to do just that.
Automatic text recognition (OCR)
Would you like to search your scanned documents for content? FlexiPDF Professional makes this possible. The built-in optical character recognition creates one-click searchable and editable PDF files from your documents.
You have two options: either you scan your documents directly into FlexiPDF, or you can open scanned documents and then perform OCR.
Scanning and OCR directly in FlexiPDF
To create documents in FlexiPDF from paper originals so you can search and edit the contents, run the command File > New > From Scanner:
Please make sure to check "Recognize Text (OCR)" and set the desired PDF style.
Text recognition in existing PDF files
If you already have a scanned PDF document that you would like to make searchable and editable, simply open it via File > Open and then run the OCR function, which is located under Document > Recognize Text (OCR).
Forms
With FlexiPDF you can fill both interactive and static forms.
If you have an interactive form, you can edit it using the Hand tool found on the Edit toolbar:
One click, and you can fill out text boxes, select entries from dropdown menus, and activate checkboxes.
FlexiPDF also provides a powerful way to fill in static forms, the Text Plus tool:
This tool automatically recognizes areas that represent input fields and lets you fill them as if you had an interactive form:
This unique feature is especially useful for the many PDF files used by organizations (such as public offices and government agencies) that are actually forms but are not created as PDF forms. Other PDF readers have to pass on this!
Your documents are secure
Protect your PDF files from unauthorized opening, editing, printing and copying of text. With AES encryption, your documents are secure. Under the menu item Document > Security, you will find numerous ways to secure your documents.
If you want to make parts of your document illegible ("blacked out"), FlexiPDF Professional is the right choice for you. To redact text, simply select the desired text areas using the text editing tool and click on "Redact Selected Text" in the Redact toolbar:
You can also redact images with the button to the right.
Please note: Once you have saved the final version of your document, these redacted areas can no longer be restored. You can pass on such a file without hesitation to third parties. Nobody will be able to reveal the redacted content.
Thank you!
We hope you have enjoyed our walkthrough of FlexiPDF. You can test FlexiPDF before you buy – download a free trial today here.
Enjoy using FlexiPDF!
