Is there a way I can clean a PDF document (which is not locked) with the use of an eraser tool. I have Adobe Professional (with writer), and need to remove marks and hand written commentary from a scanned PDF file. Obviously this type of document cannot be opened in paintbrush etc to do what I require.
Also is there a way to write onto a scanned PDF like the equiv of using text box in MS Word i.e. use selection tool to drag a box anywhere on the page and simply insert text?
Thanks.
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I dont want to OCR the document nor add text in the way you describe.
Imagine an image file (the pdf) with smudge marks on it, and you want to remove the smudge marks using an eraser feature or to white it out. That's what I'm trying to achieve in addition to wanting to add some text (imagine using a text box to place anywhere on an image).
Thx.
Your not really going to be able to clean up the document using Acrobat on the scanned document. However, to get around this in the past I have used the form tools to put "objects" or text over the text that I am trying to modify.
First, make sure you have Acrobat 7.x or better, 8.x.
Click on "Tools" then "Forms" and show the toolbar. This will allow you to add text objects as well as form fields. Be sure to set the background of the objects to white to clear out the text underneath (right click, properties).
Here is the solution to your problem. I only have Acrobat 5, but I presume that version 6 has the same facilities.
1. Open the file in Acrobat 6.
2. Select "File - Save As"
3. In the "Save as Type" box - select "TIFF files"
4. Click on the "Settings" button - and enter the details as appropriate for the type of page you have. For instance, if its black text on white paper, set "Colorspace" to "Monochrome". Set resolution to 300dpi - unless it has very fine details on the page, in which case you may need 600dpi (find out by experiment). The compression doesn't really matter unless you are short on disk space - you aren't going to keep these files for long. Click "OK".
5. Enter a file name which will be part of a file sequence. E.g. I use "pg_" - and as Acrobat saves each page it will call the first page "pg_1.tif", the second "pg_2.tif" and so on. Choose something meaningful to yourself. Choose a suitable location to save the files. Then click "Save" and sit back and wait for Acrobat to process all your pages.
6. Once you have all your page files, open each one in a graphics editor. It doesn't need to be anything fancy - certainly not Photoshop if you have black and white pages (as Photoshop can't handle b/w images). All you need is a program with an eraser tool. MS Photo Editor will do it - you select an area and hit "Ctrl-X" - and your smudge disappears. Abbyy Finereader has a very nice eraser tool if you happen to have that program. "The Gimp" is freeware you can download off the web - that has an eraser tool. You probably have software lurking on your PC that's never been used - and just needs exploring. Anyway - you erase the marks etc, and resave the file - same file name. Just work through each page in turn.
7. When you have done all that, you just stuff the files back into Acrobat one page at a time. Just drop page 1 into an Acrobat window, then page 2, etc. You need to make sure each page is appended to the end so you get the right page order. There are faster ways of doing it - but this way is dead simple to understand.
8. When you have your cleaned document on screen - just save the file as a new PDF - and your done.
best regards
Richard
Business Accounts
Answer for Membership
by: tbkconsultingPosted on 2007-10-24 at 02:27:36ID: 20137327
I believe all you need to do is run OCR onto the documents and then Acrobat should allow you to edit the documents and add text to them ...