This guide will teach you how to type on a PDF or edit a PDF document.
PDF stands for “Portable Document Format”, and it is basically a file format created to help share documents across different platforms.
This file format is designed so that any given document looks identical regardless of the operating system and other software used to display or print it. This is the reason why PDFs are not editable.
Because the editing capabilities of PDF files are turned off, it can be a hassle when you want to edit or type on such a document
Sure, you can always print the PDF and fill it or edit it manually, but doesn’t that defeat the whole purpose of an electronic document?
There are several solutions you can use to edit or type on any PDF document.
Let’s explore these solutions below.
Table of Contents
One of the easiest ways to type on a PDF is to use Microsoft Word.
And the idea is to first convert the PDF document into a Microsoft Word document, edit all you want, and then convert it back to PDF again.
The screenshot below shows a certificate in a PDF document which we’ll be editing and typing on it a different name.
The steps below will show you all the instructions.
To open a PDF in MS Word, first open your Microsoft Word Document, press Ctrl+O shortcut on your keyboard and browse for the PDF you want to edit.
Once you attempt to open the PDF file inside Microsoft Word, you may get a pop-up message that says something like this:
Word will now convert your PDF to an editable Word document. This may take a while. The resulting Word document will be optimized to allow you to edit the text, so it might not look exactly like the original PDF, especially if the original file contained lots of graphics.
All you need to do here is click on the OK button to convert the PDF file into a Microsoft Word document.
Now that you have a fully editable document, make all the necessary edits you want.
If the PDF file is one you’ve created yourself in Word or another program, it opens immediately and is ready for editing.
Word differently treats PDFs that are downloaded from the Web, received as an email attachment, or opened from a potentially unsafe medium location. In such cases, the converted PDF file will initially open in a Protected View.
You just need to click the Enable Editing button to be able to edit the document. Word may pop up another message about converting the file. Click on OK.
In this example, we just want to change the name on the certificate as seen in the screenshot below.
After you’ve edited and typed on the content, simply convert the Word document back to a PDF document.
This step too is as easy as saving a file, but not quite as fast.
To save Word document as PDF, go to the File tab, then Export, and click on Create a PDF/XPS. Specify the location you want the PDF and save it there.
Alternatively, go to the File tab, then Save as/Save a copy, and select PDF or XPS document in the Save as type drop-down list.
You can open the edited PDF file to see how it looks after the changes you’ve made.
If you are a Mac user you can type on any PDF using the Preview App that comes bundled with the Mac Operating System. There’s a lot of great features in the Preview app to help you work with PDFs.
Obey the following instructions.
Simply double-clicking on the PDF should automatically open it in Preview. However, if you have installed another PDF viewer, you need to manually open the PDF in the Preview App.
On your Mac PC, locate the PDF file and right-click on it. Then select Open with > Preview.
This icon looks like a marker inside a circle located in the top toolbar of the preview window.
Find this icon and click on it.
When you click on the Markup icon another toolbar will appear that has the Text icon. It looks like a letter T inside a box.
Navigate to the PDF page where you want to type on, then click on this Text icon to display a textbox on the page.
Alternatively, in the Preview menu, select Tools > Annotate > Text.
This should create up the textbox in the middle of the page.
You can move this textbox by dragging and dropping it anywhere on the page. It’s also possible to resize it so that it fit the layout of the PDF.
Once you are happy with the textbox placement, you can start to type in the text box inside the PDF.
Once you are done typing on the PDF, you can make changes to the font, size, or color of the text.
To do so, simply click on the slanted “A” or “Aa” icon at the far right of the options in the toolbar.
You should see a small formatting box that you can use to change the font such as the font style, font size, justification, italic, bold, or underline.
In this section, I want to show you how to type on a PDF in your web browser for free.
And so far, our favorite online PDF editor is the Sedjda editor.
This online PDF editor is cool because it doesn’t require any installation at all and its free version gives you pretty much everything you need to type on a PDF.
Sejda PDF is a freemium service which means that they have some additional functionality you can get with the premium version.
But the free version is pretty good.
However, there are a few limitations with the free version which is that you can only type on PDF files that has up to 200 pages or 50MB and 3 tasks per hour.
For most needs, this is more than enough and that’s why we recommend this service.
Obey the following instructions to type on a PDF using the Sejda editor.
Since the tool is completely online you do not need to download and install anything.
Simply go to the tool’s website which is Sedjda.com.
Once you visit the website, you’ll see right away, a button that says “Upload PDF file”.
Click on this button to browse and open the file or simply click and drag the file and drop it onto the Sejda website.
Immediately you open your PDF file, the tool will straight away convert it into an editable document on which you can type and edit all you want.
Simply click on the text you want to edit, and it’ll allow you to do so.
You can also click on an empty space to insert custom text where you can add your own text.
There are other cool things you can do with Sejda PDF editor which include changing fonts, adding links, adding images, adding new form fields, adding signatures, erasing non-editable elements, adding shapes, and a Find & Replace functionality.
Thus, Sejda has a lot of richness above and beyond just typing on a PDF.
After you are through with typing on the PDF and making any other edits you want, click on the Apply Changes button.
On clicking on this button, the tool will give you the option to download the edited file as a PDF file.
And these are the 3 simple steps you may take to type on a PDF.
In this section, I want to show you another way to type on a PDF using LibreOffice.
There’s a PDF tool called LibreOffice Draw built into this suit that allows you to open and type on a PDF.
If you don’t already have LibreOffice, simply click here to download it on their homepage.
The one downside of this method is that it requires you to download an entire Office suite which includes apps like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.
Once you are done installing the tool, go to your start menu and search for LibreOffice draw to fire up the drawing app, and then obey the following instructions.
First, you need to open the PDF file in the LibreOffice draw app.
In the File menu, click on Open and navigate to where you have the file on your computer and then open it from there.
Once you open the PDF, it’ll straight-away convert into an editable document allowing you to edit type your own text on the PDF.
With LibreOffice Draw, you can also do more than just edit text. It gives you full control of the PDF and you can do anything to it including typing in your own text, inserting images and shapes, adding links, highlighting objects, and many more.
Once you are done making all the changes you want to the file, you can then export it back into a PDF.
To do so, simply go to the File tab and select Export As > Export as PDF.
This will fire up the export PDF options. The defaults settings will most likely look good, so just go ahead and click Export. Give your file a name and save it into the location of your choice.
Adobe Acrobat Pro is your best bet for anything to do with PDFs, scanned or not.
This solution’s only drawback is the cost. If it weren’t for the price, it would be the best choice for PDF-related tasks.
It includes everything you’ll need to work with PDF files. Any scanned pdf document can be created, edited, and text can be extracted, typed, or copied without wasting a lot of time.
If you don’t already have Adobe Acrobat DC Pro on your computer, you can try it out for free here. For the first seven days, it’s completely free.
If you’re still here, you’ve probably already finished downloading and installing the application. Or perhaps it’s already on your computer.
To edit and type on your pdf, simply follow the steps outlined below.
Additionally, you have the option of saving the file in Microsoft Word. You’ll be able to make changes to the pdf’s content right from within Word this way.
Everyone knows we used to rely heavily on computers back in the day, and this was especially true for document editing including typing on PDFs.
Nevertheless, in today’s fast-paced world, it’s difficult to get even a minute to figure out what needs to be edited, and when.
Luckily, many PDFs can now be edited from a smartphone or tablet, and you don’t have to spend time sitting down at your computer to do it.
The question now is, how do you edit and type on PDFs on the go using Android or iPhone? We’ll walk you through all the easy solutions if you stick with us through this section.
For mobile devices, OfficeSuite is a great alternative to Microsoft’s Office. Additionally, it includes robust PDF creation tools and is fully compatible with Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.
With this app, you can view and type on PDF documents without any problems, making it one of the best PDF editors for Android!
Besides that, it has several useful features like a chat client, a built-in file manager, and document exchange.
So, whenever you’re in need of an Android PDF editor, just open this tried-and-true app to finish the job in a flash.
You can freely edit and type on your PDF files with Wondershare PDFelement, a powerful yet easy-to-use tool for PDF editing.
If you work with PDFs on a regular basis, this app is a must-have for you. It works on all your devices. This Android and iOS app give you complete control over every PDF document.
When using Wondershare’s PDF editor, it’s as if you were editing a Word document. You can type and add new text to your PDFs, mark them up and annotate them, highlight, strikethrough and underline them, and draw on them, among other things.
Install Xodo PDF editor if you think it’s a lot of work converting a file to an editable format, editing it, and then converting it back to PDF.
This app eliminates the need for a PDF converter by allowing you to edit text directly in the PDF file. It allows you to highlight, annotate, type on, and even doodle on a PDF document.
Not only that, but the app is also a PDF converter and reader with dark themes, among other features.
In addition, it can open multiple tabs at once, which sets it apart from other PDF editors for Android.
Using this app, you can edit PDFs and then sync them with your cloud storage, such as Google Drive or Dropbox.
This Android and iPhone PDF editor app have a ton of features.
You can alter the text’s style, such as the font, indents, and spacing, using this tool. The app not only adds the text seamlessly, but it also aligns it with the rest of the document’s text.
This app is one of the best PDF editors for mobile because of its support for orientation modes, scrolling, brightness, and color adjustments.
As you’ve seen, typing on a PDF document doesn’t have to be a waste of time. Simply employing the appropriate tools will suffice.
We’ve already taken care of everything by providing a comprehensive list of the tools required to easily type on a PDF.
What worked for you? Please share in the comments.
I appreciate you sticking with me through to the end.
