Adobe Acrobat

Acrobat isn’t where most documents are made, but it’s where most PDF problems get fixed. If you already have a PDF that won’t upload, is too big, or is a scan, this is the page.

Menu names below are from the current Acrobat desktop app. On Windows the main menu is called Menu; on a Mac it’s File. Some of these tools depend on which Acrobat plan you have.

Remove a password or restrictions

A PDF that needs a password to open, or forbids copying its content, can’t be converted. Preparing your file explains the two error messages.

1. Open the PDF (you’ll need the password).
2. All tools → Protect a PDF → Set security properties.
3. On the Security tab, click Change Settings.
4. Untick Require a password to open the document and Restrict editing and printing of the document.
5. Enter the permissions password if asked, click OK, and save.

If it’s someone else’s document, ask them for an unprotected copy rather than removing it yourself.

Make the file smaller

Two options, from simplest to most control:

• Reduced size PDF: Menu / File → Save as Other → Reduced size PDF. One click, and usually enough.
• Optimized PDF: Menu / File → Save as Other → Optimized PDF. Lets you set image downsampling and compression yourself, and discard things a screen doesn’t need. Around 150 ppi for images is plenty for reading on screen.

Acrobat on the web has Compress a PDF too.

Compressing a finished PDF re-compresses images that were already compressed once. If you still have the original design file, re-exporting from it with a screen preset gives a better result. See Getting a PDF under 50 MB.

Add searchable text to a scan (OCR)

A scanned PDF is only pictures of pages. Adobe’s words: it “contains only image data, not searchable text”. Recognising the text makes it searchable and readable by screen readers.

1. Open the scanned PDF.
2. All tools → Scan & OCR → In this file.
3. Choose the pages and the language, then Recognize Text.
4. Save.

Why bother? On a paid Living Page plan, we run OCR for you (up to 150 pages). On the Free plan we don’t, so doing it here first is how a scan gets a transcript and search. See Scanned documents.

Check fonts and text

• Embedded fonts: Menu / File → Document properties → Fonts tab. Each font should say Embedded or Embedded Subset. A font that isn’t embedded may be swapped for another when we render the pages.
• Real text: try selecting a sentence with the cursor. If it highlights, it’s text. If you can only draw a box, the page is an image. Run OCR (above) or re-export from the original.