Extracting PDF ???

[theographics]

Okay . . . I am new . . . so go easy on me! :o)
this may be a "dumb" question . . .

I received a phone call from a potential client who has a brochure in a PDF format from a previous Graphic Designer who has since gone out of business. She needs revisions to the text but was told the PDF can only be made editable if it is converted to a JPG or TIFF file. But this will screw up the vector text. How can I extract her brochure in an EPS file? I am thinking this would be the best format. Or not? I use Corel for my work. I know it is not the industry standard - but I love it and it works for me. Any help is GREATLY appreciated!
Thank you!

[rickself]

Download the 30 day trial of Pitstop from Enfocus. I believe it's fully functional. It won't load all features but you should be able to edit the text.

[doubting_thomas]

Another option you could use if you have the full version of Acrobat would
be to Export an .eps file from the pdf. It'll probably lead to a can of worms
if you don't have the correct fonts, but may yield something usable. You may
even be able to open it with CorelDraw. Proof it carefully.

Pitstop is a great option too.

[Broacher]

>>I received a phone call from a potential client who has a brochure in a PDF format from a previous Graphic Designer who has since gone out of business.<<

Be sure that they're not trying to end run another designer around a source file contract term here. And even if the designer really has gone out of business-- I find it hard to believe that they couldn't arrange to sell their old client the source files even after the closure. Man, I've got files that go back 22 years that I still have backup on.

If the files really have vanished, then in some cases, where it's just the black text on white paper that needs changing, it's easier to lock in the PDF pages in an ID layer after blocking out the old text with white rectangles, and working in new text on a top layer.

Or, as was mentioned, try opening the PDF directly, or indirectly (via an EPS export out of Acrobat) into AI or Draw and work from there. If the fonts are a mess, it's often easier to delete all the text stuff, create a new PDF of the rest of the stuff, and anchor that in a new ID doc's bottom layer.

[urstwile]

Whoever told her that the PDF can only be made editable if converted to a JPG or TIFF was having a laugh at her expense or was just plain ill-informed, as that's the exact opposite of what the PDF text would be if converted to either of those formats. Once you go to either of those formats, you've rasterized everything, including the text.

[defjoe]

might be easier to just rebuild it.

[Ariel]

You CAN edit the text in a .pdf document with the full version of Adobe Acrobat. There is one catch though - YOU CAN ONLY EDIT LINE BY LINE! Text will NOT wrap and flow.

So - if there are a couple of text changes here and there, then do it that way. If there's a LOT to do, get some coffee or a Monster and get typin'!

See Brocher's reply and go with him. That's where I would play!

[Piscosour]

Just use Corel.. that's what I use when I have that issue. Open the PDF (it will open in just one file every page, wich is great... and edit the text and save it as PDf again. i have done that a lot. That easy.

[Ariel]

Well heck Piscosour! That IS quite the simple route! I don't use Corel any more, (I'm an Adobe suite girl) so's I didn't have that knowledge. Good to know however!

I HATE re-doing someone else's work. Blech. Faster to re-do it myself.

Happy Day to all! I'm off to buy strawberry plants for the kidlets. We plant them together, they watch them grow and ripen, and witness great joy upon the harvest! Trust me - if you've ever seen a child WATCH DAY BY DAY as something grows then SCREAMS in delight when it's ripe...it's the best!

So - whipped cream and strawberries for all in a couple of weeks! :D

[Piscosour]

Well heck Piscosour! That IS quite the simple route! I don't use Corel any more, (I'm an Adobe suite girl) so's I didn't have that knowledge. Good to know however!
Yes .. it is actually very easy. Hopefully the text is not embedded. If that is the case it is better to remove the text, create your paragraph text, and configurate the styles to apply in every paragraph text you need (font, size, color, leading, kerning, etc) .

[Broacher]

>>Yes .. it is actually very easy.<<

When it works. Sorry to rain on your Corel parade all the time Pisco, but let's be realistic. Sure CDraw can open up multi-page PDFs-- but accurately and without error? And the type comes in much like it does with AI-- not ready to apply paragraph styles to. In fact, it's very much broken into little strings. And that's just the type. There's colour space and transparency issues abounding-- with any attempt to 'reverse engineer' PDFs, which are handoff files, back into master source files, which have more structure.

[Piscosour]

That is not true, it depends on the program the PDF was created with.
No problems with Illustrator, Freehand, even Word. I had some problems the other day with a PDF created from Quark6... Sometimes you find transparent objects in Corel which they are actually text boxes..
Sometimes you have to correct colors from the original, that happens, but I don't find it is a real issue.
Sometimes you find errors in one or two pages... no problem either, there is always a way to fix problems...not conventional ways, but they help though. Bottom line, event though you can find problems, CD makes my life easier.