PDF Ridiculousness

I've learned, after years of doing this, that if you want to edit a PDF... don't.

A better use of your time is hunting down the mechanical file and its creator application, or remaking the design in something else. Just copy out the stuff you need from the unwanted PDF's corpse.

I've done it myself, where I've accidentally chucked the mechanical at some point. These things seem to happen in slow motion. You're brain recognizes it is sending a signal to your finger to STOP. Don't click the "OK" in that empty trash dialog. You realize that you and your brain and your work are hostages to the index finger, as it descends upon the mouse button mighty and proud and you gasp in horror at seeing the events unfold helplessly. You're finger had finally gotten back at you for all those places you'd sent it through the years.

So, there you are, no mechanical file, no undelete software, or undelete software that's so useless it's obviously made a pact with the index finger.

The PDF is what remains of your work on that file, and you've got a full version of Acrobat. So you think "this is great, I'll just open it up and make those few edits and that will be it." And you are wrong. Now, I'm not one to judge, but Acrobat sucks for most any editing task.

Especially editing tasks using designer-quality type and font files. The message I've seen so often is the one telling me that the font needs to be embedded for me to make the edit. You can probably guess that my frustration stems from the fact that the font is embedded, as exhibited by a look under the hood of the PDF's info. Obviously, one hand of this PDF doesn't know what the other hand is doing. More dastardly digits!

If you wanted to select a block of type to copy, it can be hard to interpret exactly what each of the myriad Acrobat editing tools do. Not to mention, they don't come in handy palettes that resemble Photoshop or Illustrator, Adobe's other killer apps. The icons are strange in some way, eerily similar, but just different enough to throw you off, and arranged in a different order. And there are other tool icons that don't make sense crowding up the whole works.

Just finding the right tool palette can be a chore too. I don't think I'm dumb, though my brother once told me I'm dumber than I think I am. But getting the palette or selecting the tool needed through the menus usually takes me a bit of time. While Acrobat has some editing capability, the interface is clearly not designed with editing as a priority, even though that's one of the great advantages of the full version Acrobat!

I would think that the editing interface would at the very least be similar to Illustrator. And that tools would act similar too. But go ahead and try to select a 1 pt rule or a graphic box. It selects around the thing, without giving you any editing capability at all. Why let me select it then? I suppose so you can move it if you wish. But even for that, it's a bit touchy where you click, and if the element is beneath another one, forget it.

I realize I'm being harsh on poor, little, blockbuster, hundreds-of-millions-of-copies Acrobat. The crop tool works, sort-of, good. It's easy to move pages among eachother and add others. But even these edits can be kludgy.

I'm just saying that the editing features would be great for someone without Illustrator, like an Illustrator or InDesign light. It might even rival Apple's Pages in layout creation and management for the masses. But it can't at all.

Instead, the poorly implemented and inconsistent editing tools only serve to frustrate a user with their promise of greatness, and lack of follow-through.

So, like I said at the top of this story, settle in to recreate your design in another app. At least you've already done it once, don't have to beg for final copy, don't have to concept the thing anymore. It'll be a snap, just like all the clients think, right?