Translation in Adobe Acrobat
Although PDF documents are not primarily intended to be used to construct and edit contents, we do in fact have some editing capabilities for PDFs. Indeed, the distilling process—converting a page-layout document to a PDF—includes and isolates each text and graphic component of a document. The result is that every part of a PDF document is selectable and editable.
The question is often not “can we edit the PDF?” but rather “should we edit the PDF?” The isolation of each document component can make editing a slow and painful process. For instance, each word in a document is a separate document component so that the edited type does not reflow. However, in those cases where you do not have access to the original page-layout document, being able to edit the PDF can be “the last resort”. Editing tools and capabilities can be found both within Acrobat and in third-party software.
Editing or translating Text in PDFs
Acrobat provides the ability to select and edit all text elements in a PDF document. Be aware, however, that this is not text editing as usual. During the distilling process, each word is isolated as a separate document item so that text copy no longer flows as it does in a standard page layout document. As a result, text editing can be a slow and cumbersome process. This is why Adobe specifically refers to its built-in editing tools as text and graphic TouchUp tools. But if all you have is the PDF, it’s nice to at least have the editing option.
Embedded vs. Installed on Computer Fonts
There may be two sets of fonts: embedded in the active PDF document and active font set available through the computer on which this PDF is opened. Any font that is selected from the computer list should be embedded to ensure that these new font files will accompany this PDF wherever it is sent.
Subsetting the new fonts will restrict the number of font characters embedded to those used in the actual copy. So subsetting will reduce the file size addition of the new embedded font files but will limit editability to include only those embedded characters. Subsetting can also help guarantee that the embedded fonts will always be used during printing.
Font substitution
То enter a new symbol in Adobe Acrobat, you must use symbol from the font that installed on the computer on which this PDF is opened, or symbol from the subsetted collection (set) of the embedded in the PDF document font. Any other symbol will not be entered in the document. For entering a translation text over the source text you are always needed to substitute the source font for the translation font with needed national symbols, which inherit the text design of the source text. So, if you can’t enter the translation text, you should substitute the source font for any other national font supported the symbol collection needed for translation. Some programs automatically perform the font substitution when opening a document (for example, Word text editor substitutes all fonts in document opened in it). After substitution all text in the document will be editable, but the document becomes different in visual design as compared with the source document. Adobe Acrobat permits the font substitution in manual mode only. So you should execute additional manual operations, but you can precisely control every font substitution operation.
TTF and PS fonts in translation
In comparison with editing, translation has one big additional problem: transition to other symbols subset in the same font file. The TTF font file includes code tables for approximately 10 languages (for example, “Russian” version of Times New Roman from Russian version of Windows XP supports numbers of languages: English, Russian, Turkish, Baltic and the East Europe countries), therefore for correct display of Russian letters it is necessary not only choosing “Russian” TTF font, but also correctly specify offset in this file, i.e. correctly set up the language for translation text. Unfortunately, simple switching of keyboard layout in Windows operational system does not lead to choosing the needed language for text editing in Adobe Acrobat. Therefore even after you have executed all operations mentioned above (font embedding and substitution), at input of the translation text we receive only the code table second on the order in TTF font, i.e. special letters of East Europe countries with umlauts and accents instead of the usual Russian alphabet needed to us.
Editing text in Adobe Acrobat
Open and save a copy of the PDF document you would like to edit. It is always a good idea to work on a copy of the PDF when you are editing.
Display the Advanced Editing tools (by selecting Advanced Editing Toolbar from the Advanced Editing icon of the main toolbar palette).
From the right end of the Advanced Editing toolbar, choose the TouchUp Text tool.
Select the text characters you would like to edit. You can select as many or as few text characters as you like, but remember that text does not reflow when it is edited. Text will only expand or contract to accommodate the changes you make.
Right-click anywhere in the active Document pane, and choose Properties from the context menu. The Touchup Properties dialog appears.
Click the Text tab. The currently used font for the selected text is indicated in the Font drop-down menu. To change the font used, click this menu and select a new font from the list.
Choose to Embed and Subset any new computer font files in your PDF by clicking those check boxes. Adjust any of the standard font characteristics, such as size, character and word spacing, horizontal scaling, fill color, and baseline offset, by changing the values in the Text tab.
When you have finished setting your font character values click the Close button to apply the new values.
Adding Text to PDFs
You can use the same TouchUp Text tool you used to edit text already present in a PDF document to add text to a PDF as well. This tool is typically used to add small amounts of text, not whole paragraphs. You can edit text added with the TouchUp Text tool in the same way as any other PDF text:
Zoom in to the area where you would like to add some text
Select the TouchUp Text tool to activate it.
Right-click where you would like to add your new type; a New Text Font dialog appears.
Select a font and a mode (vertical or horizontal type).
Click OK. A new text field will appear.
Type in the copy you want, and hit the Enter key when you have finished.
Please remember that your type will not reflow; it can only expand or contract, so line breaks will occur on the same words, but their positions will change.
Also remember that you cannot often enter the translation text even if you can edit text without changing language.
