I am totally new to Inkscape .92 and don't understand most of what I'm confronted with, but I'm eager to learn.

The first thing I tried, baffled me completely. I opened a pdf consisting of text and tried to replace a few words. The first (and still not surmounted) stumbling block was how to select a few words for editing, i.e. delete and replace a few words.

One whole page of the pdf is selected when I click on it. No way, apparently, to selected a few words.

I read on the internet that I must "import a pdf text as text" in order to edit it. But how is that done?

When I use either File > Open or File > Import, and then open or import a pdf consisting of text, I am confronted with a panel giving me options such as "Poppler/Cairo import" versus "Internal import". Jargon I do not understand. Nowhere is the option to "import text as text" given. So no editing of the pdf seemingly possible for me.

Which sequence of simple steps should I take to "import a pdf text as text"?

Here is a typical example of advice given by an Inkscape authority on the internet on how to edit text in a pdf. The advisor starts off by saying: "First we have to open our PDF with Inkscape, making sure the “Import text as text” option is selected. If we don’t select this, Inkscape will convert the text to vectors, which will make a simple task just a nightmare."

Nothing is said about how to “Import text as text”, and where to find this "option".

If nobody know the answer, could somebody who knows Inkscape please explain how to select and change bits of text in a pdf containing only text?

I would appreciate it very much.

Howdy,

"Text" in imported pdfs can be:

scanned images, that cannot be edited
paths, that cannot be edited
font subsets, that can be edited, if the same font is installed

Of the two main choices offered on import, one will convert to paths, so that is a no go. The other (native), offers to replace fonts with like-named fonts, this should be selected.

Once the pdf is imported, the status bar will indicate what type of object is selected. you may need to ungroup and other operations to get to the level of editing text.

Once you have text selected for editing, you may need to "remove manual kerns" to delete text and/or type new text.


Best would be to share a link to the pdf you're trying to edit.

Thanks a lot for your kind advice. I discovered that there are free online services available for fixing mistakes made in a pdf containing text. Notably https://www.pdfescape.com , https://www.pdfpro.co/ and others. Its simple to use. What I'm doing now, is to work through the Inkscape manual, writing my own manual in the process. No better way to master a charmingly old-fashioned, somewhat complicated program like this.

For the record, from your previous advisor, the option to import text as text has changed for version 0.92. In previous versions, it was found in the dialog which you will see when you open the PDF with Inkscape, and it specifically offered "Import text as text" option. My best guess is that you should use all the defaults in this new dialog. The "Internal Import" explains that "text is stored as text". The other options indicates text will become glyphs, which probably is something a little different.

(Just an interesting note, the development community is planning to do a good bit of work, it sounds like in the near future, on the "user experience", meaning that a lot of these newer, and even some older dialogs will be reworked, so that they are generally understandable by most users, even newbies. Anyone is welcome to participate, even just to review the mockups and make comments. However, you'd need to subscribe to the mailing list. You could follow the discussion via the list archives, but you couldn't post your own comments unless you subscribe.)

Well those services that you found aren't necessarily going to make the text editable in Inkscape. As TD has explained, PDFs can contain both raster and vector content. If the text is in an embedded image, such as PNG or GIF, nothing can make that editable as text. Absolutely nothing! Or the text might be already converted to paths, and that's the same consequence. No way to edit as text, and nothing can make it editable as text.

And continuing to echo TD, you'll probably need to have the same font installed on your computer, if it actually is still text. Otherwise, Inkscape will choose what it thinks is the closest match, from the fonts you have installed.

Out of curiosity, could you explain what you mean by "charmingly old fashioned"?

So, first, to be able to access the text in your imported pdf, you'll need to ungroup the imported stuff. Click on it, do Ctrl+U to ungroup.

You may need to repeat this a couple of times to get to the text. Select it, look into the status bar at the bottom to find out what it is, then ungroup, if it's still a group. (you can select the object you want to ungroup in each step, so you don't need to dissolve all groups in the drawing).

Then, when you got down to single texts, use the 'remove manual kerns' option in the 'Text' menu, to be able to properly edit the text, if you type in it, and it all gets placed above each other.