topic Re: PDF exported from Pro: Cannot edit text. Why? in ArcGIS Pro Questions

PDF exported from Pro: Cannot edit text. Why?

ThomasColson — Thu, 07 Dec 2017 18:39:58 GMT

When export a PDF out of Arc, I can subsequently edit text elements in Acrobat:

The same imported map in Pro -> Export to PDF -> Attempt to edit any text element results in the following:

Is this by design?

Re: PDF exported from Pro: Cannot edit text. Why?

KoryKramer — Fri, 08 Dec 2017 22:32:20 GMT

Thomas. Thank you for bringing this issue to our attention.

The development team has logged it as an issue to be fixed. It won't make the 2.1 release but hopefully in a dot dot release if there is something before 2.2.

Re: PDF exported from Pro: Cannot edit text. Why?

JeremyWright — Fri, 08 Dec 2017 22:56:57 GMT

Just to clarify: we are using a different method of writing text into Pro PDFs that retains many of the advanced parameters such as intercharacter spacing in text placement. So we can't just switch back to the way that ArcMap did it without bringing back some existing issues in text placement in ArcMap exports. We are evaluating a way to resolve this that does not lose those properties, and we'll put it in when we have a solid fix.

As a workaround, we found that it is possible to select ALL the text in the string and then retype the new string. I know it's not ideal, but that should at least let you replace the strings or edit them as needed.

Re: PDF exported from Pro: Cannot edit text. Why?

pctuserpittsfield — Tue, 24 Jul 2018 13:39:12 GMT

Thanks for the the workaround clarification. I would like to know if there are any updates to the PDF export engine allowing text edits in in the resulting document.

Re: PDF exported from Pro: Cannot edit text. Why?

HeyHelp_Desk_Guy — Tue, 04 Feb 2020 20:06:52 GMT

Has there been any updates about this issue?

Re: PDF exported from Pro: Cannot edit text. Why?

JeremyWright — Tue, 04 Feb 2020 20:17:37 GMT

This is logged as BUG-000111662. We have it up for investigation in the release after 2.5 (which is already in progress), but be aware that the next release of Maps for Adobe Creative Cloud (which will allow you to bring Pro content directly into Adobe Illustrator for post-editing) will also allow similar workflows by going direct from Pro to AI.

Re: PDF exported from Pro: Cannot edit text. Why?

HeyHelp_Desk_Guy — Tue, 04 Feb 2020 20:20:09 GMT

Thanks Jeremy. I'm guessing Adobe is just taking their time to slowly release a patch.

Re: PDF exported from Pro: Cannot edit text. Why?

HeyHelp_Desk_Guy — Thu, 06 Feb 2020 20:01:06 GMT

Hey Jeremy, so in talking with other institutions they have the ability to edit PDF's. Do you happen to know if certain versions of Acrobat work?

Re: PDF exported from Pro: Cannot edit text. Why?

ThomasColson — Thu, 06 Feb 2020 20:54:16 GMT

I am going to like every one of your GN Posts based soley on your user name....

Re: PDF exported from Pro: Cannot edit text. Why?

HeyHelp_Desk_Guy — Thu, 06 Feb 2020 20:58:12 GMT

HAHA. Thanks Thomas.

Re: PDF exported from Pro: Cannot edit text. Why?

MichaelAugust — Wed, 01 Apr 2020 16:17:51 GMT

This is a pretty terrible bug preventing us from making simple changes in a PDF vs. opening ArcGIS Pro and re-exporting 20 maps at a time, when prior we could just open/edit a PDF and edit text in seconds. Why isn't this higher priority? Does anyone have a workaround at all? This is killing a lot of our workflows

Re: PDF exported from Pro: Cannot edit text. Why?

JeremyWright — Wed, 01 Apr 2020 17:05:18 GMT

Michael,

One thing you could try is using the 2.0 beta version of Maps for Adobe Creative Cloud extension (Beta available for download from ArcGIS Maps for Adobe Creative Cloud 2.0.0-beta) - if you export from Pro 2.5 to AIX, then your text should be editable when the AIX is opened in Maps for Creative Cloud/Illustrator.

The existing BUG is still opened as we are still attempting to find a way to retain positional accuracy for text properties and get editability too.

Regards,

Jeremy W.

Re: PDF exported from Pro: Cannot edit text. Why?

MichaelAugust — Tue, 12 May 2020 19:31:04 GMT

Here we are 3 years later...if there is a PDF ISO standard for office documents, then we should be able to edit PDFs with the standard tools for handling PDFs, like Adobe Acrobat for example. Every word processing department on the planet will expect to be able to open a pdf and do something as simple as change a figure number or a title block, and this is going to cause major issues for us if/when we switch our entire company (60+ gis "users" in 10+ offices) over to Pro. What that means is that our word processors won't be able to make minor edits to any gis figures in our reports, they will have to send them back thru the GIS dept. They don't have Illustrator, they are not graphic designers, they have the tools designed to manipulate "office" PDFs, for example Adobe Acrobat. I've worked at several consulting companies and thus far they all operate like this, issuing hundreds of reports a week that include gis figures.

I know you guys are working on it, but can you tell me why a PDF exported from Pro doesn't adhere to the same basic PDF standards as say, a PDF exported from Word or Illustrator, or Inkscape? I can export PDFs from all these other programs, and then edit them in Acrobat just fine. Sorry for the rant - thanks!

Re: PDF exported from Pro: Cannot edit text. Why?

LauraBollmann — Thu, 27 Aug 2020 15:04:46 GMT

Has this been fixed yet? Do I need to update my ArcPro?

Re: PDF exported from Pro: Cannot edit text. Why?

HeyHelp_Desk_Guy — Thu, 27 Aug 2020 15:11:05 GMT

Hey Laura,

Apparently this will be fixed in the next update 2.17

Re: PDF exported from Pro: Cannot edit text. Why?

MichaelAugust — Wed, 07 Oct 2020 16:05:23 GMT

Hi there - is that version no. above supposed to read 2.7? The latest version of Pro is 2.6.2 right?

Re: PDF exported from Pro: Cannot edit text. Why?

LauraBollmann — Wed, 07 Oct 2020 16:30:05 GMT

We have Arc Pro version 2..6.2 and I believe it is indeed the latest version. We cannot edit a PDF after export where as in ArcMap we can export a PDF and the document in Adobe will allow editing.

Thank you,

Laura Bollmann

Re: PDF exported from Pro: Cannot edit text. Why?

MichaelAugust — Thu, 08 Oct 2020 18:32:46 GMT

Hi Laura - I was referring to help desk guy's reply above which seems to indicate a fix might be coming?...but I'm confused by "next update 2.17" when my Pro, like yours, is already at 2.6.2.

Re: PDF exported from Pro: Cannot edit text. Why?

HeyHelp_Desk_Guy — Thu, 08 Oct 2020 18:36:03 GMT

Yes, I meant 2.7

Re: PDF exported from Pro: Cannot edit text. Why?

JeremyWright — Thu, 08 Oct 2020 19:13:41 GMT

Hello All!

To provide some clarity in this conversation:

1. we are aware of this issue. It's logged as BUG-000111662

2. Our developer team was able to determine the root cause of the problem, and provided a fix for this in the current development codebase.

3. This fix is slated to be available in the next (2.7) release of ArcGIS Pro - it is not yet publicly available unless you are an early adopter/beta user.

Regards,

Jeremy W.