The PDF has already gone out, or the original Word file is gone, or it came from a system you cannot get back into. And there is a typo in it: a misspelt name, last year's date, a 7 that should be a 1.
You do not need the original file to fix it. You need to change one line of the PDF in a way that does not show.
The quickest way
- Open the PDF text editor and choose the file.
- Click the line with the mistake, then click again to put the cursor in it.
- Correct it and click away.
- Download the fixed PDF. There is no watermark, and no account is needed.
The corrected words are set in the page's own font, at the same size and on the same baseline, and the wrong ones are removed from the file. Someone copying the text out will get the correction, not the mistake.
If you cannot click on the words at all, the PDF is a scan (a picture of a page). Use the scanned PDF editor instead. It reads the letters first and then lets you change them in the same way.
Common fixes and how they behave
A misspelt word or name. The easiest kind of fix: the new word is about the same length, so the line keeps its shape.
A date or a number. Also easy. Digits in most fonts are all the same width, so a changed figure fits exactly where the old one was. On an invoice or a statement, check any totals that depend on the number you changed. The editor changes text, not arithmetic.
A missing word. Adding a word makes the line longer. If there is room at the end of the line, fine. If the line was already full, shorten something else on the same line or accept that it will run slightly wider.
A line that is correct but in the wrong place. Select it and drag it. It keeps its font and size.
When to go back to the original instead
Editing the PDF is the right tool for small corrections. Go back to the source document when:
- the change reflows a whole paragraph or pushes text onto the next page;
- a figure you are changing is repeated in several places, such as a table, a summary and a footer;
- the document has to be regenerated anyway, as with a contract under version control.
Before you send it again
- Read the corrected line aloud. It is easy to fix one typo and add another.
- Zoom in and compare it with the lines around it.
- Check the file name and the document's title, which often still carry the old text.
- If you are correcting something you have already sent, say so. A quietly altered document that someone has already signed or filed can cause more trouble than the typo did.