How to Edit Text in a Scanned PDF Document with Nitro Pro

As a car repair professional, you often encounter scanned documents like repair manuals, invoices, and parts lists in PDF format. Making quick edits or corrections directly within these PDFs can save significant time and streamline your workflow. Nitro Pro offers a suite of tools to easily add, modify, and manage text in scanned PDF documents, eliminating the need to revert to source files or print and rewrite documents manually.

This guide will walk you through the essential Nitro Pro features for editing text in scanned PDFs, ensuring you can efficiently update your documents with the latest information.

Adding New Text to Scanned PDFs

The Type Text tool in Nitro Pro is your go-to feature for inserting new text anywhere on a scanned PDF. This is especially useful for filling out scanned forms or adding annotations to repair diagrams.

Steps to Add Text:

1. Navigate to the Home tab in Nitro Pro and locate the Tools group. Click on the Type Text button.

2. Select the area on the PDF page where you want to insert text by clicking on it.

3. The Format tab will appear, providing options to customize your text’s appearance. Here, you can adjust the font, size, color, and other formatting aspects to match your document’s style.

   Alt text: Nitro Pro Type Text tool selected in the Home tab, ready to add text to a PDF document.

4. Begin typing your text directly onto the PDF.

5. Once you have finished typing, press the Escape key or click Finish to finalize the text insertion.

6. Nitro Pro includes a spell check feature. If any errors are highlighted, simply right-click on the misspelled word to see suggestions or to change the spell check language.

Tip: By default, text added using the Type Text tool is placed on the annotation layer of the PDF. For advanced users who need to insert text directly onto the content layer, you can hold down the Ctrl key while clicking on the page to insert text. Refer to Nitro Pro’s documentation for more details on the annotation and content layers.

Utilizing Smart Alignment for Precise Text Placement

Nitro Pro’s Smart Alignment feature enhances the accuracy of text placement. When enabled, it provides visual guides that help you align new text with existing content on the page, such as other text blocks, images, or annotations.

Enabling or Disabling Smart Alignment:

1. Select the Type Text tool from the Home tab.
2. Click on the PDF page to initiate text typing, which will activate the Format tab.
3. In the Alignment group within the Format tab, check the Smart Alignment box to turn the feature on.
4. To disable it, simply uncheck the Smart Alignment box.

Editing Existing Text in Scanned PDFs

The Edit tool in Nitro Pro allows you to modify and reposition existing text blocks within your scanned PDF documents. This is crucial for correcting errors or updating information in repair procedures or technical specifications.

Steps to Edit Text:

1. Select the Edit button, typically located on the left side of the Nitro Pro ribbon interface.

   Alt text: The Edit button highlighted in the Nitro Pro ribbon, used for modifying existing PDF content.

2. Double-click on the text you wish to edit. This will place a cursor within the text block, allowing you to insert, delete, or modify the text. As you edit, the text box will automatically resize to accommodate your changes, reflowing text onto adjacent lines as needed.

3. Highlighting text with your mouse will reveal a floating toolbar, providing quick access to text formatting options such as font, case, color, and size.

   Alt text: Animated GIF showing text editing in Nitro Pro with the floating toolbar appearing for text formatting options.

4. Once you have completed your edits, press the Escape key, click elsewhere on the page, or click the Finish button to finalize the changes.

5. Similar to adding text, the spell check feature will also work when editing existing text, helping you maintain accuracy in your documents.

Note: If you attempt to use a character that is not supported by the current font, Nitro Pro will attempt to substitute a similar-looking font. It’s advisable to verify that font substitutions maintain the desired appearance and choose an alternative font if necessary.

Moving Text Blocks in Scanned PDFs

Repositioning text blocks is straightforward with Nitro Pro’s Edit tool. This is particularly useful when reorganizing content or adjusting layouts in scanned documents.

Steps to Move Text:

1. Select the Edit tool.

2. Click on the paragraph or heading you want to move to select it. A light blue bounding box will appear around the text block, indicating it is selected.

3. To move the text, you can either:

   • Drag the bounding box: Click and drag the bounding box to reposition the text block to your desired location on the page.
   • Use arrow keys: For minor adjustments, use the arrow keys on your keyboard to nudge the text block in small increments.

   Alt text: Moving a text block in Nitro Pro by dragging the bounding box with the Edit tool selected.

Deleting Text from Scanned PDFs

Removing unwanted text is just as simple with Nitro Pro. Whether it’s outdated information or irrelevant sections, you can easily delete text blocks.

Steps to Delete Text:

1. Using the Edit tool, click once on the text block you wish to delete. This will display the light blue bounding box around the text.

2. Press the Delete key on your keyboard. Alternatively, you can right-click on the selected text block and choose Delete from the context menu.

   Alt text: Deleting a selected text block in Nitro Pro by pressing the Delete key, showing the bounding box before deletion.

Flattening Text Annotations

In Nitro Pro, text added or edited is initially placed on the annotation layer. Flattening text moves it from the annotation layer to the content layer, making it a permanent part of the document content.

Methods to Flatten Text:

• Flatten Selected Text: To flatten a specific text annotation, right-click on the text annotation and select Flatten Selection from the menu.

• Flatten All Text Annotations: To flatten all text annotations in the document, right-click on any text annotation and select Flatten All.

• Flatten All Annotations on Save: For a comprehensive flattening, including all types of annotations, go to the File menu, select Save As, and choose Flattened PDF. This option saves a copy of your PDF with all annotations, including text, form fields, and other markups, flattened into the content layer.

  Alt text: Flatten Selection option in Nitro Pro’s right-click context menu, used to move annotations to the content layer of the PDF.

For a deeper understanding of annotation and content layers, consult Nitro Pro’s detailed user guide.

By mastering these text editing features in Nitro Pro, car repair professionals can efficiently manage and update scanned PDF documents, ensuring accuracy and saving valuable time in their daily operations. Whether it’s correcting a typo in a repair manual or adding notes to a scanned diagram, Nitro Pro provides the tools needed to handle text editing in scanned PDFs with ease.