I need to change the font in a PDF a coworker sent me, since the text is tiny and hard to read, and I can’t get the original Word file. I tried clicking on the text but nothing happens, so is there any realistic way to do this?
Annoying, but if clicking does nothing the PDF is probably flattened or scanned, so the font can’t really be changed in place. I usually run OCR first, then either edit the recognised text in a PDF editor or export it to Word and re-save it. For a quick readable copy, increasing the zoom or using a reader’s accessibility/reflow settings may be less hassle.
Had the same issue last month on a signed form from the site. Regular PDF readers won’t let you change anything, you need something that can actually edit the file. Adobe Acrobat worked for me when I selected the tiny text and bumped the size, though the lines can jump around. If you don’t have that, I’d try opening it in LibreOffice Draw and see what happens.
I ran into this with a notarized packet last year. A finished PDF is basically a picture of the text, so clicking it won’t let you retype the font like in Word. What I do now is open the PDF in Word, it converts it, then I can change the size, or just zoom in and print bigger.
I get sent estimates with microscopic text all the time. Because PDFs lock everything down, you might not realise you need a proper editor to change it. I use PDFcap for this sort of thing, since it lets you click the actual text block and bump up the font size easily. Are you trying to fix this on your mobile or a desktop?
@nicholasb23 That Word conversion trick has saved me at the library more than once. One tip: after it converts, check the line breaks, becuase Word loves to shuffle text boxes around. Learned that the hard way on a hiring packet. Thing to avoid is printing it out and re-scanning to edit, you just end up with blurrier text and a bigger headache.
try ctrl+a and see if any text highlights. if it does, copy it into Word, enlarge the font there, and rebuild the page as needed. if nothing highlights, it’s probably a scan or flattened PDF, so there’s no actual font to change. the realistic fix then is to retype the text at a readable size, although matching the original layout may take some work. does ctrl+a highlight anything?