To change a line in a letter PDF, open it in PDF Textfix, double-click the line, type the correction and press Return, then save with ⌘S. The recipient’s name, a line of the address, the date and a sentence of the body are each lines you can change in place, in the letter’s own font. A letter is running text, so one rule shapes everything else: an edit changes one line and never pushes words onto the next. Small corrections fit; a rewritten paragraph belongs in the document the letter was written in.
How do you change the recipient’s name or address?
Line by line. The demo letter made for PDF Textfix, a library’s booking confirmation set in IBM Plex Serif, addresses its reader on three lines:
Alex Adeyemi
18 Orchard Close
Hartwell HW4 7JDEach is edited on its own, and each keeps its font and its place. A new street replaces the old one on the second line; a new town and postcode replace the third. These lines have nothing after them, so a longer one simply runs further to the right. What cannot be done is a fourth line: an address that needs one has to fit into three, or the letter has to be exported again from its source.
Names are rarely written only once. The demo letter greets the reader as “Dear Alex,” under the address block, so a new first name is two edits: the address line and the greeting. Find (⌘F) finds the old name anywhere in the letter, and ⌘G moves to the next match. In a longer letter, read the body as well: a name inside a sentence is one more edit, on whichever line it falls.
Will the new name come out in the letter’s font? The demo letter carries every Mac Roman character of its two faces, so an English name, and accented letters such as é, ü and ñ, stay in the letter’s serif. A letter outside that set comes from a fallback font and is tinted orange while you edit, and the bar names both fonts. A tighter subset shows it sooner: the demo cover letter was written without any accent, so when its writer corrects her own name to Renée, even the é comes from a fallback:
How to change a name in your own PDF follows that case through on the demo cover letter, and Romanian diacritics in PDFs explains why letters outside that set, such as the Romanian ones with a comma below, go missing so often.
How do you change the date of a letter?
The same way, with one thing to watch. In the demo letter the date sits against the right margin. An edit keeps the start of the line where it was, so a date that gets longer grows to the right, past the edge the old one ended on. Keep the new date the same length where you can, or check the line on screen before you save.
Change a date only to correct your own mistake in a letter you are about to send. A letter that has been sent is a record of what was said and when; a new date means a new letter.
Can you change a sentence in the body?
Yes, one line of it at a time. The body of the demo letter wraps across several lines, such as “place in the reading room on Thursday 15 October at 6.30 pm. Your seat is reserved under”. Changing 6.30 pm to 7.00 pm is a clean edit: the same number of characters, the same width. Replacing a word with a longer one makes the line longer. When a longer word would run into the words after it on the same line, PDF Textfix moves them along and the bar says so; Keep Following Text in Place leaves them where they were, and the Shift Rest of Line box (⌃⌘R) sets either by hand. Nothing moves to the next line, and when moving cannot make room, the edit is refused, with the reason. Can PDF Textfix rewrite a paragraph or reflow text? explains why.
Why might a letterhead line be locked?
Letterheads are often made apart from the letter. The company name may be outlines or an image, which hold no text at all, or a block of content that several pages share. A shared block with no font of its own is locked, and the line says so: “This text is shared by several pages and takes its font from each page, so it cannot be edited.” A shared block with its own fonts can be edited, and every page changes with it.
In the demo letter the letterhead is ordinary text on the page and edits like any other line; so is the writer’s name at the top of the demo cover letter. If yours is locked, change the letterhead where it was designed and export the letter again.
How do you edit a cover letter or a menu PDF?
The same way, line by line, and a cover letter is the plainest case of a letter that is yours to correct. In the demo cover letter, the writer typed her own name, “Renee Okafor”, in the heading and in the signature, so adding the accent she writes is two edits, and Find (⌘F) on her full name lists both lines. A cover letter is also a letter whose company name and role appear in the address, the greeting and the first paragraph, so search for each before you send it to the next employer. A menu is mostly short lines: a dish, a price. Many text fonts give every digit the same width, as the demo letter’s serif does, so a price that keeps its number of digits changes without moving anything. Adding a dish or a section, though, needs new lines, and PDF Textfix adds none.
When should you go back to Pages or Word?
Whenever you still have the document the letter came from and more than a few lines change. Edit it there, where paragraphs reflow, and export a new PDF. PDF Textfix is for the letter you only have as a PDF, or the one wrong word you notice after exporting. Prices, phone numbers and other figures follow the steps in How to change numbers, a phone or an address in a PDF, and every other document kind is on the use cases page, starting with invoices.
Questions about editing letters
Can I change a letter someone else sent me?
No. A letter you received is the sender’s record. Reply to it instead.
Can I make the letter shorter or add a paragraph?
No. PDF Textfix changes the text of lines that are already there and does not reflow or add text.
Will the letter look edited?
The edited line is drawn in the letter’s own font where the font has the characters. Characters it lacks come from a fallback font, which you see in orange before you save.
How many line edits does a new recipient use?
One for each line you change. On the demo letter, a new first name is two, the address line and the greeting, and a new address is up to three more. Free to try. Your first 5 line edits save clean. After that, saved files carry a watermark until you buy once.
