Computer Tricks and Secrets

If you need to make changes in an existing PDF file, you need to get hold of the original document that was used to create the PDF, make the edits in the source document and export it as a PDF again. This is the best option since the document’s layout and formatting will be preserved in the new PDF file and you don’t even need an external PDF editor like Adobe Acrobat. However, if you do not have access to the source document, you can still edit your PDF files in the browser using the free Word app. It may not be able to handle PDF files with complex layouts, or PDFs that are mostly comprised of charts and images but for text based PDF, Word is a probably a good options for fixing typos or manipulating text and images in PDFs. See example . Edit PDF Files with Word Online Here’s a step-by-step guide on how you can edit the content of PDF files inside the Word web app. Go to onedrive.com and sign-in with your Microsoft account. While you are logged in, drag a PDF file from the deskto...

There are two types of PDF documents – those created by sending Office files, images, etc. to an Acrobat like PDF printer and those created by scanning physical paper like pages of a book, legal documents, etc. Google could always index PDF documents created by conversion but now they also recognize text from PDFs that are generated by scanning paper documents using OCR software. This is a scanned document and this is the html text view of that same document converted by Google. Since scanned PDFs are nothing but images, don’t be surprised if Google adds a "search by text" function to their Image Search engine similar to OneNote or EverNote. That will surely be huge. Convert Scanned PDFs to Text Now if you have bunch of scanned PDF files on your hard drive and no OCR software, here’s what you can do to convert them into recognizable text. Create a folder in your website (say abc.com/pdf) and upload all the PDF images to that folder. Now create a public web page that links ...

The bank sends me monthly credit card statements as password-protected PDF files mostly because they contain personal information. I archive these PDFs into Google Drive but, because these files are protected with a password, the text isn’t searchable inside Drive. Also, each PDF file has a different password so it’s impossible to remember them and takes just too much to find these PDFs later. Removing Password from a PDF File Since the Google Drive is already protected with 2 layers of security – password and 2-factor authentication – it should be OK if we remove the password protection from PDF files before uploading them to Drive. Is there any software program available that can remove password protection from PDF files? One that doesn’t cost a dime and works on both Mac and Windows? Well the answer is yes and that too is already installed on your computer. It’s called Google Chrome. Google Chrome has a built-in PDF reader* and a PDF writer and we can combine the two features to rem...

Say dad bought you a digital camera from Japan but the problem is that the  PDF manual  that came with the camera is also written in Japanese. How do you quickly translate that PDF document into English? Well there are several ways by which you can translate your Microsoft Office documents, presentations or PDF files from one language to another using Google Translate. The only condition is that your documents should not be password protected  as Google Translate won’t be able to read such files. The easiest option is that you upload the document to the Google Translation website –  translate.google.com  – then select the language translation pair and hit the Translate button. The other good option is the  Translator Toolkit , also from Google, where you may not only translate documents but also edit the translated material. Microsoft also offers a  free utility  that brings translation capabilities right into all your existing Office programs (including Outlook emails). How to Transla...

The PDF file format was originally created by Adobe in the early ’90s and it now the most popular format for exchanging all sorts of documents including presentations, CAD Drawings, invoices, government forms and other legal documents. There are several reasons why PDF file format is so popular. PDFs are generally more compact (smaller in size) than the source document and they preserve the original formatting. The content of a PDF file cannot be modified easily and you can prevent other users from printing or copying text from PDF documents. Also, you can open a PDF file on any computer or mobile device natively.  How to Edit PDF Files without Adobe Acrobat While PDF Files are “read only” by default, there are workarounds that will let you modify any PDF document for free without requiring the source files or any of the commercial PDF editing tools like Adobe Acrobat. We are primarily focusing on tools that let you alter the actual contents of a PDF files. If you are looking to manipu...