I've found a number of solutions to my original problem via Google, but they all assume something that isn't holding up in practice.
The short version: Acrobat DC is treating a text box as if it were in a numbered list, with an automatically-assigned leading number. For example, the paragraph "some text goes here" is incorrectly being shown as:
- some text goes here
However, the text isn't supposed to be in a numbered list. I can't delete the number, because it's been automatically inserted.
Longer version: Searching around the internet, all the answers point to starting with "Edit PDF", selecting the paragraph in question, and then changing the "list type" under the Format menu in the right-hand side bar. But... there is no list type shown in my right-hand side bar. Apparently it's supposed to be under the "T" row and above the text justification row. Maybe our 2015 version is too old, but I can't find documentation for any version older than that (grrrrrr). Picture attached: 
As a fallback, I thought I could simply Cut all of the text in that textbox, create a new box with Add Text, and paste it back into the new one. However, (1) the old text box remains, with a single leading bullet. I can't select that bullet to remove it, and there doesn't seem to be a way to delete the text box until it's empty... but Acrobat insists on putting text in there. And (2) the pasted text is garbled.
The usual advice seems to be "the PDF editor can't actually edit PDFs, go re-export it and start over". Except that in this case, Acrobat DC created the PDF by importing a Word file and "recognizing" form elements (e.g., a long underline gets a text field drawn over it). Because there was a number on previous pages, Acrobat DC has decided this paragraph needs to be numbered. The actual form-field recognition was... not that great... and so we've spent a lot of time fixing it up to get it working. Recreating from the original mock-up isn't really an option. And the fillable form itself works really well now -- PDFs are really good at that -- with the exception of this unkillable random number at the start of one paragraph.
Is there some menu I'm missing that would allow me to delete a text box that contains nothing but Acrobat's own text? Alternatively, how do I turn off the automatic numbering in an existing text box?
1
Reply
AdChoices