Can not edit PDFs in Dropbox.

[Sean Q.1]

I was excited by the news that we can edit PDFs in Dropbox, but when I tried, I discovered that I cannot edit the text of a PDF (which is mostly  what I want to do). I can insert, delete and rotate pages, but not edit the content. Is that it?

[Mark]

Yes. At the moment.

Hopefully more features will rollout shortly. 

[Rich]

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@Sean Q.1 wrote:

I was excited by the news that we can edit PDFs in Dropbox, but when I tried, I discovered that I cannot edit the text of a PDF

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Keep in mind also that not all PDF files can be edited. A PDF can be imaged based, like when a page of text is scanned to a PDF file, and the text in such a file can't be directly edited (it's an image, not text). PDF files created by printing to a PDF printer or some other text-based process can usually be edited. Image-based PDFs would need to be converted first, usually using OCR to read the text in the image and convert to a true text-based PDF file.

Point is, be mindful of the type of PDF file you're dealing with or how your PDF file was created, as it will matter when it comes time to edit it (regardless of what software or service you're using to edit).

[hsiktas]

They announced new pdf editing features here: https://www.dropbox.com/product-updates/dbx-september-2022

Still, I don't see any of these features on my pdf files. Is this still rolling out?

[Nancy]

Hi @hsiktas, welcome back to the forum!

Can you send me a screenshot of the options you see when trying to edit a PDF file, so that I can take a look for you?

[hsiktas]

Hi, I already contacted support about this. My ongoing ticket number is 18739846.

[Nancy]

Thanks for sending over your ticket number!

I’ve also left an internal note to our team, so that they know you’ve contacted us here.

If you need something else though, give me a nudge.

[blhuynh]

How do you rotate PDFs in the Dropbox mobile app? I tried looking for this functionality but didn't see it. Thanks. 

[Hannah]

Hey @blhuynh, thanks for the nudge here.

Dropbox doesn't really have an option that would allow someone to rotate a file.

You should be able to export/save the file to your device, though, and rotate the saved version.

I hope this helps!