This tutorial shows how to create a blank PDF in Adobe Acrobat. [Typewriter Sounds] Hello, my name is Erin. I’m a professional copy editor who shares
writing tips for real the world on this channel and on my blog at erinwrightwriting.com. Most PDFs originate from another type of file, such as a Microsoft Word document. They are then converted to the PDF format before publication. However, you can create a blank PDF in Adobe Acrobat without relying on outside software. So today we’re going to walk through three processes: How to create a blank PDF,
How to add text to a PDF, And, how to add a blank page to a PDF. While Adobe Acrobat offers many powerful features, it doesn’t provide the same versatility as traditional word processing software. So, the steps shown here are only recommended for short documents. I’ll be using Adobe Acrobat Pro DC. The steps are the same in Adobe Acrobat Standard DC and will be similar in older versions of the software. Please note that Adobe’s free PDF software, Acrobat Reader, doesn’t provide the option to create a blank PDF, add text, or add a blank page. To create a blank PDF, begin by selecting the Tools tab. Then, select Create PDF in the Tools Center. Next, select Blank Page from the Create a PDF from any format options. Followed by the Create button. A blank page should appear immediately. Now we’ll add text. Before you can add text to a PDF in Adobe Acrobat, you first have to create a text box. To begin, select Edit PDF from the Tools pane. Then, select Add Text from the Edit PDF toolbar. Now, you’ll have to decide if you want to insert text with a scalable text box or a fixed-width text box. Scalable text boxes will extend from the cursor to the right margin and the bottom margin
of the page as text is added. To create a scalable text box, simply place your cursor anywhere on the page and start typing or copy and paste text onto the page. If you are pasting a longer passage of text, you may see an alert box saying you can export text instead. Disregard this alert box if you want to continue pasting your text. Fixed-width text boxes maintain their original width and will only scale lengthwise to accommodate additional text. To create a fixed-width text box, drag your
cursor to create the box and then start typing or copy and paste text into the box. To resize a text box, hold your
cursor over one of the handles until your cursor becomes a resizing cursor, which is two lines with two arrows. Then, drag the cursor to resize your text box. If you want to format text, select the text
and then choose from the options in the Format pane: We have font, font size, font color; bold, italic, and underline; superscript and subscript; bulleted and numbered lists; alignment; line and paragraph spacing; and scaling and character spacing. Your format changes should appear immediately. It’s very important to note that text that reaches the bottom of the page won’t flow to a new page. Instead, you have to create a new blank page, as shown in the next section, and then begin a new text box, as we just did. If you have run out of space, you’ll see a small yellow warning icon near the border of your text box. If you want to delete a text box, please note that you can’t delete it while the Add Text tool is active. Instead, you have to switch to the Edit tool. Then, hover your cursor over the border of
the text box until your cursor becomes a movement cursor, which is two crossed arrows. And then press the Delete key on your keyboard or right-click and select Delete from the shortcut menu. Now we’ll add a blank page to our PDF. To add a blank page, begin by selecting the Page Thumbnails button in the navigation pane. Now, select the Options button. And then select Insert Pages from the menu. Followed by A Blank Page. Once the Insert Pages dialog box appears, select Before or After from the Location menu. Then, select an insertion location from the Page section: First will insert a blank page before or after the current first page. Last will insert a blank page before or after the current last page. Page allows you to insert a blank page before or after the page entered into this text box. Note that you can’t enter a page number
for a page that hasn’t been created yet. If you don’t make any decisions, the default is to insert a page after your current page. When you’re finished, select the OK button. Your new page should appear immediately. In addition to the method just shown, you
can also access the Insert Pages dialog box by using the keyboard shortcut Shift + Ctrl + T or through the Organize Pages toolbar, which is accessible through the Tools pane. Once the toolbar is open, select Insert followed by Blank Page. I have created many other videos about Adobe Acrobat, including “Three Ways to Create Bookmarks in PDFs with Adobe Acrobat” and “How to Create Internal Links in PDFs with Adobe Acrobat.” Please see the playlist called “How to Use Adobe Acrobat” linked in the description box below for the complete list. The companion blog post for this video listing all the steps we just performed appears on erinwrightwriting.com, which is also linked below. Feel free to leave me a comment if there’s a specific topic related to Adobe Acrobat or Microsoft Word that you would like me to talk about in the future. And please subscribe to my channel and give this video a thumbs-up if you found it helpful. Thank you so much for watching! [Typewriter Sounds]
