Quick Start Guide

☞☞ Activating your software

☞☞ Basic text editing
☞☞ Converting PDF to other formats
☞☞ Form filling
☞☞ Joining multiple PDFs
☞☞ OCR corrections
☞☞ Off-line activation
☞☞ On-line Activation
☞☞ PDF photo albums
☞☞ Toolbars

6
 Quick Start Guide 7

Basic text editing

Foxit Advanced Editor enables you to edit text in a PDF document as if you were
using a regular word processor.

Open the PDF to be edited.

In this example there is an ‘r’ missing
from ‘you’.

From the toolbar select the

Text tool.

Click the mouse on the text to be

2 edited. After a short pause, while Foxit
Advanced Editor prepares the page for
editing, you can start editing.

Edit the text - in this example the letter “r”

has been added to “your”.
The text box automatically grows longer
in order to accommodate all the words. In
this case, we do not want this, so we will
3 re-shape the box in the next step.

Continued...

Notes
• The new ‘r’ is displayed in red because Show changes is enabled in the Preferences
dialogue. This change highlighting is only visible in Foxit Advanced Editor and not in
other PDF viewers.
• A text box will automatically grow or shrink until you re-shape the box yourself. After
which it remains whatever shape you made it and will become ‘overset’ if you try to
enter too much text.
 Quick Start Guide 8

Continued from previous page

First drag the bottom re-size handle

upwards to make the text box shorter
and stop it from colliding with the line
beneath.

Now the box is too small to show all the

text, you will see a red box in the bottom
right hand corner indicating the box has
become ‘overset’.
To reveal the missing text, resize the text
4 box again - making it wider.
Drag the left & right resize handles
outwards to make the box slightly wider.

The text now fits on two lines as before.

Save the changes you have made to your
PDF.

5 Continued...
 Quick Start Guide 9

Continued from previous page

If you have the demo version of Foxit

Advanced Editor you will see this
dialogue box.
You have the option to save your PDF with
a watermark added to edited pages. The
watermarks can be safely removed at a
later date.
The second option activates your copy of
Foxit Advanced Editor using the activation
6 key supplied when you purchase the
product.
After activation, watermarks are no longer
added to PDFs. Existing watermarks are
removed when you next save the PDF
from an activated version.
 Quick Start Guide 10

Form filling
Foxit Advanced Editor can be used to fill-in both interactive and non-interactive
forms.
An interactive form is a specially prepared PDF which contains interactive elements
like text boxes, buttons and lists. You can interact with these, supplying text and
making selections. You can then save, print or send this filled-in PDF to others via
email.

Traditional Paper Forms (Non-interactive forms)

A non-interactive form is simply a PDF version of a traditional paper form. Normally
this would have to be printed out then filled-in by hand. With Foxit Advanced Editor,
you can use the T+ tool to fill-in text fields and check boxes, speeding up the entire
process while keeping the form entirely digital and available to email to a third party.

Select the Text Plus tool.

As you move the mouse over the
form, Foxit Advanced Editor will try to
highlight the areas to be filled-in.

Click on a highlighted area to begin typing

into it.
Hold the Control key when you click to
ignore Foxit Advanced Editor’s guess and
create a small, single-line text box.

Continued...
 Quick Start Guide 11

Continued from previous page

If Foxit Advanced Editor determines

that the item under the mouse looks like
a check-box, it changes the cursor to a
pointing hand.
Click to mark the box with an X.
Click again to remove the X.
Hold the Control key and click to ignore
the check-box and create a small, single-
line text box.
Hold Control+Shift to force Foxit
Advanced Editor to create an X even when
it doesn’t recognise the area as being a
checkbox.

Notes
• Use the T+ tool to create new text boxes in any kind of PDF not just form-style
documents.
• The T+ tool does not edit existing text - only text created by the tool either during this
session or from when the PDF was last edited.
• Since Foxit Advanced Editor is making a guess at the shape and location of editable
areas, it may sometimes arrive at an incorrect decision. In this case, hold down
Control as you click to ignore the guess.
• Filled-in forms are normal PDFs that can be viewed and printed by any PDF viewing
application.
 Quick Start Guide 12

OCR corrections
Foxit Advanced Editor can be used to adjust the hidden text associated with
a scanned document. This text is generated during OCR (Optical Character
Recognition) of a scanned image or printed page.
The OCR text is hidden in the PDF so that it can be searched. Often there are errors
in the hidden text that can be difficult to fix because it is hidden.

Open the PDF to be corrected then choose

Document->OCR Corrections->Start

The example shows a scanned page in

which the text added by the OCR process
is hidden.

Since OCR mode could cause a PDF to be

substantially changed, you will be asked to
confirm your choice.
Always make sure you have a backup of
the PDF before you start this mode.
Choose the “Start OCR mode” option to
begin.
2

The hidden text becomes visible, the

scanned image faded and locked to make
editing easier.
You can now edit the text whilst making
reference to the original content in the
image.

3
Continued...
 Quick Start Guide 13

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This example shows some corrections

(shown in red because Show Changed
Text has been enabled in the Preferences
dialogue box).
After all corrections have been done,
choose: Document->OCR Corrections-
>Finish

The OCR text, including any edits you

4 made will become invisible and the
scanned image restored to its normal
density.
If you find some unwanted text remains
visible in your document, choose
Document->OCR Corrections->Hide all text
which will make all text invisible even if
it wasn’t originally invisible. Since this
operation cannot be undone, please ensure
you save a copy of your document first.

Notes
• If your document happened to contain any non-ocr text added after the scanning
process, this too will be hidden at the end of the correction process.
• Choose View->Text Boundaries to see the boundaries between different blocks of
text.
• Changing the colour of the OCR text can make it easier to distinguish from the
background image. This will not affect the finished PDF.
• Some OCR packages create many small text blocks that are difficult to edit. Use the
“Rebuilding text boxes” on page 90 in Foxit Advanced Editor to merge disjoint
blocks of text into a single, editable text block.
 Quick Start Guide 14

Activating your software

Foxit Advanced Editor adds watermarks to saved PDFs unless you activate the
software using the code supplied when purchased.
Activations codes are usually provided as part of a purchase receipt email. If you
cannot find your code, please contact sales@foxitsoftware.com

Choose Help->Buy/Activate... from the

main menu bar to display the Buy/Activate
Foxit Advanced Editor dialogue box.

If you have your activation key code to

hand, press Activate...
If you have not yet purchased Foxit
1 Advanced Editor, press Purchase.
This will attempt to open the Foxit
Advanced Editor web page using your web
browser.
Once you have bought a license and have
an activation key, press the Activate...
button.
On-line Activation

Your code may be a number or sequence

of numbers and letters or your email
address.
On-line activation is the quickest method.
If your computer does not have an internet
connection, uncheck this box.
2

Continued...
 Quick Start Guide 15

Continued from previous page

Potential Problems
If you computer is behind a fire wall or web access is blocked in some way,
the activation may not succeed. If this is the case, follow the off-line activation
instructions below.

Off-line activation
Uncheck the Activate on-line check box to reveal the lower part of the dialogue box.

This is the code you should send to

Foxit (your code will be different to that
pictured) . The code changes every time
you install Foxit Advanced Editor.
Press the Copy button to copy the code to
the clipboard (to avoid copying it by hand)

Foxit will use the code you send to

generate an off-line activation key-
normally within 24 hours (except at
weekends)
When you receive your off-line key enter
it here.
The key will only work on the computer
4 you used to generate the code.
It will not work if you have re-installed
Foxit Advanced Editor on that computer
since you requested the off-line activation.
 Quick Start Guide 16

Toolbars
The first three toolbars and the status bar are shown by default, the others are hidden.
All of the toolbars shown below can be shown or hidden by using the View->Toolbars
menu.

Edit toolbar - see page 17

Navigation toolbar

Text formatting toolbar

Drawing toolbar - see page 18

Commenting toolbar - see page 19

Alignment toolbar

Status bar - see “Status bar” on page 20

 Quick Start Guide 17

Edit toolbar

Hand tool - grab the document and pan around to view hidden areas.

Zoom tool - click to zoom in. Control-click to zoom out. Drag out a box to
zoom into a region.

Object tool - click to select objects, move and resize by dragging the re-
size handles. Drag our a box to select a group of objects. See page 34.

Rotate tool - only active when objects have been selected with the Object
tool. Click to change rotation origin. Drag to rotate the selection. See page
37.

Text tool - click to edit existing text.

Text plus tool - click to add a new text box or edit an existing box added
with the tool. Drag to create a new, larger text box.

Linked text tool - click on blocks of text to link them together in order.
Click again to unlink. Text will flow between linked blocks.

Crop tool - click and drag to create a crop box. Resize the crop box then
press Return to perform the crop.

Hyperlink tool - drag out a box to create a new hyperlink, table or image
annotation.

Article tool - drag out a new article box around text. Link article boxes
together for easier reading and export.

Pipette tool - click on an object to copy its fill & stroke colours to the
currently selected object(s). See page 42

Colour picker - click to change the fill or stroke colours of the selection.
Also changes the line-width used for stroking. See page 40
 Quick Start Guide 18

Drawing toolbar
Choose View->Toolbars->Drawing to show/hide the toolbar.

Pencil (Freehand) - create freehand line drawings.

Rectangle - hold down SHIFT while dragging to create squares.

Single lines - single straight lines. Can have arrows applied to their ends.

Ovals - hold down SHIFT while dragging to create circles.

Pen - connected straight lines.

Start arrows - apply various types of arrowhead to the

start of a line or group of connected lines.

End arrows - the size of the applied decoration is related

to the line width.

Toggle border - place a simple border around the selected object(s).

Useful for placing a border around images.

Notes
• Some of these tools look very similar to those on the commenting toolbar. However,
these add graphic elements to the page. Commenting tools add similar shaped objects
to a special layer floating above the page and associate a note window with those
objects. The appearance of the comments made with commenting tools is left to the
discretion of the application used to view the PDF. Objects made with the drawing
tools should look identical in any PDF application.
 Quick Start Guide 19

Commenting toolbar
Choose View->Toolbars->Commenting to show/hide the toolbar.
Similar to the drawing tools, these tools allow you to add a comment to each
annotation. Unlike the drawing tools, the annotations do not form part of the PDF
page but are placed in a separate layer that floats over the page.
The annotations you create also appear summarised in the Comments catalogue.
(View->Comments).

Sticky note - Drag out a box to the size of the required sticky note.

Rectangle note - drag out a rectangle. Hold SHIFT while dragging for
squares. Double click to edit the attached note.

Circle note - drag to create an oval. Hold SHIFT while dragging to create
a circle.

Polygon note - create connected straight line shapes.

Scribble (Freehand) note - create freehand line drawings.

Line note - create a single line

Text highlight - toggles a highlight on the selected text. Select text with
the Text tool, then press this button to highlight it.

Stamp tool - add a predefined stamp to a page such as “Confidential”,

“Draft”, “Sign here”. Also add your signature to a page.

Right-click the mouse over an annotation

and choose Properties... to access the
Properties dialogue from where you
can change the colour and style of the
annotation.
 Quick Start Guide 20

Status bar
The status bar (View->Status Bar) provides at-a-glance information and short cuts to
commonly used functions and dialogue boxes.

Page label - only present if the

PDF uses page labels.

Double-click to edit document’s

page labels.

Lock icon - visible only when

the current document has
security restrictions.

Double-click to open the Dimensions of the

Document Security dialogue. current page

The dimensions of the currently Rendering mode - shows either Preview

selected object(s). or Outlines depending upon the current
rendering mode.
Only visible when using the
Object Select tool. Outline is quicker to draw and makes
editing quicker. It has no permanent
This information and more is effect on the PDF, only while viewed in
also available in the Transform Foxit Advanced Editor.
palette. Object->Transform...
Double click to toggle between modes.
 Quick Start Guide 21

Converting PDF to other formats

To convert a PDF into HTML, text or RTF or to export the images within a PDF, use
the File->Export menu.
Foxit Advanced Editor can export a document on a page-by-page basis or an article-
by-article bases.

Exporting a range of pages

Choose File->Export->Pages as...
Choose the range you wish to export.
Near the bottom of the dialogue box is a
summary of the output format that will be
used for the export. To change the output
format, press Format...
The output options available are detailed
in “General export settings” on page 184.

Exporting by article thread

Choose File->Export->Articles as...
If your document contains no article
threads you will need to create some. See
“Adding article threads” on page 169.
Choose to export just the articles
beginning on the current page, or all
articles in the document. If no articles
begin on the current page, only one option
will be available.
Near the bottom of the dialogue box is a
summary of the output format that will be
used for the export. To change the output
format, press Format...
The output options available are detailed
in “General export settings” on page 184.
 Quick Start Guide 22

Joining multiple PDFs

Foxit Advanced Editor can quickly join multiple PDF documents into a single
document.
Drag & drop any number of PDF files onto an open but empty Foxit Advanced Editor
window or choose File->Join...

Adding files
Add further files or entire
folders full of files using the
Add Files... and Add Folder...
buttons. When adding folders,
any PDF found in the folder or
its sub-folders will be added
to the list. There is no limit on
the number of files that can be
added.

Re-ordering documents
The order of the files in the list is the order in which they will be joined together. To
change the order, select a file then press Up or Down to move it higher or lower in the
list.

Joining
Press Join to begin the process
of merging the documents
together. Foxit Advanced Editor
will prompt for a filename for
the new merged document.
Once the process is complete,
Foxit Advanced Editor will ask
if you wish to open the new file.

Notes
• To add page numbers to a document after merging see “Cloning objects across pages”
on page 98.
• Foxit Advanced Editor will reject encrypted PDFs. Remove any passwords and
encryption from all files before trying to join. See “Security settings” on page 140
 Quick Start Guide 23

PDF photo albums

Drag & drop any number of images onto Foxit Advanced Editor and the software will
create a new PDF in which each page shows one of the images dropped.

Ensure no documents are open in Foxit

Advanced Editor.

Drag & drop a selection of JPEG,

Tiff, PNG or BMP images onto Foxit
Advanced Editor.
2

Foxit Advanced Editor will construct a

new PDF in which each page contains one
of the dropped images.