How to Edit a PDF [For Teachers]

Teachers are the real heroes because they do much more than their job description. They have the ultimate responsibility of catering to their students' diverse needs. One of their many tasks involves creating PDFs for lectures and tests, which they need to print and distribute as assignments. This means they go beyond their primary teaching duties, learning how to work with PDFs and editing tools to create a better learning environment for their students. However, editing PDFs is not easy.

I understand this struggle firsthand, having experienced moments of frustration when I desperately needed to edit PDFs but didn't know how. Fortunately, I've managed to overcome these challenges, and I'm here to share the knowledge of how to edit a PDF for teachers.

How Editing PDFs Can Help You with Your Teaching

Teachers already have a lot on their plate, juggling the diverse needs of their students. They need to identify when students are struggling, provide individualized attention, and create an environment that helps everyone perform better. Teaching is a highly demanding profession that is often underrated and underappreciated.

PDFs are a great resource for teachers, helping them to streamline their workflow and maximize their efficiency. For teachers who aren't making use of PDFs, the workload can be even more overwhelming, as they have to manage many tasks manually. Teachers make use of PDFs and editing tools in various scenarios to enhance their teaching efficiency and improve the learning experience for their students. Here are some common scenarios:

Creating and Distributing Lecture Notes:

Teachers prepare comprehensive lecture notes in PDF format to ensure consistency and easy distribution. By editing PDFs, they can update and refine these notes regularly to keep the content current and relevant.

Designing and Administering Tests and Quizzes:

Tests and quizzes are often created in PDF format to maintain a uniform layout. Teachers can edit these PDFs to add new questions, modify existing ones, or tailor the tests to different levels of difficulty for various student groups.

Developing Assignment Sheets and Homework:

Assignment sheets and homework are commonly distributed as PDFs. Editing tools allow teachers to customize these documents with specific instructions, due dates, and additional resources.

Annotating Student Work:

Teachers often receive student submissions in PDF format. They can use PDF editing tools to annotate these documents with comments, corrections, and feedback, making the review process more efficient and clear.

Compiling and Sharing Resource Packs:

Teachers compile various resources, such as reading materials, research articles, and supplementary notes, into a single PDF document. This consolidated resource pack is then shared with students for easy access.

Updating Syllabi and Course Outlines:

Course outlines and syllabi are often distributed as PDFs. Teachers can easily edit these documents to reflect any changes in the curriculum, course schedule, or policies.

Among the functionalities outlined above, certain advanced features necessitate a membership subscription. While Adobe offers these capabilities, its membership fees are comparatively high, posing a financial challenge for many educators. However, I've uncovered that WPS PDF presents a more economical alternative, boasting comprehensive features. Priced at only $2.33 per month, with additional discounts tailored for teachers, it delivers exceptional value.

Furthermore, WPS PDF extends a seven-day trial period, granting teachers the opportunity to explore its offerings before committing to a subscription.

By choosing WPS PDF, teachers can access a powerful suite of tools designed to simplify their tasks and enhance their productivity without straining their budgets. And it is such an intuitive software that teachers can easily learn how to edit a PDF on mobile phones with WPS Office.

How to Edit a PDF [For Lesson Planning]

Lesson planning itself involves a lot of thinking and evaluation, and it is only natural to find the need to edit your lesson plans. If you are working on a PDF, here's how you can do it with ease using WPS Office:

Annotation and Highlighting: This feature empowers teachers to highlight or annotate important information during lesson planning, enabling a more focused and effective teaching approach. With the ability to emphasize key concepts and add insightful comments, educators can enhance the clarity and impact of their instructional materials.

Step 1: To utilize the annotation or highlighting tools, navigate to the Comment tab in WPS PDF.

Step 2: Click on the "Highlight" button and then use your cursor to select the text you wish to highlight.

Step 3: To change the highlight color, click on the small arrow within the Highlight option to explore more color options.

Step 4: Explore the Comment tab to discover additional annotation tools available in WPS PDF, such as "Drawing tools", "Shape Annotations", and others.

Page Organization: WPS PDF facilitates seamless page organization for teachers, ensuring smooth lesson flow and easy access to essential content. With intuitive tools for rearranging and grouping pages, educators can create structured lesson plans tailored to their teaching objectives.

Step 1: To rearrange or organize pages in your PDF, go to the Page tab in the WPS PDF toolbar.

Step 2: To rearrange pages, left-click and hold the page you want to move to another position. The selected page border will turn red, and a red thick line will appear to assist in repositioning pages.

Step 3: Once positioned, drop the page next to the red thick line, and the pages will now be arranged in their new order.

Find & Replace: WPS PDF simplifies lesson planning by offering a robust Find & Replace feature. Teachers can swiftly locate specific content and make necessary adjustments, ensuring accuracy and coherence in their instructional materials.

Step 1: The "Find and Replace" tool is available in the "Home" ribbon. Click on it to open the Find and Replace window on the right side of the WPS PDF interface.

Step 2: Now, simply search for a term that you wish to find in the PDF, and then use other editing tools to replace the content.

I believe teachers of all subjects would find this method incredibly useful. It's always beneficial to stay ahead of the plan and align your lessons accordingly. However, there are times when lessons don’t go as planned due to unexpected holidays or surprise quizzes. In these instances, adjustments to lesson plans become necessary, whether to redo certain sections or add more content.

WPS Office is a lifesaver in such scenarios. It provides teachers with the flexibility to make quick and easy edits to their lesson plans. The ability to seamlessly update PDFs and other documents ensures that educators can adapt to changes without hassle, maintaining the flow of their teaching while accommodating any unexpected disruptions.

How to Edit a PDF [For Grading & Feedback]

Grading your students' papers and leaving feedback is important for building their confidence and helping them improve. In the digital age where education often takes place online, teachers and students can interact more naturally and efficiently using digital tools. Here's how to edit PDF documents for grading using WPS Office:

Commenting Tools: With WPS PDF, teachers gain access to commenting tools for adding remarks, notes, or explanations directly onto the document, facilitating detailed feedback on students assignment or coursework.

Step 1: To add a comment to your PDF documents, visit the "Comment" tab and then click on the "Text Comment" button.

Step 2: Now, go to the position where you want to add a comment and click on the document to place the comment box. Then simply add explanations or comments on the student's work.

Step 3: To change the font size or color of the comment, use the hover menu right above the comment box.

Save and Share: After finishing grading and offering feedback, teachers can save the updated PDF containing annotations and comments. Then, you can electronically share it with the students via email or a learning platform for prompt feedback delivery.

Step 1:  After completing all remarks and corrections on the PDF, if teachers wish to preserve the changes in a separate PDF, they can access the Menu button at the top left and select the "Save as" option.

Step 2: Once the PDF has been saved, navigate to the "Fill & Sign" tab and then click on the "Send via Email" button.

Step 3: The Share & Collaborate window will pop open, select the preferred email client. This will open the email client with the PDF attached; simply enter the student's email and share the PDF.

Grading is such a repetitive and automated task that it's only natural for teachers to occasionally miss or make an error in the grading of a student. While it might seem like a small mistake to a teacher, it can mean a lot to the student.

WPS Office's AI tools will  grading fast and easy, significantly reducing the chances of errors. Teachers can quickly update grades and add relevant comments without going through extra trouble. Plus, assignments and feedback can be shared online, eliminating the need for exchanging physical papers. This method ensures accuracy and provides a seamless way to communicate with students, enhancing the overall efficiency and effectiveness of the grading process.

How to Edit a PDF [For Archiving]

Organizing and teaching go hand in hand because when everything is in order, the teaching experience becomes more enjoyable and effective. Disorganization can disrupt the flow of lessons and create unnecessary stress. To maintain a seamless teaching process, it's essential to keep your materials well-organized. One effective way to achieve this is by archiving your lesson plans, assignments, and other important documents. Here's how you can edit your PDFs for archiving using WPS Office:

Text Editing: Using WPS PDF, teachers can modify text within PDF documents to incorporate new sections or questions, streamlining the process of updating or adjusting their materials without necessitating the creation of a new version.

Step 1: If you want to add a new section to the PDF, click on the "Add text" button in the Edit ribbon, then place the cursor where you want to add the new section and left-click and then enter the contents of the new section.

Step 2: To customize the font, WPS PDF opens the "Edit PDF" pane on the right while adding text, where you can customize the font in the Text Properties section.

Step 3: To erase a section, click on the "Wipe Off" option in the Edit ribbon, and use your cursor to select the area you wish to erase.

Bookmarking: Bookmarking PDFs allows for easier navigation. With WPS PDF, teachers can utilize the bookmark feature to create bookmarks within the document, facilitating easy access to specific pages or sections for efficient archiving and document management.

Step 1: Click on the "Add Bookmark" option in the Edit ribbon to create a new bookmark in your PDF. This will open the Bookmark pane on the left side of the WPS PDF interface.

Step 2: Give your bookmark a name, and to edit its properties, right-click to open the view bookmark options.

Digital Signatures: With WPS PDF, teachers can effortlessly add signatures to PDF documents, ensuring authenticity and integrity verification for archived files.

Step 1: If you're adding a digital signature for the first time in WPS PDF, start by clicking the "Add Signature" button in the Fill & Sign ribbon.

Step 2: A window for PDF Signature will appear, where students can make a new digital signature by drawing, typing, or uploading an image of their signature. After creating the signature, click "OK".

Step 3: Your cursor will turn into a digital signature. Put it anywhere in the document and adjust its size using the border.

Archiving, although an inevitable and integral task, can be time-consuming and prone to errors when done manually. Important documents, lesson plans, and student records need to be organized and stored efficiently and with this signing method teachers can be assured about the safekeeping of the student’s assignments.

How to Edit a PDF [For Resource-Sharing]

Teachers usually have nothing to hide, but as exam season approaches, it's essential for them to take extra steps to ensure that exam papers don't get leaked and grades remain confidential. This is crucial for maintaining trust and integrity in the educational system. If you have something you want to keep confidential from your students or colleagues, follow these steps for resource sharing:

Password Protection: Preparing coursework can be time-consuming, and ensuring its security to prevent copying or safeguard sensitive information like student details is crucial. With WPS PDF, you can achieve both efficiently by encrypting your PDF documents.

Step 1: Click on the "Encrypt" button in the Protect tab to keep your PDF contract safe from people who shouldn't see it.

Step 2: In the encryption window, tick the box that says “Set the open password” to create a password. This password will stop anyone from opening the file without permission.

Step 3: If you don't want others to edit or copy your PDF contracts, you can also set a password for that by checking the “Set password of editing and extracting” checkbox.

Extract Text: With this feature, teachers can easily pull text from PDF files, making it simpler to reuse content or add it into other documents or communication tools when working with colleagues.

Step 1: To extract text from a PDF, go to the Home tab and choose the "Extract Text" option from the ribbon.

Step 2: The Extract Text window will open, and WPS PDF will begin extracting text from the PDF. Once done, you can click "Copy" to copy the content to the clipboard.

Step 3: To edit the PDF content, click on "Edit" and use your keyboard to make changes.

This method will work great for teachers who want to preserve the confidentiality of certain documents, as it ensures that sensitive information remains secure and accessible only to authorized individuals. Teachers have a professional responsibility to uphold ethical standards in their teaching abilities, which includes maintaining the confidentiality of student records, assessments, and other confidential documents.

By utilizing digital platforms for sharing homework and other course materials online, teachers can effectively safeguard sensitive information while still providing students with the resources they need to succeed. This approach promotes transparency, accountability, and professionalism in educational practices, reinforcing trust and confidence in teachers' ethical conduct.

How to Edit a PDF [For Distributing Homework]

At this point in time, online classes have become more common than ever, proving to be more efficient, with students performing better as they have better access to lectures. However, an effective hybrid system is what works best, blending the benefits of both in-person and online instruction. In this model, teachers share everything and resources online, including homework assignments. You can share the homework to your student through WPS PDF easy shareability and editing capabilities as demonstrated below:

Adding Links and Attachments: With WPS PDF, teachers can add hyperlinks or attachments to their PDFs, incorporating extra resources or instructions for homework. For instance, you can link online articles, videos, or supplementary materials to provide more context or support.

Step 1: To attach a file to your PDF, click the "Attachment" button in the Edit tab, then position your cursor where you want the file in the PDF and left-click.

Step 2: Locate the file on your computer and select it to attach it to the PDF form.

Step 3: Similarly, to add a link to your PDF, click on the "Link" button in the Edit tab, then place the cursor on the PDF where you want to place the link and left-click.

Step 4: The Create Link dialog will open, where you can customize the link style in the Facade section.

Step 5: In the Link Action section, choose from one of the four options. For example, if you select "Open URL", when a student clicks the link, the URL will open in their preferred browser.

OCR (Optical Character Recognition) PDF: OCR capability empowers the conversion of scanned documents or image PDFs into editable and searchable text PDFs, proving invaluable for educational purposes, particularly with handwritten assignments or scanned worksheets. This conversion enables seamless addition of comments, annotations, or corrections before sharing the homework with students.

Step 1: To perform OCR on a scanned PDF, navigate to the "Convert" tab and choose "OCR PDF".

Step 2: A dialog box for OCR PDF will pop up. Click on "Perform OCR".

Step 3: WPS PDF will initiate the OCR process, which may require some time.

Step 4: After the OCR is finished, the scanned PDF becomes editable with WPS PDF.

WPS PDF has become a game-changer for crafting engaging lesson plans. By integrating links to online resources directly into the PDF, we enhance the depth of our materials while saving students valuable time. The OCR function is truly invaluable for scanned documents, enabling effortless conversion of written work into editable PDFs. This facilitates seamless annotation and feedback before distributing assignments. Additionally, it's incredibly useful for archiving assignments for future reference.

Enhance Your Teaching Process with AI PDF

PDFs already provide a tremendous advantage for teachers by streamlining and enhancing their work. Learning to edit PDFs can significantly increase efficiency and organization. Now, imagine the added benefits when PDFs are integrated with AI. The question naturally arises “where to find free PDF editing software”.  WPS Office offers a powerful, free resource where teachers can easily access AI-integrated PDFs. The final step is for educators to discover the endless possibilities this technology offers. Here's how AI-enhanced PDFs can transform the teaching and learning experience:

Streamlined Document Creation

• Automated Formatting: AI tools ensure consistent formatting, saving teachers valuable time on manual adjustments.

• Template Recommendations: AI suggests templates for various documents, such as lesson plans, tests, and worksheets, speeding up the creation process.

Personalized Learning Materials

• Adaptive Resources: AI analyzes student performance to help teachers create personalized learning materials tailored to individual needs.

• Dynamic Worksheets: AI generates worksheets that adjust in difficulty based on student progress, keeping them engaged and challenged.

Efficient Grading and Feedback

• Automated Grading: AI grades assignments and tests instantly, providing immediate feedback and freeing up teachers' time for personalized instruction.

• Performance Analysis: AI offers detailed reports on student performance, helping teachers identify areas of strength and areas needing improvement.

Time-Saving Automation

• Routine Task Automation: AI automates routine tasks such as scheduling, reminders, and notifications, allowing teachers to focus more on teaching.

• Resource Distribution: AI manages the distribution of materials, ensuring that students receive the right documents at the right time.

Student Benefits

• Instant Feedback: Students receive immediate feedback on assignments, helping them understand their mistakes and learn more effectively.

• Enhanced Engagement: Interactive PDFs with AI features make learning more engaging and interactive, capturing students' interest and fostering a deeper understanding of the material.

• Accessible Resources: Students can easily access and interact with AI-enhanced PDFs on various devices, facilitating learning anytime, anywhere.

Advanced Features of WPS Office: For Teachers!

WPS Office is not an exclusive office suite tailored to a particular group of people; it caters to everyone, including teachers, who can reap significant benefits from its features. From free PowerPoint templates and smart forms to a versatile screen recorder, WPS Office offers everything teachers need to enhance their teaching and administrative tasks. With WPS Office, educators can create a more efficient, engaging, and productive learning environment without the hassle of learning a new software.

• Diverse PowerPoint Templates:

WPS Office offers a wide array of professionally designed PowerPoint templates, all available for free. Whether preparing a presentation for work, school, or personal use, these templates help create visually appealing slideshows that captivate audiences. Teachers can utilize these templates to craft engaging lessons, making their teaching more effective and visually stimulating.

• Smart Forms for Administrative Efficiency:

The smart form feature in WPS Office is a highly convenient tool for teachers, streamlining various administrative tasks. With customizable templates and interactive elements such as checkboxes and text fields, educators can easily create forms for surveys, assessments, and feedback collection. This tool simplifies the process of gathering and analyzing information, allowing teachers to focus more on their students.

• Screen Recorder for Enhanced Learning:

The screen recorder feature in WPS Office is invaluable for teachers, enabling them to create instructional videos, tutorials, and presentations effortlessly. Teachers can capture their computer screens, annotate recordings, and add voiceover narration, producing engaging and informative lessons for their students. The flexibility to record the entire screen or specific windows, along with seamless sharing options, makes this feature perfect for enhancing the learning experience in any educational setting.

FAQs about Editing a PDF

Q1. How can I edit PDF files for free on any iPhone?

Step 1: Open the PDF in WPS Office on your iPhone.

Step 2: Tap the "Edit" button at the top left of the screen.

Step 3: You'll see tabs at the bottom for "Edit Text", "Edit Image", "Mark", and "Page Management".

Step 4: If you want to highlight or underline, go to the "Mark" tab.

Step 5: To change text, go to "Edit Text" and select the text you want to change.

Step 6: For images, go to "Edit Image" to rotate, replace, or delete them.

Q2. How can I edit a PDF document without converting to Word or any other software?

Yes. For efficient PDF editing without the need for conversion to Word, WPS Office provides a direct solution. It enables the insertion of text, images, and highlights directly within the PDF document. Furthermore, its compatibility across various platforms and cost-effectiveness make it a favorable choice for teachers.

Q3. How can I edit any PDF File on my Laptop / PC?

Here's a simple guide to modify your PDF on your laptop or PC using the WPS Office:

Step 1: Open WPS Office on your computer and choose the PDF file you want to modify.

Step 2: Visit the "Edit” Tab in the WPS PDF. Here, you can find multiple editing options.

Step 3: Click on "Add Text" in the Edit ribbon, then place the cursor where you wish to add text in your PDF and left-click.

Step 4: You can also add pictures in your PDF using the “Add Picture” feature in the Edit Ribbon.

Step 5: Teachers can highlight feedback, mistakes, and sections in a PDF using the “Highlight” option in the “Comment” tab. Simply select the text using the cursor that you wish to highlight.

Empowering Educators: How WPS Office Simplifies Teaching Tasks

Teaching is one of the most underappreciated and undervalued professions, and I know this firsthand from having had some truly remarkable teachers and mentors whose worth became evident as we grew older. Their legacy continues with us, shaping who we are today. It's remarkable to see how WPS Office acknowledges the tremendous efforts teachers put in and seeks to give back by easing their workload.

AI plays a significant role in this regard, offering ready-made templates tailored for teachers' needs. If teachers know how to edit a PDF for teachers, their lives can become much simpler. WPS Office provides unparalleled ease in managing and editing PDFs, making it the ideal tool for educators.

So, download WPS Office now and experience how it can transform your teaching experience, making your job easier and more efficient.