It wasn’t my practice, but there was an occasion recently when I considered using text boxes to “type over” the information in a PDF file. (I think it was a birth certificate.)

I consulted with a couple of colleagues here in Canada first (it was a certified translation), and one in particular told me she had received advice similar to Tom’s from a lawyer she works for. In this case, the lawyer said it would be OK as long as the translation was printed in black-and-white to distinguish it from the original, which was in color.

In the end, I decide to play it safe for the client’s benefit and did my translation in Word to approximate the original, no seals, no bells or whistles.