PDF Editor

How to edit a PDF

1. Press Select a PDF or drop the file on the page. It opens straight away in the editor. A locked PDF asks for its password first, and the edited file keeps the same password.
2. To change words that are already there, stay on Edit and click the line. Type as you would in a document. Press Escape or click outside the line when you are done.
3. Pick a tool from the bar to add things: Text, Image, Sign, Shapes, Draw, Mark for highlights, Whiteout, Redact, Note and Link. Everything you add can be moved, resized and deleted afterwards, and Ctrl Z undoes any step.
4. Use the page list on the left to turn, copy, delete or drag pages into a new order, add a blank page, or add pages from another PDF.
5. Press Download. The edited PDF is saved to your downloads folder, and on a computer a QR code lets you open the same file on your phone.

A PDF editor that keeps your fonts

Most online editors change the font when you edit a line, so the new words look out of place. This PDF editor reads every font in your file first. When you edit text in a PDF, the line keeps its original font as long as the file already contains every letter you type. Fonts in PDFs are often embedded with only the letters the document uses, so a word with a new letter cannot be written in that font.

In that case the editor uses the closest font it has, and it tells you which one and why. It starts with fonts drawn to the same letter widths as the common office fonts: Carlito for Calibri, Arimo for Arial and Helvetica, Tinos for Times New Roman, Cousine for Courier New, Caladea for Cambria and Gelasio for Georgia. For other fonts it measures where each character of your document sits and picks the font of the same kind whose letters come closest to the same width, so edited lines keep their length. You can always choose another font from the list of 34, or one of the fonts in your PDF.

Sign and fill PDF forms

To sign a PDF, choose Sign and draw your signature with a mouse, finger or pen, type your name in one of four handwriting styles, or upload a photo of your signature. The paper background of a photo is removed for you. Click where the signature goes and drag its corners to size it.

If the PDF has form fields, they turn into live boxes, checkboxes and lists. Fill PDF form fields as you would on a website; the values are written into the real form, so other PDF readers show them too. Tick Flatten form fields and comments into the page before downloading when the form should no longer be editable.

Redact a PDF for real

Whiteout covers part of a page with a white box, which is useful under new text. Redact goes further: when you download, the words, images and drawings under each black box are removed from the file itself, so nobody can copy them out or remove the box. To redact a PDF quickly, open Find, type a name or number and press Redact all. The editor always writes a new, complete file, so removed and redacted words are not left hidden inside it. Redaction works on the pages; if the file's title, bookmarks or comments hold the same details, change those too.

More tools in the editor

• Add text to a PDF anywhere, with font, size, bold, italic, underline, colour, alignment, line height, opacity and rotation.
• Highlight, underline or strike out words by dragging across them.
• Add images (PNG keeps its transparency), boxes, circles, lines, arrows and freehand drawings.
• Add sticky notes and links to web addresses or to other pages of the document.
• Find and replace words across every page.
• Add page numbers or a watermark to every page in one click.
• Change the title and author of the document.

Privacy

The PDF editor runs inside your browser with PDFium, the PDF engine of Google Chrome, built for the web. Your file is not uploaded, and there is no account, watermark or daily limit. While you work, the file and your edits are kept in this browser only, so a reload does not lose them; Close removes them, and so does the link under the download on the last screen. Read more in our privacy policy.

Frequently asked

Can I edit a scanned PDF?

A scan is a picture of a page, so it has no text to edit. Use Whiteout to cover the old words and Text to type new ones on top.

Which languages can I edit?

Text in Latin scripts, including European languages, Turkish and Vietnamese. Lines in Arabic, Urdu, Hindi and other scripts that join letters cannot be edited as text yet; you can still white them out and type over them.

Is there a size limit?

Files up to 300 MB and 2,000 pages open. Very large files need a computer with enough memory.

What if my PDF is signed?

A digital signature proves the file has not changed, so any edit breaks it. The editor warns you when you open a signed PDF.

Need to make a PDF from photos instead? Use JPG to PDF or PNG to PDF.