PDF editor
Add text, images, shapes and drawings directly on the page.
Your files stay in this browser. Nothing is uploaded.
About Editor
The editor opens your PDF as pages you can work on directly, so you can edit PDF text in your browser without sending the file anywhere. Click a line of existing text to retype it, add new text wherever you need it, drop in an image, draw a shape or a freehand mark, and cover anything you do not want showing with a Whiteout box.
Page work lives here too. Delete a page, rotate it, or insert a blank one after it, then click Apply changes and download the result. The file is opened and changed by code running in this tab, so it is never uploaded. Your original is left as it was, and the edited copy is a new file with "-edited" added to its name.
How it works
- Choose a PDF, or drop one anywhere on this page. To start something new instead, choose "Start with a blank page" for a single A4 page.
- Text is selected when the document opens. Click a line of existing text to edit it in place, or click empty space to start a new box. The toolbar above the box sets bold, italic, size, font and colour, and can add a link, move, duplicate or delete the box.
- Use Images for pictures and stamps, Whiteout for a box that hides part of the page, Annotate for highlights, underlines, strike-outs and freehand marks, and Shapes for lines, arrows, rectangles and ellipses. Drag on the page to place a box, mark or shape.
- Use the row above each page to rotate it, delete it, or insert a blank page after it. The Pages button opens thumbnails for jumping to any page, and Undo and Redo sit in the toolbar.
- Click Apply changes, then download the edited PDF.
What happens to the old text when you edit a line?
The editor changes the words already in your PDF rather than covering them. Click a line and retype it, and the new words are written into the page where the old ones stood, in the line's own font whenever that font has the characters you typed. The old words are removed from the page content, so copying or extracting the page's text no longer finds them. The file is never uploaded: it all happens in this browser tab.
A PDF does not store paragraphs. It stores runs of text at fixed positions, and a run is the part of a line set in one font at one size, usually the whole line. Click any word and its whole run opens for editing where it stands, still showing the page's own lettering until you change something.
When the line's font has every character you typed and you change only the words, they go into the page as the line's own glyphs, in its own font, size, spacing and colour, and the file gains no new font. Text after them on the same line stays exactly where it was. Nothing reflows, so a longer replacement stays on its one line and runs on past where the old words ended. Keep a replacement close to the length of what it replaces.
The line is drawn afresh instead when its font lacks a character you typed, when you change its font, size, colour, bold or italic, or when you move it and retype it at once. The original still comes out of the page, and the new words are drawn with the settings in the box's toolbar, which start as the size and colour the page used for that line. A colour the editor cannot read, such as a spot colour, starts as black. A redrawn line wraps inside its box on to the lines below, without pushing anything down. When a missing character was the reason, Apply changes names the characters the document's font did not have.
Find & Replace, under More, changes every match in the document at once. It takes the original words out of the page content like any other edit, but always draws the replacement afresh: in black, at a size estimated from the height of the text, and in the document's own font only when that font has every character needed, otherwise in the nearest family on the list. It matches within one piece of text as the PDF is read, so a phrase split across two pieces is not found. Check each changed line before you download.
Deleting and moving the document's own text
Delete a line and it is removed from the page content, not hidden under a box. It goes from the page on screen too, whatever was behind it shows through, and text after it on the same line does not move.
Drag a line by its words, or by the edge of its box, and its own glyphs move with it. The font and the characters stay exactly as they were, only their position on the page changes, and nothing is left or painted at the old place. A line dragged to another page is drawn afresh there instead, and Apply changes says so, because its typeface may differ.
Fonts: what is reused and what is substituted
A line retyped in place uses only characters its own font already holds, so the file needs no new font. Embedded fonts are usually subsets holding just the characters the document used, so a capital or an accented letter the original never needed may not be there, and then the line is redrawn. Unless you pick another font, a redrawn line uses a copy of its own font when the file embeds one with every character needed, and the closest family on the list when it does not.
The list has 45 families in five groups: Standard, Sans-serif, Serif, Monospace and Arabic. The stand-ins for Arial, Calibri, Cambria, Times New Roman, Courier New and Georgia have the same character widths as the originals, so line breaks stay put. Others, such as Verdana or Palatino, are matched to a different width, and a line can run longer or shorter.
Helvetica, Times New Roman and Courier are the PDF format's built-in fonts. They are referenced rather than embedded, and any character outside western European languages is written as a question mark. The list has no Chinese, Japanese or Korean font, so new characters in those scripts depend on the line's own font already holding them.
Every other family is served from this site. Picking one downloads the font file from this domain, and applying changes reuses that same file, trimming it to the characters you used before writing it into the PDF. The trimming happens in your browser, so nothing about the text you typed leaves it. If the download fails, the export uses the nearest built-in font.
Is anything still covered rather than removed?
Whiteout is a cover by design. It paints a box over the page, and whatever is underneath stays in the file, where selecting the page text or opening the file in another program can bring it back.
Delete existing image takes out the instruction that draws the picture, so the page no longer shows it and no box is painted in its place. The picture's data can still be inside the file, though, so do not rely on it to make a picture unrecoverable. A picture drawn from inside a reusable object cannot be taken out on its own, and is covered with a patch instead.
In a few files the editor cannot take a line of text out, for example when it is drawn from inside a reusable object or part of the page will not decode. It does not pretend. A line you deleted stays visibly on the page. A line you retyped is covered with a patch and drawn again, and the original is still in the file under the patch. Either way, Apply changes names the line and says why before you download.
On a scan made searchable with OCR, the words you see are part of the picture. Changing a line there removes its hidden text and covers that part of the picture with a patch, with the new words drawn on top.
Deleting a page is different: its text, and the pictures and fonts only that page used, are dropped from the saved file, and its bookmarks and links go with it. In an unusual file a picture from a deleted page can still come along.
If something must not be recoverable, apply your changes and run the result through Flatten PDF with Flatten everything. It builds a new file out of pictures of the pages, so nothing sits under the patches, and no text in it can be selected or searched afterwards.
What Apply changes builds, and what the editor cannot do
Apply changes rebuilds the PDF in this tab, showing progress such as "Applying page 3 of 12": form values first, then page rotations, then the changes to the pages' own text and pictures, then deleted and blank pages, then everything you added to each page, and finally attachments.
Drawn items become part of the page. Highlights, underlines and strike-outs are painted marks, not comment annotations, so viewers show them but do not list them as comments. Links are real links, and filled form fields stay live until you flatten the file.
Some jobs are outside the editor. It cannot reorder pages (Organize PDF does), merge in another file (Merge PDF does), move or resize a picture the document already had (it can delete one), create form fields (it fills the ones already there), or remove attachments already in the file. A file that needs a password must first go through Unlock PDF.
Frequently asked questions
Yes. Click a line and retype it, and the new words are written into the page where the old ones stood, in the line's own font whenever it has every character you typed. The old words are removed from the page content rather than covered. Nothing reflows, so keep a replacement close to the length of the words it replaces.
Yes. Deleting a line of the document's own text takes it out of the page content, so it is gone from the page and copying or extracting the text no longer finds it. Nothing is painted over it, and text after it on the same line stays where it was. If a file ever stops the editor doing that, the line stays visibly on the page and Apply changes says so, rather than hiding it under a box.
Yes. Drag a line by its words or by the edge of its box. Its own glyphs move, in its own font, and nothing is left or painted at the old position. A line dragged to another page is drawn afresh there instead, so its typeface may differ, and Apply changes tells you so.
Because the line could not be written in its own font. Usually that font lacks a character you typed: a PDF normally embeds a cut-down copy of each font, holding only the characters the document used, so a letter the original never needed has nowhere to come from. The line is then redrawn in the nearest of the 45 bundled families, Apply changes names the missing characters, and you can pick another family from the box's toolbar.
Not until it has been read. A scan is a picture of a page, so there are no characters to click on. Run it through OCR first to add a text layer, then open the result here. The words you see are still part of the picture, though, so a line you change has its hidden text removed and that part of the picture covered with a patch, with the new words drawn on top.
No. Whiteout paints a box over the page, and whatever is underneath stays in the file, where selecting the text or opening the file in another program can bring it back. To take a line of the document's own text out for real, click it and delete it instead. For anything else that must not be recoverable, run the applied file through Flatten PDF with Flatten everything.
Not here. You can delete pages, rotate them and insert blank ones. Organize PDF reorders pages and Merge PDF combines files, so use those first and bring the result back to the editor.
Not one that needs a password to open, yet. Take the password off first with Unlock PDF, then open the file it gives you. A file whose password only restricts printing or copying opens here without one.
For files under 5 MB the editor keeps a recovery copy in this browser, saved about two seconds after your last change. Come back to this page and it offers to restore your edits or discard them. Only one document is kept at a time, and the copy is cleared when you click Apply changes unless you tick "Keep a recovery copy after download". More, then Local saving, switches it off.
Yes. There is no server here to receive the file. It is read from your disk into this tab, changed in memory and written back out as a download. Open your network tab while you work and none of the requests carries the file. What is kept is kept locally: a Recent files entry on this device, with the file itself when it is under 5 MB, deletable from the Recent files page.
Guides
Related tools
This tool ran entirely in your browser and nothing was uploaded. Your Recent files list keeps a copy of local files under 5 MB until you clear it. How your files are handled.