Edit PDF

1. Choose your PDF, or drop it onto the box. It opens in your browser, so the file never leaves your device.
2. Pick a tool from the bar above the page: Edit text, Add text, Draw, Highlight, Whiteout or Image.
3. Make your changes on the page. Use the arrows under the page to move between pages, and the zoom buttons for small print.
4. Fix anything with Select. Click an edit to move it, drag its corner to resize it, or change its colour or size. Undo and Redo (Ctrl+Z, Ctrl+Y) step through your changes.
5. Click Save and download. You get a copy named yourfile-edited.pdf; the original file is not changed.

Pages you don’t touch are saved exactly as they were, and so are bookmarks, links and form fields.

Choose Edit text. Every line of text on the page gets a faint dashed outline. Click the line you want to change and it turns into a text box holding the same words, at the same size, colour and position. Type your correction, then click anywhere else on the page.

Behind the scenes, three things happen:

• The old line is painted over in the page’s own background colour, so it disappears even on a tinted page.
• Your new words are written as real PDF text on the same baseline, so they can still be selected, searched and copied.
• The text is set in the closest of the three fonts every PDF reader has: a sans-serif (Helvetica), a serif (Times) or a typewriter font (Courier), in bold or italic to match.

The last point is why a corrected line can look slightly different from the lines around it. Most PDFs carry only the letters the document used, not the whole font, so a word you type may need letters the file doesn’t have. For short fixes such as a date, a name or a figure, the difference is rarely noticeable. To change a whole paragraph, click each line in turn, or cover the paragraph with Whiteout and type the new one with Add text.

Everything you add is saved as part of the page, not as a comment, so it shows up in every PDF reader and when the file is printed. A signature picture looks best as a PNG with a transparent background, so the page shows through around the ink.

• It is a scan or a photo. The words are part of a picture, so there is no text to click and no dashed outlines appear. Cover the words with Whiteout, then type the new ones with Add text.
• The text runs sideways or at an angle. Edit text picks up lines that read left to right across the page as you see it. Cover other text with Whiteout and retype it.
• The PDF is locked. A password-protected PDF, or one locked against changes, can’t be opened for editing. The tool tells you when this is the case; unlock it with the password first.
• A character can’t be written. The built-in PDF fonts cover English and Western European letters (including £, € and accents). Greek, Cyrillic, Chinese, emoji and symbols such as → can’t be added; the status line names the character so you can replace it.
• The new text looks a little different. See how existing text is changed: the closest built-in font is used because the file rarely contains the full original font.

• Covering is not deleting. Whiteout and Edit text paint over the old content. It can’t be seen or printed, but it is still in the file, and someone could copy or search for it. Don’t rely on it to hide bank details, ID numbers or anything confidential.
• Digital signatures stop being valid. Any change to a signed PDF breaks its signature, so the tool warns you when it finds one. Edit before signing, not after.
• Fillable form boxes sit on top of the page. Text you add underneath a form box with a background is hidden by it. Type into the form box itself in your PDF reader instead.
• Whole pages are a separate job. To remove pages use Delete PDF pages, to trim margins use Crop PDF, and if the file is too large to email after adding photos, use Compress PDF.