How it works
- Open your PDF. Every line of real text is shaded blue, so you can see straight away what can be changed.
- Click a line and type. A format bar appears above it with font, size, bold, italic, underline and colour.
- Save. Only the lines you touched are rewritten — images, tables and untouched text stay byte-for-byte identical to the original.
Why edited lines keep the right font
A PDF does not store paragraphs. It stores individual glyphs pinned to coordinates, drawn with a font that is usually embedded inside the file itself. Most free editors ignore that font and redraw your text in Helvetica, which is why an edited line suddenly looks wrong next to the ones around it.
This editor pulls the embedded font program out of the PDF, uses it for the on-screen preview, and re-embeds it when you save. A retyped line is set in the same typeface as its neighbours.
Two situations force a fallback, and the editor tells you when it happens. Fonts inside a PDF are usually subset — they only carry the glyphs the document already used. Type a character that was never in the document and there is no glyph for it, so that line falls back to a standard face. The same applies if you ask for bold or italic when the file only carries the regular cut.
Lines grow as you type
Add a few words and the line simply extends. If you are editing inside a table cell or a narrow column where growing would collide with the next column, press the condense button in the format bar and the line is squeezed back into exactly the width the original text occupied.
Change every occurrence at once
Press Ctrl+F for find and replace across the whole document. Useful for a date,
a reference number, a name or an address that appears on every page.
What you can edit
| Works | Does not work |
|---|---|
| Text created by Word, Excel, LaTeX, Canva, accounting and billing software, most report generators | Scanned pages and photographed documents — they contain no text objects at all |
| Headings, body text, table cells, headers and footers, rotated text and watermarks | Text baked into an image that was placed on the page |
| Encrypted files that open without a password | Password-protected files |
When a page has no text layer the editor says so on the page itself, so a scan is never mistaken for a broken tool. For a scan, either run OCR first or cover the area and retype it with the erase and text tools.
Questions
Is it really free?
Yes. There is no account, no trial, no watermark and no page limit. The editor is a single web page that runs on your own machine.
Does my file get uploaded?
No. The PDF is opened and rewritten by JavaScript inside your browser. It never travels to a server, which is also why it works with your internet disconnected once the page has loaded.
Will the layout shift after I edit?
The line you edit is repainted at the same baseline, size and colour; everything else in the file is left untouched. A line can shift very slightly if the original font cannot be reused and a standard face is substituted, and the editor warns you when that happens.
Can I edit a whole paragraph and have it reflow?
Lines are edited one at a time. A PDF has no paragraph structure to reflow, so text does not automatically re-wrap across lines. For a heavy rewrite, edit each line, or erase the block and add a fresh text box.
Can I edit a scanned PDF?
Not directly, because a scan is an image with no text inside it. You can cover the area with the erase tool and type new text over it, which is often enough for a form or a certificate.
Start editing
The editor opens instantly and runs on your own machine. Nothing is uploaded, and there is no account to create.