How to edit a PDF in your browser (and sign one)
Most "edit PDF online" tools upload your document the moment you choose it. This one does not. The page you are marking up is being drawn by your own browser, and your file stays on your device until you decide the edit is finished.
Nothing leaves your device until you press save
When you open a PDF here, your browser renders it locally and the editor records what you do as a list of instructions — this text at this position on this page, this signature at this size, this page rotated. That list is small, structured data. Your document is not part of it.
Only when you save does anything travel: the file is uploaded, the instruction list goes with it, and a server writes the two together into a new PDF that you download. If you change your mind and close the tab before saving, you never sent us your document at all.
That ordering has a practical consequence beyond privacy. Because the edit is stored as instructions rather than as a flattened picture, the result is a genuine PDF — text you can select and search, pages that are still pages — rather than a stack of images of your document.
What you can actually do to a page
For adding things: text in any of the sizes and colours the toolbar offers, images from your device, and freehand drawing with your finger, a stylus or a mouse. For marking up existing content: highlight, underline and strikeout. For pointing at things: rectangles, circles, straight lines and arrows.
There is also a page-numbering tool, which is the one that saves the most time — it stamps a running number across every page rather than making you place a text box on each one.
Everything you place can be moved, resized and deleted afterwards, and every action is undoable. Zoom in when you need to be precise about where something sits; the position is recorded against the page itself, so what you see on screen is where it lands in the file.
Signing a document
There are two ways to get a signature onto the page. Draw it directly — with a finger on a phone, which is the way most people find easiest, or with a mouse — or upload a photograph of a signature you have already made on paper. Either way it becomes an object you can place, scale and reposition until it sits where it belongs.
This produces the same thing as printing, signing and scanning: a visible signature written into the document. It is not a cryptographic digital signature, and it does not claim to be one. If you need the kind of signature that a certificate authority backs and software can verify, that is a different mechanism and this is not it.
For the enormous number of everyday documents that need a signature simply because a form has a line on it — a rental form, a permission slip, a delivery note, a returns label — this is the whole job, and it takes about a minute without a printer in it.
Pages are editable too, not just their contents
A scanned document that came out sideways can be rotated. A page you do not want to send can be deleted. Pages can be dragged into a different order, and a page can be duplicated when you need a second copy of the same form.
These are the operations that most often send people looking for desktop software, and they are also the ones most often needed on a phone, immediately, because the scan just came out of the camera. They work on touch.
Rotation is worth one note: it is applied as a property of the page rather than by re-drawing its contents, which is why a rotated page keeps its text selectable and stays as sharp as it started. Anything you have placed on the page rotates with it, exactly as it appears on screen.
Text is real text — in your language
Text you add is written into the PDF as text, with the font it needs embedded into the file. That is what makes it selectable, searchable and sharp at any zoom, and it is why the result is a document rather than a picture of one.
Embedding matters most for scripts beyond the Latin alphabet. A PDF has no built-in Japanese, Korean or Devanagari font to fall back on, so a tool that does not embed one produces a page of blank boxes on someone else's computer — the classic failure that only shows up after you have sent the file. Text added here carries its font with it, in every language the editor speaks.
The editor itself is available in nine languages, and the fonts follow the text rather than the interface: writing Japanese into an English-language session embeds the Japanese font, because what matters is the characters on the page, not the menu language you chose.
Step by step
- 01
Open your PDF
Choose a PDF up to 200 MB. It is rendered by your own browser — nothing is uploaded at this point.
- 02
Make your edits
Add text, images, drawings or a signature; highlight, underline or strike through; draw shapes and arrows; add page numbers; rotate, delete, duplicate or reorder pages. Undo anything.
- 03
Save and download
Saving uploads the file with your edit list and returns a real edited PDF. Both files are deleted 24 hours later.
Frequently asked questions
Can I edit the text that is already in the PDF?
No — this editor adds to a page rather than rewriting what is already on it. You can cover something with a filled shape and place new text on top, which is what most people actually need, but the original text objects are left as they are. Saying otherwise would be the useful-sounding claim that disappoints at exactly the wrong moment.
Is my document uploaded while I am editing?
No. The document is rendered locally and your edits are held as a list of instructions. The file is uploaded only when you save, and only then does a server write the edited PDF. Close the tab before saving and nothing was ever sent.
Is a drawn signature legally valid?
It produces the same thing as printing, signing and scanning — a visible signature in the document — and it is accepted in the same everyday situations. It is not a cryptographic digital signature backed by a certificate, so where a specific standard or verifiable signature is required, use a service built for that. We cannot give legal advice about your particular document.
Does it work on a phone?
Yes. Drawing, placing, dragging, pinch-zoom and page reordering all work by touch, and signing with a finger is generally easier than with a mouse. The document is still rendered on your device, so a phone is doing arithmetic on coordinates rather than heavy file work.
How big a file can I edit, and how long is it kept?
Up to 200 MB per PDF, plus up to nine images placed on it in the same job. After you save, the uploaded file and the edited result are both deleted 24 hours later, and the download link expires with them.