PDF Tools

PDF Tools

Merge, split, rotate PDF files online. Create PDFs from images. Rearrange PDF pages. Free online PDF editor and converter without upload limits

PDF is the format you cannot escape — invoices, contracts, scientific papers, government forms. The operations that take five minutes in Adobe Acrobat (merge two PDFs, rotate one page, extract pages 3-7) should not require a paid subscription. This tool runs entirely in your browser: merge / split / rotate / reorder / extract / compress PDFs without uploading them. The PDFs never leave your device, which matters for contracts, medical records, and anything you would not paste into a cloud service.

Operations and what they do

  • Merge — combine multiple PDFs into one. Page order from each is preserved; bookmarks and form fields may or may not survive depending on the source.
  • Split — extract pages by range (1-3, 5, 7-10) into a new PDF or one PDF per page.
  • Rotate — rotate specific pages or the whole document. Useful for scanned-sideways pages.
  • Reorder — drag-and-drop page reordering. For inherited PDFs where pages were assembled wrong.
  • Delete pages — remove specific pages from a PDF.
  • Compress — reduce file size. Most savings come from re-encoding embedded images at lower quality (lossy) or stripping unused embedded fonts (lossless).
  • Encrypt / decrypt — add or remove password protection. AES-128 or AES-256.
  • Watermark — overlay text or image on every page. For "DRAFT" or "CONFIDENTIAL" stamps.
  • Add page numbers — for documents that were merged from sources with different numbering.
  • Extract text — OCR (for scanned PDFs) or text extraction (for digital PDFs).

Working example: preparing a contract for signing

Input

You have:
  - Contract draft (10 pages, "Word→PDF" output)
  - Exhibit A (3 pages, downloaded separately)
  - Signature page (1 page, blank for signing)

Goal: one PDF with all 14 pages, page numbers added, "DRAFT" watermark removed before final.

Output

Step 1: Merge in order: Contract.pdf, ExhibitA.pdf, SignaturePage.pdf → ContractFull.pdf (14 pages)
Step 2: Add page numbers: bottom-center, "Page X of 14" → ContractNumbered.pdf
Step 3: Remove the "DRAFT" watermark stamp (only on first 10 pages of source) → ContractFinal.pdf
Step 4: Optional: encrypt the file with a password to share securely → ContractFinal-encrypted.pdf

Total time: ~30 seconds locally vs. several minutes uploading to a cloud service.

Most "DRAFT" watermarks are added as a stamp annotation, not embedded in the page content — they can be removed cleanly. If the watermark is rasterized into the page image (common in scanned PDFs), removal requires image editing per page or re-OCR.

PDF compression: where the bytes actually come from

  • Images — usually 80-95% of file size for content with photos or screenshots. Re-encode at quality 70-80, save 50-80% file size with minimal visual loss.
  • Embedded fonts — full font files are often embedded even for documents using one font. Subsetting (keeping only the glyphs actually used) reduces font weight by 90%+.
  • Unused objects — old revisions, orphaned form fields, dead content streams. PDF 'linearization' / cleanup removes them.
  • Resolution — a scanned document at 600 DPI for an A4 page is ~50MB. Downsampling to 200 DPI for screen reading drops to ~10MB without visible quality loss.
  • JPEG2000 vs JPEG — JPEG2000 is more efficient on photos but slower to encode. JBIG2 is excellent for scanned text (5-10× smaller than CCITT G4); used in archival PDF/A profiles.

When to reach for this tool

  • You need to merge a few PDFs for a contract package or report submission.
  • You scanned a multi-page document and some pages are upside down — rotate them without rescanning.
  • You inherited a 50MB PDF and need to email it; the recipient's server caps at 10MB attachment.
  • You are preparing a confidential document and need to add a password or watermark before sending.

What this tool will not do

  • It will not edit text inside a PDF reliably. PDF is a "final-form" format; text is positioned absolutely, not as flowable content. Editing usually breaks layout. For text editing, convert to Word, edit, re-export.
  • It will not OCR scanned PDFs at the same accuracy as commercial services. Tesseract in-browser is decent for printed text; handwriting and complex layouts need cloud OCR.
  • It will not preserve every PDF feature on merge. Forms, JavaScript actions, embedded files, digital signatures may be lost when merging or compressing. Validate after for documents with active content.
  • It will not crack password-protected PDFs without the password. The encryption is real; brute-force tools exist but are out of scope here.

All PDF operations run in your browser via pdf-lib or similar libraries compiled to WebAssembly. Source PDFs and output files stay on your device. Useful for confidential contracts, medical records, financial documents.

Frequently asked questions

Why does my PDF look different after I merge two files?

Likely a font issue. If both PDFs use the same font name but embed different versions (or one embeds, the other references the system font), the merged document's appearance depends on which font copy is kept. For consistent rendering, ensure all source PDFs are PDF/A-compliant (embed all fonts).

Is a password-protected PDF really secure?

For PDF 1.6+ with AES-128 or AES-256 encryption: yes, if the password is strong. AES-128 with a 12+ character password is effectively unbreakable by anyone short of nation-state. Older PDF 1.4 RC4 encryption is weaker and faster to brute-force.

How do I fill out a PDF form?

If the PDF has form fields (interactive PDF), open it in any reader (Preview, Adobe, Foxit) and type. For non-form ("flat") PDFs, you need a tool that adds text annotations — most PDF viewers support this. To save the filled-in form, "flatten" the annotations into the page so they cannot be edited away.

Can I extract a single page as an image?

Yes — render the page at chosen DPI (150-300 for printing, 72-100 for screen) and save as PNG or JPEG. The output is rasterized; vector content becomes pixels.

My PDF is huge. Why?

Usually images. A 50MB PDF is almost always 95% embedded images at high resolution. Compress images during PDF export (most "save as PDF" dialogs have a quality slider) or re-encode after the fact with the compression tool.

How do I combine PDF and image files?

Convert the images to PDF first (one image per page), then merge the resulting PDFs with the original. Most PDF tools have a "create PDF from images" option that bundles both steps.

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Last updated · E-Utils editorial team