How to Edit a PDF: 7 Ways Compared, and What Each One Can't Do

Decide what kind of edit you need first

A PDF is closer to a printout than to a Word file. Each letter is placed at a fixed spot on the page, so there is no paragraph that can reflow when you change a word. That is why the right method depends on the size of the change.

• Changing a few words, a date, a number or a name: use an editor that works on the page itself, so everything else stays put.
• Adding something new, such as text, a tick mark or a signature: almost any tool can do this, including the ones already on your computer.
• Rewriting paragraphs or moving whole sections: convert to Word or Google Docs, because you need text that reflows. Then accept that the layout will need checking.

The seven ways compared

This table covers tools with public documentation from the people who make them. We have not yet tested other online editors such as Sejda or PDFgear on the same file, so they are left out rather than guessed at.

How to edit the text already in a PDF

1. Open Edit PDF and choose your file. Files up to 100 MB are accepted, and the page reads them inside your browser.
2. Click the line you want to change. A small text box opens with the current wording.
3. Type the correction and press Enter. Press Escape if you change your mind.
4. To change the same word on many pages, press Ctrl+F (Cmd+F on a Mac) and use Find and Replace.
5. Click Download. Your original stays as it was, and the new copy has -edited added to its name.

The old words are normally deleted from the file, and the new text uses the document's own font when that font can be read. Three limits are worth knowing before you start. Changing one line does not move the lines below it, so a much longer sentence will not push the next paragraph down. Text stored inside an embedded form can only be covered, and the editor tells you when that happens. Edits on a rotated page are not applied at all. Our guide to editing text for free shows the test results behind this.

How to edit a PDF in Word or Google Docs

In Word, choose File, then Open, and pick the PDF. Word makes a converted copy and tries to match the original, and Microsoft is open about what tends to go wrong: tables with spacing between cells, page borders and background colours, footnotes that run across pages, and bookmarks. Pages that are mostly charts can arrive as a single picture with no editable text.

In Google Drive, right-click the PDF and choose Open with, then Google Docs. Google's help page says bold, italics, font size and line breaks are likely to carry over, while lists, tables, columns, footnotes and endnotes are not likely to be detected. The same page gives a 2 MB limit for this conversion. Treat either route as a way to get your words back, not a way to keep the design. If you want a Word file without opening Word first, PDF to Word does the conversion in your browser.

Editing a PDF on a phone or a Chromebook

Because Edit PDF runs in the browser, there is nothing to install on a Chromebook, and the same page opens on a phone. We test the phone layout on an emulated screen, but we have not yet tested it on a physical iPhone, so check a short document before trusting it with a long one. Big files are slower on a phone because the phone does all the work. If you edit on an iPhone every day, a dedicated app will feel better than any website, and that is the honest answer.

Three edits that need a different tool

• Hiding private details: use Redact PDF, because an ordinary edit is not the right tool for removing an ID number. Our guide on removing text from a PDF explains the difference.
• Scanned pages: a scan has no text to click, so it needs recognition first. See how to edit a scanned PDF.
• Signed contracts: any change breaks a digital signature. Read what happens when you edit a signed PDF before you touch one.

Frequently asked questions