# PDF Editor

> Edit text in place, fill forms, sign, redact, reorder pages, OCR scans, merge, split, and export — the 15 actions that cover roughly 90% of what people open Adobe Acrobat for. All on your device. The in-place text edit rewrites the underlying text stream rather than stamping fresh text on top, the way most online editors fake it. Power features (batch over 5 docs, files larger than 100 MB, layout-preserving Word export, AI summarisation) ship in a paid Pro tier; cloud-only ones are clearly labelled.


Live tool: https://lofttools.com/tools/pdf-tools/pdf-editor

Category: PDF & Documents


## What it does

- In-place text edit via pdfium-wasm — rewrites the underlying content stream, preserves the original font, size, color, and matrix
- Same-line sibling shift when edits change a word's width — adjacent text moves to keep spacing intact
- Line wrap at the right margin when an edit overflows — and following paragraphs shift down to make room
- Base-14 font fallback for edits that introduce glyphs the original subset font doesn't ship — guarantees Latin / Cyrillic / CJK coverage even when the original font is a tight subset
- Fill and sign forms (AcroForm + XFA partial)
- Digital signature support (visible signature field)
- Permanent redaction — underlying bytes removed, not just visually covered
- Page reorder by drag-and-drop in a thumbnail grid
- Annotate — highlight, sticky note, freehand, shape, and text comment layers
- Merge multiple PDFs preserving bookmarks
- Split by page range or individual pages
- OCR scanned PDFs (PaddleOCR primary, Tesseract.js fallback)
- Export to PDF, PNG, JPG, Word, and Excel
- Page rotation, crop, and grayscale conversion
- Free-tier file size cap 100 MB
- Pro-tier (cloud, labelled) — batch over 5 docs, files up to 500 MB, layout-preserving Word export, AI summarisation
- PWA install — works offline after first load

## How it works

1. **Drop your PDF** — Drag and drop a PDF onto the editor or click to browse — your file never uploads
2. **Edit, sign, or redact** — Use the toolbar to edit text, fill forms, sign, redact, reorder pages, or annotate
3. **Save** — Export back to PDF, PNG, JPG, Word, or Excel — every change stays on your device

## FAQ

### Is the PDF editor really free?

Yes. Core editing is free with no signup: text, signatures, forms, redaction, page operations, annotations, merge/split, OCR, basic export. Power features (batch processing more than 5 docs, files larger than 100 MB, layout-preserving Word export, AI summarization) ship as a paid Pro tier.

### Do my PDFs upload to a server?

No. The editor runs entirely in your browser. PDF rendering, edits, OCR, and export all happen on your device. Nothing leaves the tab.

### How does this compare to Adobe Acrobat?

The editor covers the 15 actions that account for ~90% of Acrobat use cases: edit text in place, fill and sign forms, redact, reorder pages, annotate, merge, split, OCR scanned PDFs, and export. It skips Acrobat features that few people use (form builder, PDF/X prepress, PDF JavaScript actions). The trade-off is free, local, and faster on real workflows.

### What file size limit is there?

Free tier handles PDFs up to 100 MB. Beyond that, the editor still works on capable devices but performance depends on your RAM. Pro tier removes the soft limit.

### Can I edit existing text in a PDF?

Yes — true in-place edit in your browser. Click a word, type the replacement, save. The editor rewrites the underlying content stream and keeps the original font, size, color, and position. Adjacent text on the same line shifts right or wraps to the next line if your edit makes the run longer, and following paragraphs shift down to make room. When the original font is a tight subset that doesn't include glyphs your new text needs, the editor falls back to a built-in base-14 font in the same family (Helvetica / Times / Courier) so you never see missing glyphs. Most online editors stamp a white box and draw new text on top; this one rewrites the bytes.

### Are redactions permanent?

Yes. Redactions remove the underlying bytes from the saved PDF, not just cover them visually. Re-extracting text from a redacted file will not return the redacted strings.

### Does it work offline?

After the first visit, yes. Install Loft as a PWA and the editor works without an internet connection. The editor engine, fonts, and any cached models are stored locally.

### What happens if my browser tab crashes?

The editor auto-persists your most-recent session. On reload you will see a "Restore last session?" prompt. Earlier docs in the tab are not persisted (privacy default).

## Tips

- **Real text edit, not stamps** — Loft rewrites the PDF content stream so your edits become part of the document. Other tools paint text on top — break the moment someone opens the file elsewhere.
- **Redaction removes the bytes** — When you redact, the underlying text is actually deleted. Other tools just cover it with a black rectangle, and copy-paste still leaks the original.
- **Time-travel any edit (`Ctrl + Z`)** — Every change lands on a history timeline. Click any past state to restore — later edits are preserved as a branch.
- **Files never leave your laptop** — The whole editor runs in your browser via WebAssembly. Open DevTools → Network and watch zero uploads while you work.

## Privacy — what we do not do

This tool runs entirely in the browser via WebAssembly. Your file never reaches a Loft Tools server. Specifically:

- **No upload.** The file bytes load into the browser tab's memory and process on your own CPU. Open DevTools → Network and observe zero outbound requests carrying file data while PDF Editor runs.
- **No AI training on your file.** Loft does not train models. We could not train on a file we cannot see.
- **No content scanning.** No virus, copyright, or content-moderation pass against your file. The bytes are not accessible to us.
- **No server-side log of file contents, filenames, or EXIF metadata.** Cloudflare edge captures URL and truncated IP for abuse defense (standard CDN behaviour). Cloudflare Web Analytics records anonymous page hits, no cookies, no PII. Nothing about your file content reaches any log.
- **No retention.** Close the tab and the file leaves browser memory. No backups exist on our side because no copy ever existed on our side.
- **No account.** No email, no signup, no auth, no telemetry tied to you.
- **Offline-capable after first visit** (PWA). Once you've loaded a tool, it caches; later sessions work without internet. For high-sensitivity files, run the tool once online to warm the cache, then disconnect before processing.

Compare with upload-based services: each transmits your file to a processing server. Even over HTTPS, each has logs, retention windows, and subpoena exposure. Loft has none of these because the server architecture does not include your file.

## More

- All tools: https://lofttools.com/tools
- Category: https://lofttools.com/tools/pdf-tools
- LLM index: https://lofttools.com/llms.txt