PDF Editor: Change Text, Sign, Fill
Click a line of text and change it: the old words are removed from the PDF and the new ones are written in the document's own font, size and colour. Add text, a signature, ticks, dates and images, fill in form fields, and turn or remove pages. The file never leaves your device.
FreeNo sign-upRuns in your browser: your data is not uploaded
Your signature
Sign with your mouse, finger or pen. The signature is kept only in this page.
Real text editing, not a white box on top
Many online "PDF editors" cover the old words with a white rectangle and type new ones on top. The old text is still in the file: it shows up when someone copies or searches the PDF, and the white box is visible on a coloured background. This editor changes the page itself. When you change a line, the letters you replaced are taken out of the page, the new letters are written in their place with the same size and colour, and the rest of the line moves to make room (a centred title stays centred). Copying or searching the saved PDF finds the new words.
How the font is kept
Every PDF made from Word, Excel, Google Docs, a browser or an accounting program carries its fonts inside. The editor checks which font each line uses and writes the new letters with that same font. A PDF usually contains only the letters that the document needed, so a letter that never appeared in the original (for example a capital Q) may not be inside it. In that case the editor fetches the missing letters from:
- Your own copy of the font. In Chrome or Edge on a computer, the browser asks once whether this page may use your installed fonts. If you allow it and the font (for example Calibri, Arial or Times New Roman) is on your computer, the exact same font is used.
- A metric-compatible font. Otherwise the editor uses an open font made to have exactly the same letter widths: Carlito for Calibri, Caladea for Cambria, Liberation Sans for Arial and Helvetica, Liberation Serif for Times New Roman and Liberation Mono for Courier New. Lines keep their length; the letter shapes are very close but not identical.
After each change the editor tells you which of these was used, and the page you see is drawn from the edited file itself, so what you see is what you will save.
Urdu, Arabic, Hindi and other languages
Urdu and Arabic letters change shape depending on their neighbours and are written from right to left; Hindi, Bengali, Tamil and Thai combine letters and vowel signs into one shape. A PDF stores only the finished shapes, in the order they appear on the page, so these lines need more work than English. When you click such a line, the editor reads the shapes back into normal text (right-to-left words in reading order, numbers and English words inside them kept the right way round), shows it in the edit box, and after your change writes the whole line again: the letters are joined by the font's own rules, the line keeps its place (a right-aligned Urdu line stays on the right), its size and its colour, and copy or search in the saved PDF finds the new words.
The font for these lines is chosen in this order: your own copy of the PDF's font (for example Jameel Noori Nastaleeq, Arial or Mangal on your computer), then an open Noto font made for the script (Noto Nastaliq Urdu for Urdu, Noto Naskh Arabic for Arabic and Persian, and Noto fonts for Hebrew, Hindi and Marathi, Bengali, Punjabi, Gujarati, Tamil and Thai). Chinese, Japanese, Korean and other scripts use the fonts on your computer. If no font has the letters you typed, the editor asks you to choose a font file (.ttf or .otf); it stays on your device. The same works for Add text: type Urdu or Arabic in a text box and it is saved joined and right to left.
What you can do
| Tool | What it does |
|---|---|
| ✎ Edit text | Click a line, change it, press Enter. Bold or italic words that you do not touch keep their style. |
| T Add text | Click anywhere to type new text: choose size, bold, colour and a sans, serif or mono font. Multiple lines work. |
| ✍ Sign | Draw a signature with mouse, finger or pen, or upload a picture of it, and place it on any page as often as you need. |
| ✓ Tick, 📅 Date, 🖼 Image | Put a tick or cross in a box, today's date, or a logo or stamp, then drag and resize. |
| ▭ White-out | Cover a picture or area with white (this hides it on the page; it is not removed from the file). |
| Form fields | If the PDF has fillable fields (many government, bank and HR forms do), they are listed above the pages to fill in, with an option to make the answers part of the page. |
| ↻ and ✕ per page | Turn a page or remove it. For more page work use Rotate & reorder, Split and Merge. |
Current limits
- Urdu, Arabic and other joined scripts are written in the same font only if that font is installed on your computer (Chrome or Edge on a computer); otherwise a Noto font for the script is used, which looks close but not identical.
- Scanned PDFs contain a photo of the page, not text. Use White-out and Add text on them, or run them through OCR first.
- Paragraphs do not re-flow: each line is edited on its own. Keep a changed line about the same length, or edit the next line too.
- Text inside some special fonts (drawn shapes, vertical Asian text) is marked in orange and cannot be changed. Text that a program placed inside a reusable block (some stamps, letterheads and watermarks) cannot be clicked at all; cover it with White-out and add new text.
Privacy
The PDF is opened and changed inside your browser with pdf.js, pdf-lib and fontkit (all open source). Contracts, offer letters, payslips and ID documents are never uploaded. When the editor needs a metric-compatible font it downloads that font file from this site; your document is not sent with it. We count only that a PDF was edited and roughly how many pages it had.
FAQ
Can I edit the existing text of a PDF for free?
Can I edit Urdu or Arabic text in a PDF?
Will the edited text use the same font?
How do I sign a PDF without printing it?
Can I fill in a PDF form here?
Is my PDF uploaded?
Link to this tool
Found it useful? Put a link in your docs, README or forum answer so others can use it too:
<a href="https://headsntail.com/tools/edit-pdf">PDF Editor (edit text, sign, fill)</a> (free, by HeadsNTail)
[PDF Editor (edit text, sign, fill)](https://headsntail.com/tools/edit-pdf)
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