How to edit a PDF: rewrite its text, add text, pictures, tables and pages - a step-by-step guide

Drop the PDFs anywhere on the page, or press Add files. The selected document opens in the middle with its pages one under the other - scroll through them, or use the thumbnails beside them and the pager above. The zoom sits next to the pager: fit the page, fit the width, or 50 to 400 %. A Word, Excel or PowerPoint file or a photo works too - it becomes a PDF as it arrives.

New blank PDF makes an empty page of the size and orientation you choose - A4, A5, A3, Letter or Legal, portrait or landscape - to put text, pictures, shapes, a signature or form fields on. Add more pages in the editor.

Text in the editor sits in boxes and doesn't flow from page to page. For a long text, write it in Word and convert it with Word to PDF.

Above the page: undo and redo, then the tools - Select, Text, Highlight, Draw, Comment - and Insert for everything else. The rest of the toolbar sets the look of whatever is selected, or of the next item you add: style (Normal, Heading 1-3, Quote), font, size, bold, italic, underline, super- and subscript, colour, the format painter, the eyedropper and the alignment.

With Select, click any text of the page: its paragraph opens for typing, in its own font, and the lines flow again as you type. A list stays a list - Enter starts a new item with the same bullet or number. Pull the side handles to make the paragraph wider or narrower, drag the grip to move it.

Select words in the open paragraph - or drag across them before it opens - and a bar floats above them, as in Word: text size up and down, bold, italic, underline, the text colour, super- and subscript, the highlighter, a link and a comment.

• The text is set in the document's own font wherever that font can spell it; where it can't (a letter the file never used, a bold cut it doesn't carry), the whole paragraph is set in a similar font of ours, and the rail says so.
• Underlines, links and highlights on the text move with it as it reflows.
• If the paragraph grows into what follows, its box turns red: Shrink to fit lowers the size a little at a time until it fits.
• Show editable text in the rail outlines every block that can be rewritten - what isn't outlined is a picture of text or a drawing.
• Original paragraph puts it back as it was.

• Text - click the page and type: a text box in Sans, Serif or Mono, with its own look. Double-click it later to type again.
• Highlight - drag across text to highlight it line by line, or anywhere else for a box. Select text with Select and the bar also offers underline, strike out, delete text, link and comment.
• Draw - draw with the mouse or a finger; hold Shift for a straight line.
• Comment - a real PDF comment: readers show it as a note icon and open it on a click.

Anything you add is dragged to move it, pulled at a corner to resize it, and turned with its round handle. The arrow keys nudge it a point (Shift: ten); while you drag, guides snap it to the page's centre and the other items' edges. Shift+click or a drag on empty page selects several, to move them together or line them up.

The Insert menu holds the rest: an Image (PNG or JPG), a Symbol, a Table, a Link (a web address or a page of the document), Shapes (boxes, ellipses, lines, arrows, stars, speech bubbles…), Form fields (text field, check box, radio, drop-down, list box), a special character or today's date, and the Pages group.

A table is placed with a click: double-click a cell to type, Tab moves to the next one and adds a row after the last. The rail sets rows and columns, a header row, the font, the rules and the fill, and merges cells; drag a column's edge to change its width.

The pictures already in the document can be clicked too - then moved, resized, turned, replaced, brought to the front or sent to the back, or removed. A form field becomes a real field any PDF reader can fill in; Create fillable PDF opens the editor on the field tools.

In the thumbnails beside the page: + adds a blank page after the current one, the bin deletes it, the arrows turn it, and a drag puts the pages in another order. Header and footer (Insert → Pages) puts text at the top and bottom of every page - left, centre and right, with the page number, the page count and the date - numbered in the order the pages will be saved.

Ctrl+F (or the magnifier beside the zoom) opens the find bar: it counts every occurrence, marks them on the pages and steps through them with Enter. Switch on Replace to change the current one or all of them in one step - with match case and whole word if you like.

• Undo and Redo (Ctrl+Z, Ctrl+Y) step through everything you did, up to 100 steps.
• The rail lists every change under its page - added items, rewritten paragraphs, moved pictures, pages added or deleted; a click jumps to it, the arrow takes it back.
• Your work is kept in this browser as you go, so a reload or a closed tab doesn't lose it: the empty editor offers to continue. A password-protected file is never kept; the switch above the button turns it off.

Press Apply changes. The line under the button counts the changes. The edited file is saved to your device at once - several files together as a ZIP. Text stays text, so the result is searchable and sharp at any zoom.

A box drawn over a name hides it on screen only - the text stays in the file. To remove something for good, use Redact PDF.

Without an account, and with a free one, you can save two edited files in a run, each up to 15 MB. With Pro there is no limit on the number or the size, and you can save the look of your additions (colours, sizes, line widths) as a preset.

• Sign the edited document? Sign PDF or Digitally Sign PDF.
• Black out what must not be read? Redact PDF.
• Two versions to compare? Compare PDFs.