9 min read
Read the guidePDF guides and how-tos
Edit any PDF onlinewithout uploading it
Change text in its own font, sign a page and type on a form, right in your browser - no detour through Word, and your file never leaves your computer.
Compress PDF
PDF under 100 KB
How to Compress a PDF to 100 KB (or Any Size a Form Demands)
A visa portal wants 100 KB and your scan is 1.8 MB. Here is how to find out what is making the file heavy, which level to pick, and what to do when Smaller still is not small enough.
10 min readRead guide
Compress PDF
Too big to email
Your PDF Is Too Big to Email: The Limits and What Actually Works
The send button failed, or the message bounced an hour later. Here are the real attachment limits at Gmail, Outlook and a typical company server, why your file gets a third bigger in transit, and the four ways to get the document there.
11 min readRead guide
Edit PDF
Sign a PDF online
How to Sign a PDF Online, Free, Without Printing It
A contract needs signing today and there is no printer. Draw your name once, put it on the line, type the date, and save. It takes about two minutes in the browser, and the file never leaves your computer.
10 min readRead guide
Edit PDF
Filling a PDF form
How to Fill In a PDF Form, Even One That Is Not Fillable
You click where your name goes and nothing happens. A great many of the forms people are sent have no fields in them at all - they are pictures of forms. Here is how to tell the two kinds apart in two seconds, and fill either one so it does not look pasted on.
10 min readRead guide
Merge, Split & Organize
Delete pages from PDF
How to Delete Pages from a PDF (and Get the Page Count Right)
The blank backs of a duplex scan, an internal cover sheet, a section that should not leave the building. All three are the same job. Here is how to say which pages go, in one pass, and how to check you got it right.
10 min readRead guide
Merge, Split & Organize
How to insert PDF pages
How to Insert Pages into a PDF, or Add One PDF to Another
A signed page has to go back in at page seven, an appendix has to go on the end, a cover sheet has to go in front. All three are one job: a split and a merge. Here is the method and the arithmetic that proves it worked.
10 min readRead guide
Edit PDF
Make a PDF editable
How to Make a PDF Editable: Two Routes and When to Use Each
You clicked where the wrong date is, typed, and nothing happened. A PDF is not a document you type into, it is a drawing. Here are the two honest ways to change one, and how to tell which your job needs.
10 min readRead guide
Convert PDF
PDF into Google Docs
How to Open and Edit a PDF in Google Docs
Google Drive will open a PDF in Google Docs in one click, and it will flatten your layout while it does it. Here is what that step actually changes, and the free two-step route that keeps far more of the document.
10 min readRead guide
Protect & Security
Black boxes hide nothing
Blacking Out Text in a PDF Is Not Redaction
A black rectangle drawn over an account number hides it from your eyes and from nobody else. The text is still in the file, still copyable, still searchable. Here is what is really happening, and what actually removes the words.
11 min readRead guide
Protect & Security
Is this PDF safe?
Is This PDF Safe to Open? How to Check Before You Click
An invoice from a supplier you half recognise, or a delivery notice for a parcel you are not sure you ordered. Here is what a PDF can and cannot do to your machine, and the short check to run before you open one.
9 min readRead guide
Compress PDF
Why scans are large
Why Scanned PDFs Are So Large, and How to Shrink Them
Ten typed pages are 200 KB. Ten scanned pages are 40 MB, and they say the same thing. The difference is that a scan is a photograph of a page rather than the words on it. Here is the arithmetic, and what to do about it.
11 min readRead guide
Merge, Split & Organize
Remove blank pages
How to Remove Blank Pages from a Scanned PDF
A double-sided scan of one-sided paper gives you a blank page after every real one, and a file twice the size it should be. Here is how to find them in a minute and take them all out in one pass.
10 min readRead guide
Convert PDF
Several files, one PDF
How to Convert Several Files to PDF at Once
Forty invoices have to become forty PDFs, or twelve Word documents have to become one pack. Both jobs start the same way and finish differently. Here is the order to do them in, and how naming decides the sequence.
10 min readRead guide
PDF basics
Why PDFs print wrong
Why Your PDF Prints Wrong: Margins, Scaling and Extra Blank Pages
The file looks right on screen and comes out wrong on paper: an edge cut off, everything a few per cent small, a blank sheet at the end. Four things cause it, and all four are decided before the job reaches the printer.
10 min readRead guide
PDF basics
PDF or Word?
PDF or Word: Which File Should You Actually Send?
You are about to attach a file and you do not know which format the other person expects. The answer follows from one difference: a Word file is instructions for building a page, and a PDF is the page. Here is what to send for a CV, a contract, an invoice and the rest.
10 min readRead guide
A guide for every tool
What each tool does, when to use it, and the settings worth knowing before you upload anything.
- Merge PDFHow to Insert Pages into a PDF, or Add One PDF to Another
- Compress PDFHow to Compress a PDF to 100 KB (or Any Size a Form Demands)
- PDF to WordHow to Open and Edit a PDF in Google Docs
- PDF to ExcelHow to Convert PDF to Excel Without Retyping the Table
- Word to PDFHow to Convert Several Files to PDF at Once
- PowerPoint to PDFHow to Convert PowerPoint to PDF for Sharing and Printing
- Excel to PDFHow to Convert Excel to PDF Without Cutting Off Columns
- Edit PDFHow to Edit a PDF Online: Change Text, Add Notes and Sign
- Organize PDFHow to Delete Pages from a PDF (and Get the Page Count Right)
- Split PDFHow to Split a PDF: Extract Pages or Break a Document into Parts
- Protect PDFHow to Password Protect a PDF (and What the Password Actually Protects)