PDF Tools

PDF editing without uploading your documents

PDFs tend to hold the documents you would least like to hand to a third party: contracts, bank statements, medical records, scanned identity papers. Every tool in this category works inside your browser using WebAssembly builds of established PDF libraries, so the file is parsed, modified, and re-saved locally. Nothing is uploaded, which removes the question of retention policies entirely, and it means there is no size-based upload tier or processing queue.

Compression: where the bytes actually are

A large PDF is almost always large because of embedded images, not text. A scanned document at 600 DPI carries roughly four times the pixel data of the same page at 300 DPI while looking no better in print, and that single choice usually explains a file that will not fit an upload limit. Compressing a PDF works by re-encoding those embedded images; text and vector content are already compact. If a compressed PDF is still too large, rescanning or resizing the source images at 300 DPI produces a much smaller result than compressing harder.

Protection, signing, and what they each mean

Password protection encrypts the file so it cannot be opened without the password — genuine cryptographic protection. Permission restrictions, which limit printing or copying, are advisory flags that compliant readers respect but that offer no real enforcement. A signature added as an image is a visual mark indicating intent, not a cryptographic digital signature bound to a certificate. For most everyday purposes — a signed form, a countersigned agreement — a visual signature is what is being asked for, but it is worth knowing the distinction before relying on it.

Preparing documents for official uploads

Institutional portals are typically strict about things that are easy to get wrong: they want one combined PDF rather than several images, at a specific page size, under a stated file size, sometimes with pages in a mandated order. Scan at 300 DPI, assemble the pages in the required sequence, use A4 unless the form specifies otherwise, and check the finished file against the size cap before submitting. Reading the assembled PDF once as the reviewer would catches most rejections.