PDF Editor — Annotate, Sign & Fill Forms in Your Browser

Q: Is my PDF uploaded anywhere?

No. The PDF is opened and rendered entirely inside your browser using the pdf.js library. Your file never leaves your device. You can disconnect from the internet after loading the page and continue editing offline.

Q: What annotation types are supported?

Text boxes, highlight rectangles, freehand circular draw marks (approximate highlights), and handwritten-style signatures. Each can be dragged, edited and deleted after being placed.

Q: Can I sign a PDF legally?

The signature tool adds a visual signature overlay, not a cryptographic digital signature. For most everyday uses this is accepted, but for documents that need legal non-repudiation you should use a qualified electronic signature service. Check your local requirements before relying on a visual signature.

Q: Is there a limit on file size?

No hard limit, but PDFs above about 30 MB may take a few seconds to render and could feel sluggish when adding many annotations. For best results, keep annotated PDFs under 20 MB.

Drop in a PDF, choose a tool, click on the page to annotate. Everything is kept in memory until you export — nothing is stored or uploaded anywhere.

Click to open a PDF or drag a file here · 50 MB recommended maximum

Build a simple fillable-looking form and export it as a PDF. Useful for intake forms, signup sheets and simple questionnaires. The output PDF contains printed field labels and blank lines for handwriting — it does not add interactive form fields.

💡 Why "fillable-looking" and not "fillable". Real interactive PDF form fields require embedding AcroForm data in the file structure — a bigger job that would bloat this page considerably. What this tool produces is a clean printed form you can hand to someone to fill in by hand, scan back, or sign with the signature tool on the editor tab.

Quick reference and honest notes about what this tool does and does not do.

Keyboard shortcuts

Shortcut	Action
`V`	Switch to Select tool
`T`	Switch to Text tool
`H`	Switch to Highlight tool
`D`	Switch to Draw tool
`S`	Switch to Sign tool
`Ctrl`+`Z`	Undo
`Ctrl`+`Y`	Redo
`Delete`	Delete selected annotation
`Esc`	Deselect all annotations

What each tool does

Tool	What it produces
Select	Drag any annotation to reposition it. Click a text annotation to edit its content.
Text	A white rounded box with your text. Use it for notes, corrections, or extra information.
Highlight	A translucent coloured rectangle. Adjust size by dragging the box. Change the colour any time.
Draw	Freehand marks. Each stroke is a separate small circle. Placed one click at a time.
Sign	A signature-styled text box. You will be prompted for the name; edit it inline after.

What this tool cannot do

Edit the existing text. You cannot change the words that are already in the PDF. You can only add new annotations on top.
Preserve selectable text in the output. The exported file is image-based. Text in the original PDF becomes a picture.
Add real form fields. The Form Builder produces a printed-looking form, not an interactive one.
Redact content. You can cover text with a black highlight, but the underlying text is still in the file. Use a dedicated redaction tool for sensitive material.
OCR scanned PDFs. If your PDF is a scan with no text layer, this tool cannot extract the words. It shows the image.
Add cryptographic signatures. The Sign tool adds a visual signature only.

💡 The best workflow for important documents. Annotate the PDF here, then open the exported file in a proper PDF tool for anything that needs to be legally binding, selectively encrypted, or sent with an audit trail. This tool is best for quick review, markup, and sharing a marked-up copy with someone.

Straight answers about privacy, file handling and the limits of a browser-based PDF editor.

Is my PDF uploaded anywhere?

No. The file is opened with the pdf.js library and rendered entirely inside your browser. Your file never leaves your device. You can disconnect from the internet after loading the page and continue annotating offline. Open Developer Tools and check the Network tab — you will see no outbound upload when you open a PDF.

Will the exported PDF keep selectable text?

No. To keep the tool fully client-side and fast, the exported PDF embeds the rendered page image plus your annotations. The text in the original PDF is no longer selectable in the output file. If preserving selectable text is important — for example, for searchable archives or copy-paste workflows — use a desktop PDF editor that modifies the original file structure instead of rendering it to an image.

What annotation types are supported?

Text boxes, highlight rectangles, freehand draw marks (rendered as small circles per click), and handwritten-style signatures. Each can be dragged with the Select tool, edited inline if it contains text, and removed with its X button.

Can I sign a PDF legally?

The signature tool adds a visual signature overlay — a picture of a signature, essentially, not a cryptographic digital signature. For most everyday uses this is accepted by the recipient. For documents that need legal non-repudiation, use a qualified electronic signature service such as DocuSign or Adobe Sign. Check your local requirements before relying on a visual signature anywhere it matters.

Does it work on a phone or tablet?

Yes. The interface responds to touch. Drag annotations with your finger, tap the toolbar buttons, use the same upload flow. Performance depends on the size of the PDF — very large files may feel slow on older devices with limited memory.

Is there a limit on file size?

There is no hard limit, but PDFs above about 30 MB take a few seconds to render and can feel sluggish when adding many annotations. For a smooth experience, keep annotated PDFs under 20 MB. If a PDF is unusually large, split it first and edit in sections.

Does it preserve the original PDF quality?

The exported PDF renders each page at a fixed resolution before embedding. Quality is high enough for on-screen reading and everyday printing, but it is not identical to the original file's vector quality. Vector graphics — logos, diagrams, charts — become rasterised images.

Can I remove an annotation after adding it?

Yes. Hover over any annotation and a small red X appears in its top-right corner. Click the X to remove just that annotation. The Clear button in the toolbar removes everything on the current page.

Does it add watermarks or ads to my PDF?

No. The exported file has no watermark, no footer, no logo, and no advertising. It contains exactly what you see in the preview — the original page image plus your annotations.

📝 What this PDF editor actually does

This tool opens a PDF in your browser, renders each page onto a canvas, and lets you draw on top of it. Text boxes, highlight rectangles, freehand marks, and signature overlays. When you click Download, the tool saves a new PDF that combines the original page image with your annotations. The file downloads straight from your browser to your device. Nothing is uploaded, and no server is involved at any point.

That gives you a few things that cloud-based PDF editors rarely offer:

Real privacy. Confidential documents — signed contracts, medical records, personal letters — never leave your device.
No account. No email verification, no login wall, no free-tier limit.
Works offline. Once the page has loaded, you can edit without an internet connection.
No watermark. The exported file is clean.

The trade-off, and it is a real one, is that the exported PDF is image-based. The tool renders the page at high resolution, so it looks correct, but text in the original file is no longer selectable and vector graphics become rasterised. For annotated copies that you will send back to someone visually, this is invisible. For documents you want to keep searchable or editable in the future, it matters.

✍️ How to annotate a PDF

Open the PDF. Click the upload area or drag a file onto it. The PDF loads locally — you will see the first page render in a second or two for typical files.
Pick a tool. Text, Highlight, Draw, or Sign. The toolbar buttons show which is active.
Click on the page to place an annotation. A text box opens with placeholder text you can edit inline. A highlight appears as a coloured rectangle. A signature prompts you for the name first.
Move things around. Switch back to Select, then drag any annotation with the mouse. Resize text and highlights by editing them.
Work across pages. Use the previous and next buttons below the canvas to move between pages. Annotations are stored per page.
Undo and redo. Ctrl+Z and Ctrl+Y step through your history. The toolbar buttons do the same.
Export when done. Click Download. The browser saves a new PDF with your annotations baked in.

💡 Zoom before you annotate. Place your annotations at the zoom level you intend to read them at. If you zoom in after placing annotations, the marks stay in the right position but may look small relative to the enlarged text. For close work, zoom to 200% first.

🎯 When to use this editor — and when not to

Good use cases

Marking up a document for review. Highlight the paragraphs you want changed, add text notes in the margin, send the annotated copy back.
Signing simple forms. Most everyday forms accept a visual signature. Fill in the fields by hand or with the text tool, then sign at the bottom.
Adding notes to study material. Highlight key concepts and add explanations in text boxes.
Correcting a printed page. Take a photo, save it as PDF, annotate the fixes, and print again.
Approving invoices. Sign at the bottom, add a note like "approved for payment", email back.

Cases where a dedicated PDF tool is better

Editing existing text. If you need to change the words that are already in the PDF, this tool cannot help. Use a PDF editor with text-layer editing.
Redacting sensitive content. Covering text with a black rectangle looks like redaction but the original text is still embedded. Use a tool that removes the text from the file structure.
Adding real interactive form fields. If you want a form that can be filled in a PDF reader, use Adobe Acrobat or an equivalent.
Legal e-signatures. For documents that need certified signatures, use a service designed for that purpose.
Compressing or optimising the file size. The exported file is often larger than the original because it contains image data. Use a compression tool afterwards.

🔒 Why local-first matters for PDFs

PDFs are the format that carries the documents people care most about. Contracts, invoices, tax forms, medical records, legal notices. Every one of those categories is something you would prefer not to hand to a stranger's server by accident.

Most free online PDF editors do exactly that. You upload the file, their server processes it, and you download the result. They may delete it after an hour or a day, or they may not. Their privacy policy is what stands between your document and the wider world, and most users never read it.

This tool takes the opposite approach. There is no upload step because there is no server. The PDF is opened by JavaScript in your own browser, rendered to a canvas that lives in your browser's memory, and combined with your annotations into a new file that is saved by your browser. If you cut off your internet connection after loading the page, everything still works.

The honest limits of that approach

Being fully client-side means the tool does not get to use a server's CPU or disk. That constrains what is feasible:

Image-based output. Writing a proper PDF with a preserved text layer is far more complex than rendering to canvas. Doing it well in a browser tab is possible but heavy, and it is why almost every "online PDF editor" quietly uploads your file to do the work server-side.
No OCR. Scanned PDFs have no text to preserve, so the tool cannot help you edit their content. It shows the scan as an image.
No file-level security. Password protection, encryption and permission restrictions require modifying the PDF's internal structure in ways this tool does not attempt.

For the majority of everyday tasks — markup, review, sign, send back — none of those limits matter. For work where they do, use a professional tool and expect to pay for it. What you get here is fast, free, private, and enough for most of what people actually need.

🔐 Your privacy and how data is stored

Your PDF never leaves your device. The file is opened with pdf.js (a JavaScript library that runs in your browser), rendered onto a canvas on your screen, and any annotations you add live only in your browser's memory. When you export, the new PDF is assembled in the browser and downloaded directly to your device.

No accounts, no tracking. We do not know which files you open or what is in them. Nothing is logged on our side. There is no server-side storage for this tool at all.

Third-party libraries. The page loads two well-known open-source libraries: pdf.js from Mozilla (for reading PDFs) and jsPDF (for writing them). Both run entirely in your browser. Neither sends your data anywhere. If you would rather not load them from a CDN, you can download the libraries and host them on your own server.

Cookies and advertising. Advertising and analytics cookies are switched off by default. They only turn on if you press Accept all, or select them individually under Manage preferences. You can change your choice at any time from the Cookie Policy page. Full details are in our Privacy Policy.

About the author

Khalil Rahman — Front-end developer and tool builder

Khalil has spent the last eight years building browser-based tools for documents and productivity. He built this PDF editor after getting frustrated with every free alternative that wanted him to upload a signed contract to a stranger's server before letting him add a signature. The tool is deliberately honest about its limits — the exported PDF is image-based, signatures are visual not cryptographic, and editing existing text is out of scope. Those trade-offs buy real privacy and real speed, and for the everyday markup tasks most people actually need, they are the right trade. He maintains the SkillsInsider PDF and productivity toolset.

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