A PDF editor that never uploads your file

Open a PDF above and edit it directly. Merge and split documents, reorder and rotate pages, annotate, fill in forms, sign, redact, compress, OCR a scan, and set or remove a password — all without the document leaving your device.

How it works

1. Drop a PDF onto the page, paste one from the clipboard, or click to browse. Encrypted files will ask for their password.
2. Reorder, rotate or delete pages from the thumbnail rail, and merge in more files by dropping them on top.
3. Annotate, fill in forms, or place a signature you draw, type or upload.
4. Download the result. It never left your device to begin with.

Why nothing is uploaded

Most online PDF tools work by sending your file to a server, editing it there, and sending it back. That means contracts, medical records, bank statements and passports all end up on someone else's machine, and you are trusting a privacy policy about what happens next.

This editor does the work in your browser instead. The PDF is read by this tab, rendered with pdf.js and written back out with pdf-lib, both running as ordinary JavaScript on your own device. There is no upload endpoint, because there is no server doing any of this. Once the page has loaded you can disconnect from the network entirely and everything still works.

What it can and cannot do

A few honest limits, because tools in this category tend to overclaim:

• Editing existing text works by covering the original and retyping it. Genuinely rewriting text inside a PDF means re-encoding through the original font, which is usually a subset containing only the characters already used — so a newly typed letter would come out blank. Covering and retyping is what every browser-based editor actually does; this one says so.
• Redaction removes text rather than covering it. Pages carrying a redaction are rasterised on export, so the underlying words are genuinely gone rather than hidden under a black box that copy-and-paste would defeat.
• Compression depends entirely on what is inside. Scans shrink dramatically; a text document exported from Word is already compressed and will barely move.

Questions

Is my file uploaded anywhere?

No. The PDF is opened and edited by this browser tab using JavaScript running on your own device. There is no upload endpoint and no server-side processing, so the file never leaves your machine. You can confirm it by disconnecting from the network after the page loads — everything still works.

Is it really free, and do I need an account?

Yes and no, respectively. There is no sign-up, no watermark on the output, no page limit and no file size cap beyond what your browser can hold in memory.

Can I sign a PDF with a real digital certificate?

Yes. Alongside drawn, typed and uploaded signatures, you can apply a cryptographic signature using your own PKCS#12 (.p12 or .pfx) certificate. The certificate and its passphrase are used in the browser and are never transmitted or stored.

Can I edit the text that is already in the PDF?

You can cover a run of text and retype it, which is what browser-based editors do in practice. Truly rewriting existing text requires re-encoding through the original font, which is usually a subset containing only the characters already present, so newly typed characters would be missing. Covering and retyping avoids that and produces a correct file.

Does it work on a phone or tablet?

Yes. Drawing a signature with a finger or stylus is a good deal easier on a touchscreen than with a mouse. Very large files are riskier on mobile, since the browser may reclaim memory from a tab holding a few hundred megabytes.

What happens to a password-protected PDF?

You will be asked for the password, which is used locally to decrypt the file. You can also add, change or remove a password, and set permissions, on the way out.

Keyboard shortcuts

• Ctrl/Cmd + Z - undo, and Shift + Ctrl/Cmd + Z to redo
• Ctrl/Cmd + scroll - zoom
• Ctrl/Cmd + V - paste a PDF or image straight in

Part of messy-ui. Free, open source and account-free — see also the countdown timer.