Can I move something after I place it?

Yes, until you save. After that it is part of the page.

What can I add to a page?

Text boxes, highlights, freehand ink, rectangles, ellipses, lines, arrows, PNG or JPG images, and whiteout blocks.

Will the edits still be there if I reopen the file?

Yes. They are baked into the page content itself rather than stored as separate annotation objects, so every viewer renders them identically.

Is a whiteout block the same as redaction?

No, and the difference matters. It paints over the page; the text underneath stays in the file where anyone can select, copy or extract it. Use it for tidying up a page, never for hiding something you would be harmed by disclosing.

Edit PDF

No upload · runs in your browser

Drop a PDF to editOpens instantly in the editor. No upload, no accountSelect PDF No upload · processed locally · auto-deleted

How it works

How to edit a PDF without uploading it

Drop a PDF into the editor and it opens right in your browser. Use Annotate mode to add text boxes, highlights, shapes, arrows, freehand ink, images, or whiteout. You can also switch to Edit text mode to click into the document's existing lines and rewrite them.

When you hit Save changes, FernPDF bakes every edit into a fresh copy of the PDF with pdf-lib, right in this tab, and downloads it instantly. The original file never travels over the network, which makes it safe for contracts, medical records, and anything else you'd rather not hand to a server.

The editor supports per-object styling (font family, size, bold and italic, alignment, colors, stroke widths, and highlight opacity) with full undo and redo while you work.

FAQ

Switch to Edit text mode and click any outlined block. The original line is painted out and your replacement is redrawn at a matching size when you save. It works line by line rather than as a reflowing document, because a PDF stores positioned glyphs and not paragraphs, there is no way to make the rest of the page shuffle down to make room for a longer sentence. Short corrections come out clean. Rewriting a whole page does not.

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Guides for this tool

edit a PDF (add text, highlights and shapes) on Mac edit a PDF (add text, highlights and shapes) on Windows edit a PDF (add text, highlights and shapes) on iPhone edit a PDF (add text, highlights and shapes) on Android edit a PDF (add text, highlights and shapes) on Chromebook edit a PDF (add text, highlights and shapes) on Linux whiteout text in a PDF