The Complete Guide to Managing PDFs Online
"PDF management" isn't one task, it's six different problems that happen to share a file format. This guide walks through each of them — what the problem actually is, when it comes up, and which free tool on this site handles it.
Almost every PDF problem falls into one of six categories: getting pages into the right document and order, changing what's actually on the page, making a file smaller or more usable, converting between PDF and the formats people actually edit in, turning images and scans into PDFs, and controlling who can open or edit the result. Below is each one, in the order they usually come up in a real workflow.
Convert Documents
Moving content between PDF and the editable formats — Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and plain text — people actually work in.
- Word to PDF — Convert a Word document (.docx) into a PDF.
- PDF to Word — Convert a PDF into an editable Word document (.docx).
- Excel to PDF — Convert an Excel spreadsheet (.xlsx) into a PDF.
- PDF to Excel — Convert a PDF into an editable Excel spreadsheet (.xlsx).
- PowerPoint to PDF — Convert a PowerPoint presentation (.pptx) into a PDF.
- PDF to PowerPoint — Convert a PDF into an editable PowerPoint presentation (.pptx).
- HTML to PDF — Convert a web page URL or an HTML file into a PDF.
- PDF to PDF/A — Convert a PDF into the PDF/A archival format for long-term preservation.
- TXT to PDF — Convert a plain text file (.txt) into a PDF.
- RTF to PDF — Convert a Rich Text Format file (.rtf) into a PDF.
- ODT to PDF — Convert an OpenDocument Text file (.odt) into a PDF.
- ODS to PDF — Convert an OpenDocument Spreadsheet (.ods) into a PDF.
- ODP to PDF — Convert an OpenDocument Presentation (.odp) into a PDF.
- CSV to PDF — Convert a CSV spreadsheet (.csv) into a PDF.
Organize
Getting the pages of a document into the right document, in the right order.
- Merge PDF — Combine multiple PDFs into one document, in the order you choose.
- Split PDF — Extract a page range, or explode every page into its own PDF.
- Organize PDF — Reorder, rotate, or delete pages in a PDF.
- Delete PDF Pages — Remove specific pages from a PDF, e.g. "2,4,7-9".
- Extract PDF Pages — Pull specific pages out of a PDF into a new file, e.g. "2,4,7-9".
- Rotate PDF — Rotate all pages in a PDF by 90, 180, or 270 degrees.
- Compare PDF — See a word-level diff between two versions of a PDF, page by page.
Edit & Sign
Changing what is actually on the page — text, signatures, redlines, and legally binding signatures.
- Sign PDF — Draw, type, or upload a signature and place it on a page.
- Edit PDF — Add text and images anywhere on a page.
- Redact PDF — Permanently black out sensitive areas — the underlying content is removed, not just covered.
- Flatten PDF — Lock in filled form field values so the PDF can no longer be edited.
Optimize
Making a PDF smaller, searchable, or easier to distribute without changing what it says.
- Watermark — Stamp text over every page of a PDF.
- Add Page Numbers — Insert page numbers into a PDF, with your choice of position and start number.
- Crop PDF — Trim margins from every page of a PDF.
- Compress PDF — Shrink a PDF by re-encoding its structure and downsampling images.
- OCR PDF — Make a scanned PDF searchable by recognizing its text (up to 30 pages).
Convert Images
Turning photos and scans into PDFs, or PDF pages back into images.
- PDF to JPG — Convert every page of a PDF into a JPG image.
- JPG/PNG to PDF — Combine one or more images into a single PDF.
- Scan to PDF — Use your device's camera to capture pages and combine them into a PDF.
Security
Controlling who can open a PDF, and recovering one that is locked or broken.
- Protect PDF — Add a password to a PDF so it can only be opened with the password.
- Unlock PDF — Remove password protection from a PDF you know the password for.
- Repair PDF — Attempt to fix a corrupted or malformed PDF so it opens normally again.
Common questions across these tools
Should I compress a PDF before or after converting it?
After. Converting (say, Word to PDF) can change file size on its own, so compressing the final PDF gets you an accurate result instead of guessing at an intermediate one.
What's the difference between redacting and just deleting text?
Deleting text in a PDF editor often leaves the underlying content recoverable — copy-paste or a text extractor can still find it. Redacting removes the content itself, not just its visible representation, which is the distinction that matters for anything actually sensitive — see a real example of this going wrong.
Why would I convert a PDF to PDF/A instead of keeping it as a regular PDF?
A regular PDF can reference external fonts, colour profiles, or content that isn't guaranteed to render the same way in ten or twenty years. PDF/A embeds everything the file needs to render identically long-term — it's the format archives, courts, and government agencies specifically require for that reason — see what that actually locks down.
My PDF won't open. Should I unlock it or repair it?
Depends on the symptom. Unlock is for a file that opens fine once you enter a password you already know. Repair is for a file that won't open at all, or opens corrupted, because of a structural problem in the file itself — nothing to do with passwords.
I'm a student — where do I actually start?
Probably not with a list of tools. Start with the specific problems students actually hit — oversized scans an LMS won't accept, photographed notes you can't search, readings scattered across multiple files — and the exact tool for each one.
Do any of these tools need an account or store my files?
No. Every tool on this page works without signing up, and uploaded files are deleted from the server once processing finishes — see About for the specifics.