Edit the existing text in a PDF
Switch the editor from Fill out to Edit PDF (or press E), click a line of the document's text and type. The new text is drawn over a cover patch in the closest standard font; the old characters stay in the file unless you redact them.
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The editor has two editing modes. Fill out adds things on top of the page (text, ticks, signatures). Edit PDF lets you change the document's own text and images. Use the Fill out | Edit PDF switch at the right of the toolbar, or press E to flip between them.
Step 1: Switch to Edit PDF
In Edit & fill mode, click Edit PDF in the toolbar switch. Blocks of the document's text get a faint outline.
Step 2: Click the line you want to change
Click any outlined text and type. Press Esc when you're done, or click elsewhere on the page.
Step 3: Adjust the font and layout
With the text selected, the properties bar shows Font (Sans, Serif or Mono), Font size, Bold, Italic, alignment and Text color. More text options opens headings, lists, line and letter spacing.
Step 4: Replace or move an image
In Edit PDF, click an image on the page and choose Replace to swap it for a PNG or JPG, or Cover to hide it. You can also drag it to a new spot.
How edited text is stored
PDFs don't store paragraphs the way a word processor does, so PDFBetter doesn't rewrite the original characters. It covers the old line with a patch in the page's background color and draws your new text on top, matching weight and slant with the closest standard font: Sans (Helvetica), Serif (Times) or Mono (Courier). The Cover patch setting in the properties bar lets you change the patch color if it doesn't match the paper.
Find & replace across the document
Open More in the toolbar and choose Find & replace. Type what to find and what to replace it with, set Match case or Whole words, and check each match in the list before you click Replace or Replace all. Replacements use the same cover-patch method, and one undo reverses a whole Replace all.
What can't be edited in place
- Scanned pages. A scan is a picture with no text to click. Run OCR first, or type over it with the Text tool. See Make a scanned PDF editable with OCR.
- Rotated or vertical text. Cover it with Erase (whiteout) and add new Text on top.
- The original typeface. Edited lines use one of the three standard fonts, so a decorative or brand font won't match exactly.
Why does my edited line look slightly different from the rest?
Edited text is redrawn in the closest standard font (Sans, Serif or Mono) at the detected size. Adjust Font size or Letter spacing (pt) in More text options to bring it closer. More in Fonts look different after editing.
Can I edit a Word file instead?
Yes: the Edit Word tool converts the DOCX to PDF and opens it in this editor. To get a Word file back, download the PDF and convert it with PDF to Word.
Does editing change my original upload?
No. Your changes are saved as a new version of the document and rendered into a new PDF when you download. The uploaded file is never modified.
Tools in this article
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- Add text, images, shapes and whiteout to a PDFIn Edit & fill mode, pick a tool from the toolbar (Text, Image, Erase, shapes, marks, Table, Date, Draw) and click or drag on the page. Select anything you added to restyle, move, lock or copy it to other pages.
- Redact a PDF permanentlyChoose Redact (in the Cover group), drag over everything to remove, then click Apply redactions and confirm. Text, images and drawings under each mark are removed from the file, not just covered, and the affected pages become images.
- Make a scanned PDF editable and searchable with OCROpen the OCR PDF tool, upload the scan, pick the Languages and pages and click Recognize text. The result looks identical but has a searchable text layer; click Open in the editor to change its text. OCR is counted per page recognized.
- Fonts look different, or characters show as “?” after editingPDFBetter can't reuse the fonts embedded in a PDF, so edited and added text uses the closest of three standard families (sans, serif, mono). Characters no available font can draw come out as “?”. Pick the closest family and size, or cover and retype the whole line.