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How to edit a PDF: add text, cover words and mark it up

Last updated 31 October 2026

Open Edit PDF

A PDF isn’t like a Word document. It stores each letter at a fixed place on the page, often in a font that holds only the letters used. That’s why you can’t just click a sentence and retype it. What you can do is add things on top of the page, and for most small jobs that’s all you need.

Add text, pictures and shapes

  1. Open Edit PDF and add your file.
  2. Pick what to add: Text, Image, Box, Oval, Line, Arrow, Highlight or White-out.
  3. Click or drag on the page to place it.
  4. Click anything you’ve added and a bar appears above it, with what you can change: font, size, colour, line thickness, fill and see-through.
  5. Press Save PDF when you’re done.

To turn text or a picture, drag the round handle above it, or choose from the Angle list. To change the words of text you’ve added, double-click it. Undo takes back your last change, and Ctrl+Z works too.

How to replace a word in a PDF

This is the most common edit, and it takes two steps:

  1. Choose White-out and drag over the old word to cover it.
  2. Choose Text, type the new word and place it on top. Use the bar to match the size and font as closely as you can.

The match won’t be exact unless the document uses a common font, and white-out only looks right on a white page. For a long change, it’s better to edit the original Word document, if you have it. If you only have the PDF,PDF to Word can turn it back into an editable document.

White-out hides words. It doesn’t delete them.

This matters. White-out covers the words, but they’re still in the file, and someone can select and copy them. Never use it to hide a bank number, an ID number or anything private.

To remove information for good, use Redact PDF. It rebuilds the marked pages so the original text is gone from the file, and you can search for words like a name and mark every match at once.

Which tool for which job?

Typing in other languages

You can type Latin, Cyrillic, Greek, Vietnamese, Tamil and Chinese text. If a character can’t be written, the tool tells you which one was left out.

Open Edit PDF

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