Add text to a PDF

Click anywhere on a page and type. Fill in a form that has no fields, add a note, fix a date, or cover old text with a white-out box. Free, no account, and the file never leaves your browser.

No PDF yet. You can also drop a file on this box.

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How to add text to a PDF

  1. Open the PDF.
  2. Click the spot on the page where the text goes, then type in the box below the page. Press Enter for a new line.
  3. Pick the font, size, color and style. Drag the text to line it up with the form.
  4. To replace something, switch to White-out box, drag over the old text to cover it, then add your text on top.
  5. Use the arrows to move between pages, and download when you're done.

How it works

pdf-lib writes your text into the page as real PDF text in one of the standard fonts (Helvetica, Times, Courier) that every PDF reader has built in, so it stays sharp at any zoom, can be selected and searched, and adds almost nothing to the file size. The original page is not re-rendered: its text, links and images stay exactly as they were. The preview uses pdf.js, and rotated pages are handled.

A white-out box is a white rectangle drawn on top of the page. It hides the old text visually, but the old text is still in the file underneath and can be copied or found by search. To remove content for real (personal data, for example), flatten the page into an image instead, e.g. with Grayscale PDF in "Gray images" mode or by printing to PDF as an image.

Making PDFs from your own data?

If you're filling the same document again and again (invoices, certificates, letters), it's easier to keep it as an HTML template and render each copy to PDF. The Shotmint API does that in Chromium, with your fonts and CSS:

curl "https://shotmint.creasework.com/v1/pdf" -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"html":"<h1>Invoice #1042</h1><p>Total: 120.00 EUR</p>","format":"A4"}' -o invoice.pdf

Each render is 1 credit. €5 buys 2,000 with no subscription, and credits never expire. Try it without a key on HTML to PDF.

Get 25 free renders a month API docs

FAQ

Is my PDF uploaded? No. Everything runs in JavaScript on this page, and the document stays on your device.

Can I edit the existing text? Not directly: PDFs store text as positioned glyphs, not paragraphs. Cover the old words with a white-out box and type the new ones on top, matching the font and size.

Which characters work? The standard PDF fonts cover English and Western European languages (accents, €, curly quotes). Other characters (Cyrillic, Greek, CJK, emoji) are replaced with "?" and the tool tells you.

The PDF has fillable fields. Use Fill PDF form to type into the real fields. To add a signature, use Sign PDF.

Why does it say password-protected? Encrypted PDFs can't be changed without the password. Save a copy without the password in your PDF viewer, then try again.

Related: sign PDF, fill PDF form, watermark PDF, add page numbers, merge PDF, crop PDF, PDF to text.

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