How the screen is laid out
The editor uses the whole window, with the page in the middle and the controls around it.
- The toolbar runs across the top. From left to right: Text, Sticky, Stamp, Sign, Draw, Whiteout, Links, Images, Forms, Annotate and Shapes. Sign, Images, Forms, Annotate and Shapes open a menu with more options; the rest work as soon as you click them.
- Undo, Redo and Find and replace come straight after the tools, and zoom and page navigation sit at the right-hand end.
- Page thumbnails run down the left side. Click one to jump to that page, use the arrows under it to rotate it, or the cross to delete it. Drag thumbnails to change the page order. The tab on the panel's edge hides it when you want more room.
- Above each page a small bar lets you rotate it, move it down, add a page after it or delete it.
- Insert page and Download are at the top right.
The layout switches to this version on screens at least 931 pixels wide with a mouse or trackpad. A touch laptop with a trackpad gets the desktop layout too.
Keyboard shortcuts
Working with text
Click Text, then click anywhere on the page to add a text box. To change words that are already in the PDF, click them with the Text tool, or double-click them.
It's worth knowing how editing existing text works. A PDF doesn't store paragraphs the way a word processor does; it stores individual pieces of text at fixed positions. When you change one, the editor covers the old text and writes your new version in its place, using a plain sans-serif font in black. For fixing a typo, a date or a name, that's usually exactly what you want. For rewriting whole paragraphs in a designed document, it's better to edit the original file (the Word or Pages document) and export it again. The guide on editing text in a PDF goes into more detail.
Find and replace (the magnifying glass) searches the whole document. It can match case, include link text, and replace every match at once.
Selecting and arranging
Click an item to select it, then drag it to move it or drag its corners to resize it. Hold Shift and click to select several items. With more than one selected, a bar appears to align them to the left, right, top or bottom, duplicate them or delete them together.
To add a picture, choose Images and New image, or simply copy an image and paste it with Ctrl + V. Repeat on all pages places the same image, such as a logo, on every page.
Saving and coming back
There's no save button to remember. A moment after each change, the editor stores the document and your edits in the browser.
- Reloading the page, or going back and forward, reopens your document as you left it.
- Each browser tab keeps its own copy, so you can work on two documents in two tabs.
- If the editor can't reach the server for a while, a red bar at the top says so, with a Retry button. Your edits are still in the browser.
- After 30 minutes without activity, the open file and its copies are cleared, and saved copies are kept for 12 hours at most. Download anything you want to keep.
Downloading
Download builds the finished PDF in the browser and opens the results page. From there:
- Download saves it to your Downloads folder.
- Save as… lets you choose the folder and file name. It appears in Chrome, Edge and Opera.
- Google Drive saves a copy to your Drive.
- Print opens your printer dialog.
Why it runs in your browser
Most online PDF editors upload your file and process it on their servers. EddiesPDF sends the editor to your browser instead, and the browser does the work on your computer. Your document isn't uploaded, so there's nothing on our side to store, leak or delete.
It also means your computer does the heavy lifting. On a laptop or desktop this is rarely noticeable, even with long documents, because the editor prepares each page once when the file opens and works from those pages afterwards. Very large scanned files take longer to open and use more memory; closing other heavy tabs helps. You can see exactly what the site sends over the network using the method in Are free online PDF tools safe to use?
Opening files
Click Upload PDF file, or use the arrow next to it to pick a file from Google Drive. You can also start from a blank document. Most other tools on the site let you drag a file from your desktop straight onto the page. Password-protected PDFs need to be unlocked first with Unlock PDF.
