How to edit text that is already in a PDF
Change wording in an existing PDF while keeping the original font, size and colour — free and in your browser.
Most free tools only let you add a new text box on top of a PDF. This one can change text that is already there: the original is removed from the document and your replacement takes its place, matching the font, size and colour it detected.
Steps
- Open the PDF in the editor.
- Choose the Edit Text tool.
- Click the text you want to change. An editing box appears in place, already containing that text.
- Type your replacement and click away, or press the tick, to commit it.
Why the original text disappears cleanly
Rather than painting a coloured rectangle over the old words — which covers table borders and neighbouring cells — the text is removed from the document's own drawing instructions. Nothing is painted over, so everything around it survives untouched.
Before committing, the change is checked: the intended text must be the only thing that disappeared, and everything else must still be in exactly the same position. If that cannot be proven, the editor falls back to covering the text instead, so a document is never quietly damaged.
Good to know
- It works with Lao, Thai, Chinese, Japanese and other non-Latin scripts.
- Reflowing a whole paragraph is not supported — this replaces a line, it does not re-lay out the page.
- If your replacement uses characters the document's font does not contain, upload a font that does in the Font Manager.