# Edit a PDF — Add Text, Images, Shapes and Freehand Notes

> Add text, pictures, shapes, arrows, highlights and freehand drawing to any PDF page.

To edit a PDF, open it and the page becomes a canvas: drag out a text box and type, drop in a picture, draw rectangles, ellipses, lines and arrows, highlight a passage, or sketch freehand. Everything is placed by eye on the page itself, moved by dragging and resized by its corner. The additions are drawn into the page content, so they cannot be nudged out of place in a reader. It all runs in your browser — the document is never uploaded.

**URL:** https://convertto.tech/t/edit-pdf
**Category:** PDF Tools (https://convertto.tech/c/pdf-tools)
**Privacy:** Runs entirely in the browser; no upload
**Cost:** Free, no sign-up
**Last updated:** 2026-08-01

## Key facts

- **Objects:** Text, images, rectangles, ellipses, lines, arrows, highlights and freehand ink
- **Editing:** Drag to move, corner to resize, Delete to remove, Ctrl+Z to undo
- **Privacy:** Runs entirely in your browser — nothing is uploaded
- **Cost:** Free, unlimited, no sign-up

## How to use

1. Select your pdf file — the file stays on your device and is never uploaded.
2. Enter or paste your objects.
3. Turn "Lock everything into the page" on or off as needed.
4. Set the quality.
5. Press Run, then download the result when it is ready.

## FAQ

### Can I change the text that is already in the PDF?

No, and that is worth being precise about. A PDF has no editable text flow — it has glyphs positioned on a page — so genuinely rewriting existing text means rebuilding the document, which is what PDF to Word is for. This adds new content on top, which is what the overwhelming majority of "edit a PDF" tasks actually are: filling something in, striking something out, initialling, marking up.

### Will my additions stay where I put them?

Yes. They are drawn into the page content stream rather than added as annotations, so no reader can drag them off or toggle them away. That is the difference between an edit and a sticky note.

### Why does my text show question marks?

The standard PDF fonts cover Latin-1 only. Curly quotes, dashes and ellipses are converted automatically; characters with no Latin-1 equivalent — most non-European scripts, emoji — become a question mark rather than breaking the file.

### Is anything uploaded?

No. The document is opened, rendered and rewritten by JavaScript in this tab. You can confirm it in your browser's network panel.

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