EDIT AND SIGN ON YOUR OWN DEVICE
A safe PDF editor: edit and sign without uploading your file
It is a contract, a passport scan or a form asking for your bank details, and it needs a correction or a signature. Every tool you find wants the file handed over first. This one never receives it: the editing and the signing run in your browser, on your own device.
- Your browser opens the PDF from your own device and keeps it in this tab. It is not uploaded, so there is no copy on a server for anyone to store, read or lose.
- Your signature stays with it. Draw it, type it or pick a picture of it: it is put on the page here and is not kept afterwards.
- Free to edit. Downloading needs a free account and starts at 99p for your first week.
Drag & drop your PDF here
Private: processed in your browser
Will this work on your file?
| Your file | Works here? | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| A contract or offer letter you have been asked to sign and return | Yes | Open it, pick Signature, then draw or type your name and drag it onto the line. The page is signed in this tab, and no copy is made anywhere else. |
| A form asking for bank details, a date of birth or an ID number | Yes | Type into its fields, or use Add Text where the lines are only printed. What you type exists in this tab and in the file you download, nowhere else. |
| A scan of your passport or driving licence with a number to hide first | Yes | Drag Redact over the number. On export that page is rebuilt as a picture without it, so the number is removed and not just covered. Redact PDF |
| A PDF that needs your signature and nothing else | Yes | It works here, though you do not need the whole editor for it. The Sign tool does only that, on your device as well, and downloading from it does not need an account. Sign PDF |
| A PDF from your bank, insurer or employer that only opens with a password | After one step | The editor cannot open an encrypted file and tells you so. Take the password off first, which also happens on your device, then open the unlocked copy here. Unlock PDF |
| A document that somebody else has to sign | Not here | That takes a signing link, and a link needs the PDF hosted: it is uploaded to your peadf account so the other person can open it. The right tool for the job, but not a nothing-uploaded one. Send for Signature |
Who ends up on this page
A new starter returning an employment contract
It has your salary and home address on it, HR want it signed by Friday, and the first three tools you found want it on their servers.
A tenant sending ID to a letting agent
The passport scan has to go today, and you would rather it passed through as few hands as possible on the way.
A freelancer with a client NDA
The agreement is confidential by definition, so putting it through a website you have never heard of to sign it feels like breaking it.
A parent with a school consent form
It lists a child's name, date of birth and allergies, and all it needs is four ticks and a signature.
Someone handling a relative's paperwork
Their bank form is in your inbox, and their account number is not going into a site you know nothing about.
How to do it
- 1
Open the PDF, then test the claim in flight mode
Choose the file or drop it on the box above. Your browser reads it from your own storage into this tab. Once the pages are showing, switch on flight mode or turn the wifi off, then retype a line and draw a signature. Both still work, which they could not if the file were sitting on a server.
- 2
Correct it with Select, fill it in with Add Text
Select is where you start: click a printed line and retype it, and it keeps its own font and size. Add Text types onto a line that is only printed, Check ticks a box, and Redact takes out a number you would rather not pass on.
- 3
Pick Signature and put your name to it
Draw it with a finger or a mouse, type it in a handwriting style, or use the Upload tab, which despite its name only reads a picture of your signature from this device. It lands on the page you are viewing: drag it to the line and pull a corner to size it.
- 4
Reconnect, export, and decide what happens to the file
Export builds the finished PDF in this tab. Downloading it needs a free account and starts at 99p for your first week, which is why the connection has to be back. The file itself is only sent to us if you ask for a share link. That is offered under the download and never pressed for you.
What you can change
- Sign the last page of a 9-page employment contract and initial the other 8
- Type a sort code and an 8-digit account number into a direct debit form
- Black out the 9-digit passport number on a scan before it goes to a letting agent
- Correct a misspelt surname in the 3 places it appears on a rental application
- Tick the 5 consent boxes on a medical questionnaire
- Add today's date beside your signature on both copies of an agreement
- Hide all but the last 4 digits of an account number on a letter you are sending as proof of address
- Fill in the 12 printed lines of an application that was never given real form fields
How it actually works
A web page can ask your browser for a file without sending it anywhere. When you choose a PDF here, the browser hands this tab its bytes, the same way it would hand a photo to a page that only wants to show you a preview. The code that draws the pages and rewrites them arrived with the page itself, as ordinary script, and it runs on your own processor. Your edits change a copy held in memory. Export assembles the finished PDF in that same memory and passes it to your downloads folder. At no point is there a request with your document in it, which is why the flight mode test works, and why closing the tab is the whole of the clean-up.
Safe is not the same as silent, so here is what does travel. Your browser downloads our code, as it does for any site, and the footer loads a badge image from Product Hunt. Google Analytics receives anonymous counts: that a file was opened, its size to the nearest tenth of a megabyte, which kinds of edit were made, that an export ran. No file name, no text, no page. When you press Export, we ask our server for the plan prices and whether your account may download: questions that carry your account, never the file. Reading a scanned page fetches a recognition engine once from a public code CDN, then reads the scan here. Two things do upload, and only when you ask: a share link, and a PDF you send to someone else to sign.
A signature made here is a picture: the strokes you drew, or your typed name in a handwriting style, fixed onto the page so that every PDF reader shows it. That is an electronic signature in the everyday sense, the kind many forms and routine agreements accept. It is not a certificate-based digital signature. It does not prove who signed, and it does not seal the file against later changes. The pad keeps nothing between visits, not even in this browser, so you draw it again next time. What nobody can control is the copy you send on: whoever receives a signed page, from any tool or from a scanner, holds a picture of your signature.
Why the usual routes break this file
Use the first online editor the search turns up
Most of them work by taking the file: it is sent to their servers, changed there and sent back. A copy of your contract or passport now sits somewhere you cannot see, for as long as a policy you have not read says it may.
Install a free PDF program from a download site
An installed program can usually read every file your account can, and free installers often arrive with extras you did not ask for. A browser tab sees only the one file you hand it.
Add a PDF extension to your browser
Many extensions ask for permission to read and change the pages you visit. That is access to your webmail and your bank, granted in order to fix one document.
Print it, sign it with a pen and photograph it
The file stays off the internet, and the other side gets a grey, skewed photo with no selectable text. The picture also joins your camera roll, and whatever cloud backs that up.
What this will not do
- Downloading from this editor needs a free account, a code sent to your email and a card: 99p for the first week, then a plan from £11.99 a year. The account holds your email address and your subscription, never your document.
- A signature made here is a picture fixed onto the page, not a certificate-based digital signature. It cannot prove who signed or show that the file was changed later. If you were asked for a digital, advanced or qualified signature, this is not one.
- Nothing uploaded describes editing, signing and exporting. It stops being true when you ask for a share link or send a PDF for someone else to sign: hosting means the file is stored with us until you delete it.
- This is still a website. Your browser downloads our code on each visit, and Google Analytics counts anonymous events such as a file being opened and its size. On a network that blocks scripts, the editor may not start.
- We can speak for this tab, not for the device around it. A shared computer, an extension that reads pages, or a downloads folder that syncs to a cloud drive are all outside what a web page controls.
- Redacting rebuilds the affected page as a picture, so that page loses its selectable and searchable text. That is the price of the removal being real.
Where this stops being a formatting question
Signing your own copy is yours to do. Changing the wording of an agreement after the other side has seen it is different: send them the changed version and say what changed. And where a document calls for a witnessed, wet-ink or certificate-based signature, a drawn one does not meet that, whichever tool makes it. We cannot give legal advice, so ask whoever requested the signature what they will accept.
Questions people ask
Is it safe to edit a PDF online?
It depends on one thing: whether the file leaves your device. Most online editors upload it, change it on their servers and send it back, so safe there means trusting their storage, their staff and their deletion policy. An editor that runs in your browser never receives the file, which removes those questions instead of answering them. That is how this one works. You are still trusting the device you are on and the code we serve, which is why the flight mode test in step one is worth more than any promise on this page.
Do you keep a copy of my signature?
No. The signature pad draws on a canvas in this tab and hands the result straight to the page you are signing. Nothing about it is sent to us, and nothing is saved for next time either, not even in your browser storage, which is why the pad is empty on every visit. The handwriting styles for a typed signature are font files that come from our own site along with the page. The one copy of your signature that exists afterwards is the one inside the PDF you download.
Can someone copy my signature out of the PDF I send them?
Yes, and that is true of every visible signature, whether it was drawn here, made in another program or signed in pen and scanned. A signature on a page is a picture, and whoever holds the page holds the picture. What protects you is the same as on paper: send the signed copy only to the people who asked for it, and keep a copy of exactly what you signed. If you need a signature that shows a file has been altered since, that is a certificate-based digital signature, which this editor does not make.
Is a signature I draw here legally valid?
We cannot give legal advice, so treat this as orientation only. In the UK, the EU and the US, a drawn or typed electronic signature is accepted for many everyday agreements, on the principle that what counts is your intention to sign. Some documents ask for more: deeds, wills and certain property or court papers can need a witness, wet ink or a qualified signature. The person or organisation that asked you to sign decides what they will accept, so ask them before you rely on it.
Is this safe for a passport scan or other ID?
It is safer than any tool that uploads, because there is no copy on a server to be breached, kept or forgotten. The scan is read in this tab and nothing of it reaches us. What happens next is the real risk: an ID you send by email is copied into every mailbox it passes through. Before you send it, use Redact to remove what the recipient does not need, and consider adding a password with the Protect tool, which also runs on your device. Share the password by a different route.
Why does downloading need an account if nothing is uploaded?
Because the download is the part that is paid for, and an account is how a payment is tied to a person. The account holds your email address and your subscription. Your card goes to our payment provider and is not seen by us. When you press Export, the finished PDF is already built in this tab: all we are asked is whether your account may download it, and the answer is yes or no. The file is not part of that question. It starts at 99p for your first week, then a plan from £11.99 a year.
Does asking for a share link upload my PDF?
Yes. Hosting is the one part of peadf that uploads, and it happens only if you press the button. A link has to point at a file that is stored somewhere, so making one sends the PDF to our storage and hosts it in your account. The same applies when you send a PDF for someone else to sign. You can delete a hosted PDF whenever you like, and its link stops working when you do. If the document should never leave your device, download it and send it yourself.
Open the file here and try flight mode before you decide anything. If your edit and your signature both still work with the connection off, the file is where it belongs: on your device. Reconnect, export it, and send it only to the people who asked for it.
Open your PDF