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PDF guides

Practical, no-nonsense guides for getting things done with PDFs the right way: real edits that keep your fonts and metadata, marks that don't flatten the page, and page tools that don't re-compress your file. Everything works online, or free on your own machine, in your browser or from the command line.

Edit the text

How to find and replace text in a PDFWhy it is tricky, the overlay trap, and the clean way to do it step by step. Bulk find and replace in a PDFMany rules at once, replace all matches, ignore case, whole word, and a CLI for automation. How to redact a PDF (really remove the text)Black bars are not enough. Take the words out of the file so copy and search find nothing. Remove personal data (PII) from a PDFStrip emails, card numbers, IBANs, SSNs, and phone numbers, or swap them for realistic fakes. Edit PDF text without Adobe AcrobatYou do not need a subscription to change a few words in a PDF. True text editing vs visual PDF editorsTwo ways to change text in a PDF: precise find-and-replace, or a visual editor that rebuilds the page. How each works, and when to use which. Batch-edit PDFs with a recipeOne recipe over a whole folder, with Bates numbering that continues across files. Free, local, deterministic. The pipeline: one line that does five thingstidy | rotate auto | clean | ocr | shrink 200kb. PDF operations chained like Unix pipes. Fill a PDF form from a spreadsheetMail-merge for forms: one filled PDF per CSV row, filed by any column. How pricing worksPriced from what a download costs to produce, itemized, rounded up to the next nickel.

Marks & page numbers

How to watermark a PDFText or image, tiled or once, over or behind, with control over opacity and position. How to add page numbers to a PDF"Page 1 of 10" wherever you want it, or legal Bates numbering with a prefix.

Organize & convert

How to split and merge PDFsBreak one PDF into several, or join several into one, without losing quality or metadata. Combine PDFs into a binderOne PDF with a clickable table of contents, bookmarks, and numbered tabs. Board packets in one click. How to convert a PDF to images (PNG or JPG)Render pages to sharp images at any resolution, or pull the embedded images back out. Clean up a scanned PDFPure white backgrounds, crisp ink, whole batches in seconds. Made for sheet music, works on any scan. OCR a scanned PDF (make it searchable)An invisible text layer so a scan searches and copies like a normal PDF. Free, local only: a Mac right-click or one command. Remove blank and duplicate pagesBlank separators and repeated sections, gone in one command. Deterministic, no AI, free on your own machine. Insert a page after every N pagesA notes page between every week, a divider after every section, a blank behind every sheet. Split a PDF by its contentOne file per invoice, named from the page itself. Plus book spreads cut apart losslessly.

Find & extract

Search inside multiple PDFs at oncegrep for PDFs: whole folders or trees, results as file + page + snippet. Flags scans that need OCR. Get the tables out of a PDFDetected tables out as CSV that opens straight in Excel. Invoices never leave your machine.

Fix & shrink

Compress a PDF to an exact sizeThe portal says 200 KB max. Hit the number with a quality ladder; text stays selectable; honest on a miss. Fix upside-down and sideways pagesOrientation detected per page, corrected by a lossless switch. Low-text pages are left alone. Repair a PDF that won't openThe pages are usually still in there. Rebuild the structure, verified to actually open. Dark mode for any PDFBaked into the file: dark, sepia, or any ink color (sheet music in dark blue, yes). Check every link and bookmarkInternal jumps resolved against real pages; URLs contacted; honest verdicts. Gates a build. Is your PDF accessible?Tags, language, alt text, title, text layer: checked in 60 seconds, honest about what needs a human.

Protect & metadata

How to password-protect a PDFReal AES-256 encryption and permissions, or remove a password you already know. View, strip, or edit PDF metadataSee what your PDF is quietly telling people (author, software, dates), and change or remove it. Make a PDF safe to shareMetadata, comments, scripts, attachments, old revisions: stripped in one pass, with the list shown. Convert a PDF to PDF/AThe archival format, converted properly (real sRGB output intent) and verified before success is claimed.

Run it yourself

Run pdfblah on your own machineEdit PDFs locally, free and private, with the local app or the command line. Nothing is uploaded. Is that free PDF site safe?The subscription traps and silent uploads to recognize, plus a 30-second test for any tool.

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