These free PDF tools cover the jobs people run into every week: joining a contract with its signed annex, pulling three pages out of a long report, shrinking a scan for an upload form, numbering the pages of a thesis, or opening a bank statement that asks for a password every time.
Page tools such as merge, split, organize, crop, page numbers, watermark and flatten run inside your browser. Compression, password protection, unlocking, grayscale and repair run on the FileKiwi server with Ghostscript and accept files up to 100 MB. Every tool works on Windows, Mac, Linux, iPhone and Android.
Which PDF tools do you need?
| You want to | Use | Runs in |
|---|---|---|
| Join several PDFs into one | Merge PDF | Browser |
| Save pages or ranges as new files | Split PDF | Browser |
| Pick pages and save them as a new PDF | Extract PDF Pages | Browser |
| Drag pages into a new order | Organize PDF | Browser |
| Remove blank or private pages | Delete PDF Pages | Browser |
| Fix sideways pages | Rotate PDF | Browser |
| Trim white margins | Crop PDF | Browser |
| Change pages to A4, Letter or another size | Resize PDF | Browser |
| Number the pages | Add Page Numbers | Browser |
| Stamp CONFIDENTIAL or DRAFT on pages | Watermark PDF | Browser |
| Fix filled forms and comments in place | Flatten PDF | Browser |
| Make a PDF smaller | Compress PDF | Server |
| Add an open password | Protect PDF | Server |
| Remove a password you know | Unlock PDF | Server |
| Print in shades of gray | Black and White PDF | Server |
| Open a damaged file again | Repair PDF | Server |
Page tools copy content without recompressing it, so quality stays the same. Compression lowers image detail, and Flatten in whole page mode turns pages into images. Size presets such as Compress PDF to 200 KB aim for a target for you.
A sensible order for tidying a PDF
When a document needs several fixes, this order avoids extra work and keeps quality as high as possible.
- Unlock or repair the file first if it will not open.
- Delete, organize and rotate pages, then merge files in the right order.
- Crop or resize pages, then add page numbers or a watermark.
- Compress once, near the end.
- Protect last, so nothing else needs the password.
Need images, Word files or PDF/A instead? The PDF converter has every format change. Guides are on the FileKiwi blog.