How to Edit a PDF for Free

The free tool you need depends on the edit: use Microsoft Edge for quick highlights, notes, and form filling; use Adobe Acrobat online for adding text boxes and signatures in a browser; use LibreOffice Draw when you need to actually change existing sentences; and use Google Drive when you want to pull editable text out of a PDF entirely. None of these require installing paid software or a credit card.

Mark up or fill a PDF in Microsoft Edge (no install needed)#

If you just need to annotate, highlight, or fill out a form, Edge already has what you need since it’s Windows’ default PDF viewer.

1. Open the PDF in Edge (double-click it, or drag it into a new tab).
2. Use the toolbar at the top of the document: Draw for freehand ink (arrows, circles, signatures), Highlight to mark passages, and Add text to drop a text box wherever you need one.
3. For fillable forms, click directly into any highlighted field and type; Edge supports basic form filling but not JavaScript-driven forms.
4. Use Erase to remove a stroke you don’t want.
5. Click the save icon (or Ctrl+S) to save your markup back into the PDF.

This is markup, not text editing: Edge lets you draw, highlight, comment, and fill existing form fields, but it won’t let you click into a paragraph and rewrite a sentence. A handwritten signature made with the pen tool also isn’t a certificate-based digital signature, so don’t rely on it for anything that requires cryptographic verification. For everyday defaults on a fresh Windows install, it’s worth also checking how to fix an app that won’t open on Windows if Edge itself is misbehaving.

Add text and sign with Acrobat online (browser, no install)#

Adobe’s free online editor at adobe.com/acrobat/online/pdf-editor.html runs entirely in the browser and covers a step up from Edge: proper text boxes, comments, and signatures.

1. Go to Acrobat’s free online PDF editor and upload your file (drag-and-drop or browse).
2. Choose Add Text, click where you want text, and drag to set the box width before typing.
3. Use the highlight, strikethrough, underline, and freehand draw tools the same way, from the toolbar above the document.
4. Use Fill & Sign to complete form fields or drop in a signature.
5. Sign in with a free Adobe account when you’re ready to download or share the finished file; uploading and doing basic annotation doesn’t require an account, but exporting does.

This tool is genuinely useful for one-off edits without installing anything, but it’s still add-on-top editing: you’re placing new text and marks over the existing page, not rewriting the PDF’s original text layer. For that, you need LibreOffice.

Rewrite existing text with LibreOffice Draw (the only free option that really edits text)#

LibreOffice is free and open source. Unlike Edge or Acrobat’s free tier, Draw opens a text-based PDF as editable objects, so you can click into an existing paragraph and change the words.

1. Install LibreOffice if you don’t have it, then open LibreOffice Draw specifically (not Writer, which only previews PDFs).
2. Go to File > Open and select your PDF. Draw reconstructs the page as text boxes, images, lines, and shapes you can click into individually.
3. Click into any text box to edit the words directly, provided the PDF isn’t protected. Click other objects (images, shapes) to move or resize them.
4. When you’re done, go to File > Export As > Export as PDF and save. Using the regular Save command instead saves an .odg file, LibreOffice’s native format, not a PDF, so export is the step to remember.

The catch: this only works on text-based PDFs. If your file is a scanned document with no selectable text, it opens as a flat image, and Draw can’t edit text inside it without OCR first.

Convert a PDF to editable text with Google Drive#

If you’d rather work in a word processor than fight with objects in Draw, Google Drive can convert a PDF (including a scanned one) into an editable Google Doc.

1. Upload the PDF to drive.google.com.
2. Right-click the file, choose Open with > Google Docs.
3. Google converts it into a new Docs file, running OCR automatically if the source is a scanned image. OCR is limited to files under about 2 MB and the first 10 pages of a scanned PDF, so split larger scans first.
4. Edit the text normally, then use File > Download > PDF Document to export it back to PDF.

Expect some formatting drift: tables, columns, and non-standard fonts often shift because Google Docs substitutes default fonts and reflows the layout. This method trades layout fidelity for full text editability, which is the opposite tradeoff from LibreOffice Draw.

Which free tool fits your edit#

You need to…	Best free tool	Why
Highlight, comment, or draw on a PDF	Microsoft Edge	Already built into Windows, no upload needed
Fill out a simple form	Microsoft Edge or Acrobat online	Both handle standard form fields
Add new text boxes or a signature	Acrobat online	Purpose-built Add Text and Fill & Sign tools
Change existing sentences or fix a typo	LibreOffice Draw	Only option here that edits the real text layer
Extract/reflow text from a scanned PDF	Google Drive (Open with Google Docs)	Built-in OCR converts images to editable text

Symptom, cause, and fix#

Symptom	Likely cause	Fix
Can’t click into text in LibreOffice Draw	PDF is a scanned image, not real text	Run it through Google Drive’s OCR first, then re-import
Acrobat online won’t let you download	You’re not signed in	Sign in with a free Adobe account, then export
Edge won’t let you edit a form field	Form uses JavaScript, which Edge’s PDF reader doesn’t support	Open the form in Acrobat online or the source software instead
Google Docs conversion looks messy	Complex layout (tables, columns, custom fonts) didn’t survive conversion	Use LibreOffice Draw instead, since it preserves layout by editing in place

Start with the simplest tool for the job: Edge for a quick highlight or signature, Acrobat online when you want proper text boxes without installing anything, LibreOffice Draw when you need to actually correct the wording, and Google Drive when you’d rather retype in a normal word processor than click around a PDF’s original layout. If you’re also cleaning up a PC that’s collected years of downloaded PDFs and other clutter, see how to free up space on Windows 11 and how to recover deleted files on Windows for related maintenance.