You don't need a $240/year subscription to edit a PDF.
Adobe Acrobat Pro costs $22.99/month — that's $276/year. For most people, editing a PDF means adding a text note, filling in a form field, or inserting a signature. You shouldn't need enterprise software for that.
Free alternatives exist, but they come with tradeoffs. Online tools like Smallpdf and iLovePDF upload your file to their servers. Desktop apps like LibreOffice can edit PDFs but the formatting often breaks. Preview on Mac handles annotations but can't add text to arbitrary positions.
Drag your PDF into the editor or click to browse. The file loads instantly in your browser — no upload progress bar because nothing is being uploaded.
Select the edit type from the toolbar: text, image, drawing, highlight, or signature. Click anywhere on the page to place your edit. Adjust size, color, and position.
Click download to save your modified PDF. All edits are baked into the file — the recipient sees them in any PDF viewer without needing ModernPDF.
ModernPDF covers the editing tasks that actually come up in daily work:
Place text anywhere on the page. Choose font, size, and color. Fix typos, add notes, or insert missing information.
Complete PDF forms with text fields, checkboxes, and dropdowns. Add your signature by drawing, typing, or uploading an image.
Highlight text, draw freehand, add shapes and arrows. Mark up contracts, reports, or academic papers for review.
Add photos, logos, or scanned signatures anywhere on the page. Resize and position them precisely.
What ModernPDF doesn't do: reflow text within existing paragraphs, edit embedded fonts, or modify form field structures. For those tasks, you genuinely need Acrobat or a desktop PDF editor. But for 90% of "edit a PDF" tasks, a browser-based tool is enough.
PDFs you need to edit often contain exactly the information you'd least want on someone else's server: contracts with financial terms, medical forms with personal details, legal documents with privileged information.
Adobe's own online PDF editor uploads your file to Adobe's cloud. Smallpdf sends it to their servers in Switzerland. iLovePDF processes it on their infrastructure in Barcelona. Even if these companies have strong security practices, your document still travels across the internet and exists on servers you don't control.
ModernPDF renders and edits your PDF entirely in-browser. The file is processed by JavaScript running on your device. No network request is made. No copy of your document exists anywhere except your computer. When you close the tab, the only trace is the file you downloaded.
You can add new text anywhere on the page, but ModernPDF doesn't modify text that's already embedded in the PDF. To change existing text, you'd need to add a white shape over the old text and type new text on top — or use the Redact tool to remove it first.
Yes. Free users get 3 edits per day with files up to 10MB. No watermarks are added to your output. Pro ($9/month or $49/year) unlocks unlimited edits and 500MB file sizes.
No. The edited PDF is a standard PDF file that opens in any PDF reader — Adobe Acrobat, Preview, Chrome, etc. There's no ModernPDF branding or metadata in the output.
Yes. ModernPDF detects interactive form fields and lets you fill them in. You can also use the Fill & Sign tool for a dedicated form-filling experience with signature support.
Acrobat Pro can reflow text, edit fonts, and modify form structures — capabilities ModernPDF doesn't have. But Acrobat costs $276/year and requires a 500MB desktop install. For adding text, signatures, annotations, and images, ModernPDF does the job for free. See our detailed comparison.
Add text, images, and annotations. Free to start. Private. Pro for unlimited use.
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