PDF & File Tools
Merge, split, sign & convert โ free alternatives to paid PDF apps.
About pdf & file tools
PDF tools that do what the desktop applications charge a subscription for: merging several documents into one, pulling specific pages out, shrinking a file until it fits an upload limit, adding a signature, and turning a folder of images into a single PDF.
The privacy point matters more here than almost anywhere else on the site. PDFs are the format people use for exactly the documents they should be most careful with โ signed contracts, bank statements, passport scans, medical letters, tax returns. Most free online PDF services upload your file to their servers, process it there, and keep it for some retention period described vaguely in a privacy policy. These tools use PDF-lib in your browser, so the document is read into memory on your own machine and never transmitted.
Two practical limits worth knowing before you start. Compression works by re-encoding embedded images, so a PDF that is mostly scanned pages will shrink substantially while one that is mostly text will barely change โ text is already efficiently stored, and there is little left to remove. And a drawn signature is a visual mark, not a cryptographic one: it is fine for the everyday agreements that ask you to sign and return a PDF, but it is not a digital certificate signature and will not satisfy a process that specifically requires one.
Frequently asked questions
Is my PDF uploaded anywhere?
No. Merging, splitting, compressing and signing all run in your browser using PDF-lib. The file is never sent to a server, which is what makes these tools appropriate for contracts, financial statements and identity documents.
Why did compressing my PDF barely shrink it?
Compression mainly re-encodes embedded images. A scanned document is essentially a stack of images and can often be reduced dramatically. A text-based PDF exported from a word processor is already compact, so there is very little to remove.
Is a signature added here legally binding?
It adds a visual signature to the page, which is what most everyday agreements ask for and is widely accepted for them. It is not a cryptographic digital signature backed by a certificate authority. If a process explicitly requires a qualified or certified digital signature, use a service built for that.
Is there a page or file size limit?
There is no limit imposed by the tool. The practical ceiling is your device's available memory, since the whole document is held in browser memory while being processed. Very large files โ hundreds of megabytes โ may be slow or fail on a phone while working fine on a laptop.