Getting started

This guide takes you from opening your first PDF to making your first edits.

Open a PDF

1. Go to the live app — or your self-hosted copy (installation options).
2. Drag & drop any PDF onto the page, or press Ctrl/⌘ O to pick one.
3. That's it. There is no sign-up, no upload, no waiting — the file is read locally by your browser.

Private by design

Your file is opened, edited, and saved on your own machine. Open your browser's devtools while you work: your document bytes never leave the device.

Tour of the UI

• Left tool rail — the editing tools. Hover any tool for its keyboard shortcut.
  • V select · E edit text · T text box · H highlight · U underline · X strike
  • N sticky note · D pen · A arrow · R rectangle · O ellipse
  • G signature · I image stamp
  • F text field · C checkbox (form-field tools)
  • B redact · W whiteout (visual cover only — not secure)
• Thumbnail rail — page thumbnails. Drag to reorder; each thumbnail has controls to rotate, duplicate, delete, or insert a blank page.
• Top bar — search across the whole document, open the Forms dialog for fillable PDFs, open Compare to diff two versions, and open the ✦ AI assistant.
• Save / export — Ctrl/⌘ S downloads a copy. The export dialog offers page ranges (1-3,5), split into one file per page, plus stamping: page numbers, watermarks, headers & footers.

Useful shortcuts

Keys	Action
Ctrl/⌘ Z / Ctrl/⌘ Y	Undo / redo
Ctrl/⌘ O	Open a PDF
Ctrl/⌘ S	Save a copy
Ctrl/⌘ P	Print
Del / Esc	Delete selected mark / cancel
+ / − / 0	Zoom in / out / reset to 100%

Your first edits

1. Press E (Edit text), then click any line of the original text. Every line — and every table cell — is a clickable target.
2. Retype the line and press Enter. The original text is rewritten in the file's content stream itself: no overlay, no text box on top. See Editing text.
3. Press H and drag over a sentence to highlight it, or N and click to drop a sticky note. See Annotations.
4. Press Ctrl/⌘ S to download your edited copy.

What to try next

• Cover sensitive data for real — Redaction deletes covered content from the file; whiteout only covers it visually.
• Turn a scan into editable text — OCR runs on-device.
• Ask the document questions — On-device AI runs a small LLM in your browser, nothing uploaded.
• Automate it — the CLI and MCP server give scripts and AI agents the same editing engine.

Sessions autosave

Everything you do autosaves on-device. If you refresh or the tab crashes, the start screen offers to restore the whole session — files, page operations, marks, and form values. The autosave lives only in your browser's localStorage; a one-click "forget" control wipes it completely.