Guides

One guide per tool, written by the people who built it. Why a scan is forty megabytes, what compression quietly takes away, why your rotation keeps disappearing, and which jobs a PDF tool genuinely cannot do.

5 minHow to merge PDF files without uploading themCombine PDFs into one document in your browser, in the order you want, and understand what merging does to bookmarks, forms and file size before you send the result on.
4 minHow to split a PDF into separate filesBreak a long PDF into single pages or custom ranges, learn how to write the ranges properly, and see why splitting is the fix for a scan holding a dozen documents.
6 minHow to compress a PDF to fit an email limitWhy scanned PDFs are enormous, what compression actually trades away, which quality level to pick, and what to do when a text-only PDF refuses to get smaller.
6 minHow to edit a PDF without AcrobatWhat a PDF editor can and cannot change, how to add text, sign and highlight in a browser, and why editing on top of the page beats flattening it to images.
3 minHow to rotate a PDF so the rotation sticksWhy a rotation disappears when you close the file, the difference between rotating the view and rotating the document, and how to fix only the pages that are sideways.
4 minHow to delete pages from a PDFRemove blank scans, cover sheets or an internal appendix from a PDF, and understand the one thing deleting pages does not do — take the content out of the file.
5 minHow to convert a PDF to JPGTurn PDF pages into images, choose a resolution that suits the job, and know when PNG is the better answer than JPG for pages that are mostly text.
4 minHow to turn photos into a single PDFCombine phone photos or screenshots into one properly paginated PDF, choose between A4 and fitting the image, and avoid the white bars most converters leave behind.
3 minHow to add page numbers to a finished PDFNumber a document after it has been assembled, write formats like Page 3 of 12, start from any number, and leave the cover page unnumbered.
5 minHow to remove a password from a PDF you ownThe difference between a PDF that is restricted and one that is encrypted, how to remove each, and why a bank statement password is usually easier than it looks.
3 minHow to extract pages from a PDFPull the pages you need out of a long PDF into a new file, in the order you name them, and know when to extract rather than split or delete.
3 minHow to reorder the pages of a PDFRearrange a PDF into any sequence by writing the order you want, and fix the two things that most often go wrong in an assembled document.
3 minHow to fix a PDF that scanned in reverseWhy sheet-fed scanners produce back-to-front documents, how to flip the whole order in one click, and what else to check on the same scan.
4 minPDF to PNG or JPG: which to useThe difference lossy and lossless compression make to a page of text, why screenshots belong in PNG, and how transparency behaves when a PDF page becomes an image.
3 minHow to turn screenshots into one PDFPackage a folder of PNG screenshots into a single shareable document, keep them sharp, and decide between A4 pages and pages sized to each image.
4 minHow to watermark a PDFStamp DRAFT or CONFIDENTIAL across every page, choose an opacity that reads without burying the text, and understand why a watermark is a label rather than security.
3 minHow to crop the margins of a PDFTrim a scanner's black edge or excess white space off every page, understand PDF points, and know why cropping does not make the file smaller.
4 minHow to flatten a PDF form before you send itWhy a filled form is still editable, what flattening actually does to fields and annotations, and when flattening is the wrong answer.
3 minHow to convert a PDF to greyscale for printingWhy a print shop charges colour rates for a nearly-black document, how greyscale conversion changes the file rather than the print settings, and what it does to size.
4 minHow to extract text from a PDFGet clean text out of a PDF without the broken line breaks, understand why a scan comes back empty, and know what OCR would add.
4 minWhat metadata your PDF is carryingThe hidden document properties every PDF holds, where they show up, why an exported file often names someone else, and how to clear them before you send it.