How to Use All the PDF Tools in One Place
Most PDF jobs are small and irritating. Two files that should be one. A scan that came out sideways. A document three megabytes over the attachment limit. A contract you need to edit but only have as a PDF. Each takes about a minute to fix — as long as you are not hunting for a different website, with a different set of adverts, for every single task.
This guide is a map of everything available here and how the tools fit together. Real tasks rarely need just one: the useful skill is knowing which order to run them in.
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Open the toolWhat the toolkit covers
- Converting into and out of PDF — Word, Excel, PowerPoint, TXT, JPG, PNG, BMP and TIFF, in both directions.
- Editing the document itself — merge, split, reorder pages, delete pages and rotate.
- Preparing files for sending — compress, convert to grayscale, pack into a ZIP, encrypt or unlock.
How to work with the tools
Start from the job, not the tool
Decide what the finished file has to be — one document, a smaller file, an editable text, a set of images — and the tool follows from that. Every tool page lists what it takes in and what it gives back.
Fix the structure first
Merge, delete and reorder before anything else. Doing structural work first means you never compress or convert pages you are about to throw away.
Convert next
Once the document contains the right pages in the right order, convert it to whatever the recipient needs — Word for editing, JPG or PNG for posting, TXT for processing.
Optimise last
Compress, and convert to grayscale if it is going to be printed. These steps come at the end because they operate on the finished document.
Protect before sending
If the file contains anything confidential, encrypt it with Protect PDF as the final step, and send the password through a different channel from the document.
Typical multi-step tasks
A scanned contract that is sideways and too heavy
Rotate the pages, delete the blank backs the scanner added, then compress. Three tools, about two minutes, and the file is ready to email.
Photographs that have to become one document
Convert the images with JPG to PDF using the merge option, reorder the pages if the upload sequence was wrong, then compress if the result is too heavy for an attachment.
A PDF you need to edit and reissue
Convert with PDF to Word, edit in your word processor, then convert back with Word to PDF. Keep the editable file afterwards so you never have to do the round trip again.
Working in the browser versus installed software
Browser tools win on occasional jobs. Nothing is installed, they work the same on a laptop, a tablet or a phone, and any device you happen to be using is enough. For merging a couple of files or shrinking an attachment, opening a page is faster than opening an application.
Desktop software still makes sense for continuous professional work — heavy redaction, prepress, batch pipelines over thousands of documents, or environments where files must never leave the machine. For everything most people need a few times a month, the browser is the practical choice.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are all the tools really free?
Yes. Every tool is free, requires no account, has no daily quota and adds no watermark.
Is there a file size limit?
Each file can be up to 100 MB, which covers the overwhelming majority of documents and scans.
What happens to my files?
Uploaded and processed files are deleted from the server automatically one hour after processing.
Do the tools work on a phone?
Yes. Everything runs in the browser, so any modern phone or tablet works the same way a desktop does.
Can I use several tools one after another?
Yes, and most real tasks need it. Download the result of one step and upload it into the next.
Which tool should I start with?
Work out what the finished file has to be. Structure first, then conversion, then optimisation, then protection.
Ready to do it now? Open I love PDF and get your file in a few seconds.
Open the tool