LensUp Guides

One request is about format, the other about provenance. A converter can only ever answer the first. Fill in enough official forms and you meet the same instruction everywhere: attach a scanned copy. It sounds like one requirement. It is two, and they have almost nothing to do with each other. One is about format : the receiving system wants an image-based PDF. Their pipeline expects one, or their archive is full of them, or they specifically do not want a file whose text can be edited after they receive it. The other is about provenance : they want evidence that a physical document existed and that a human signed it. Forms use the same four words for both. That conflation is why this whole area is confusing, and — as it turns out — it is also where a small commercial industry has set up shop. Disclosure before I go further: we build LensUp , which includes a tool that gives a PDF a scanned appearance. So I have a stake in this distinction. I would rather state it plainly than have it...

A scanned PDF is really a set of pictures of pages. That's why you can't click into the text and change it the way you would in a Word document. The good news is that most of what people need to do with a scan, like filling in blanks, signing, adding a date or fixing a few words, doesn't require changing the scanned text at all. Here's what to do, depending on the job. To fill in, sign or add something: type on top Open the scan in a free editor that can add text to a scanned PDF . Press Add text , click where the text should go, and type. The text starts exactly where you click. Pick a font that sits well on the scan: Noto Serif looks at home on most printed forms, and Noto Sans Mono suits typewriter-style documents. Match the size to the printed text. Use Add signature to sign, ✓ and ✗ for tick boxes, and Date for today's date. Press Download edited PDF . Sideways pages are fine: rotate them in Pages , and text you add still lands upright where you cl...

You can fill in, sign and edit a PDF on an Android phone without paying for an app. Here are two free ways: the Google Drive app, which is on most Android phones, and a PDF editor that runs in Chrome. Option 1: Google Drive To fill in a form: Open the PDF in the Google Drive app. At the bottom right, tap Edit , then Form filling . Tap each field and type. If you don't see the option, the PDF may not be fillable. Google notes that some forms, including XFA forms and documents that are only laid out to look like a form, can't be filled in this way. ( Google's guide ) To draw or highlight: open the PDF in Drive and tap the annotate button at the bottom right. You can write or highlight with your finger or a stylus. Option 2: A free PDF editor in Chrome This works for flat forms too, and puts text, signatures and page changes in one place. Open the editor. In Chrome, go to edit a PDF on Android and tap Choose PDF . Pick the file from Downloads, from an email attachment ...

Windows doesn't come with a full PDF editor, but you don't need to buy one. You have two free options: Microsoft Edge, which is the PDF viewer on most Windows PCs, and a PDF editor that runs in your browser. Option 1: Microsoft Edge When you double-click a PDF on Windows, it usually opens in Edge. Edge can do some light editing: fill in basic form fields (not forms that rely on scripts, and not XFA forms) draw on the page with ink , for example to sign with a mouse, pen or touchscreen highlight text and add comments When you're done, save the file. Microsoft describes these features in PDF reader in Microsoft Edge . Option 2: A free PDF editor in your browser For more editing tools in one place, open a browser-based editor in Edge or Chrome: Go to edit PDFs in your browser and drag your PDF from File Explorer onto the page, or click Choose PDF . Add text anywhere: press Add text , click where it goes and type. Pick a font, size and colour, and drag the text into p...

Every Mac comes with a free PDF editor already installed: Preview. For most forms and signatures, it's all you need. Here's how to use it, plus a browser-based option for when you'd rather keep the original file untouched or use the same tool on other devices. Option 1: Edit a PDF in Preview Open the PDF. Double-click it; PDFs open in Preview unless you've set another app. Fill in a form. Click a field and type. If the form won't let you type into it, show the Markup toolbar and add a text box instead, then drag it into place. Sign it. In the Markup toolbar, click the signature button and create a signature with your trackpad, your Mac's camera or your iPhone. Drag it onto the line and use the handles to resize it. Save. Preview saves your changes into the same file. If you want to keep the original as it was, make a copy first with File > Duplicate . Apple's guide Fill out and sign PDF forms in Preview on Mac walks through each step. Option 2: ...

Adobe Acrobat Pro is a paid app, and most everyday PDF jobs don't need it: filling in a form, adding a line of text, signing, deleting a page. Here are the free ways to do them, on any device. The quickest way: a free PDF editor in your browser This works the same on Windows, Mac, iPhone and Android, with nothing to install. Open a free PDF editor that works without Acrobat and choose your PDF. Fill in form fields by clicking them and typing, or add text anywhere with Add text . Sign with Add signature : draw it, type it in a handwriting style, or use a photo of your signature. Delete, rotate or reorder pages in Pages . Press Download edited PDF . There's no account and no watermark, and the PDF is opened and saved in your browser rather than uploaded. Free tools that are already on your device You may not need anything new at all: Mac: Preview. Click a form field and type, or add a text box if the form isn't fillable. You can sign with your trackpad, your Mac...

Someone emails you a PDF, and all you have with you is your iPhone. You can fill it in, add text, sign it and send it back without installing anything. There are two free ways to do it: the Markup tools built into your iPhone, and a PDF editor that runs in Safari. Option 1: Use Markup, built into your iPhone Your iPhone can fill in and sign many PDFs on its own: Open the PDF from Mail or the Files app. Tap Markup . Tap a blank field on the form and type. If the form has no fields to tap, use Add Text Form Box and drag the box to where the answer goes. To sign, tap the + button in the Markup toolbar, then Add Signature . Your iPhone saves the signature for next time. Apple's guide Fill out forms, sign documents, and create signatures on iPhone has the details. Option 2: Use a free PDF editor in Safari A browser-based editor gives you the same tools on your iPhone and on your computer, with text, signatures, form fields and page changes all in one place. Save the PDF to File...

A form arrives as a PDF: an application, a registration, a claim, a school form. You don't need to print it, fill it in by hand and scan it back. You can type your answers straight into the PDF, for free, in your browser. Step 1: See what kind of form it is Open the PDF and click inside one of the boxes. If you can type in it, or it ticks, it's a fillable form. The boxes are real form fields. If nothing happens, it's a flat form: the boxes are just printed lines. Scanned forms are always flat. Both kinds can be filled in for free. Some forms are a mix of the two. How to fill out a fillable PDF form Open the form in a free tool to fill out a PDF form online . Click a box and type. Tick checkboxes, pick radio buttons and choose from dropdown lists the same way. Press Download edited PDF . Your answers are saved into the form's own fields, so the file is still a proper form that opens in any PDF reader. That's useful when the person receiving it copies your ...

You have a PDF with a page too many: a blank page from the scanner, an instructions page you don't need to send back, a duplicate, or a page with details the other person shouldn't see. Here's how to remove it for free, in your browser. How to delete a page from a PDF 1. Open the PDF. Go to a free PDF page remover and choose your file, or drag it onto the page. 2. Open the page list. Press Pages . You'll see your pages in order. 3. Delete the page. Go to the page you want to remove and press the Delete the page button. (On a computer, hover over the small buttons to see what each one does.) 4. Repeat for any other pages. Deleted the wrong one? Press Undo (Ctrl+Z, or ⌘Z on a Mac) to bring it back. 5. Download. Press Download edited PDF . You get a new copy with "-edited" added to the file name. Your original file stays as it was. Deleted really means deleted When you delete a page this way, the new PDF is written without it. Nothing of that page is left...

Someone has sent you a PDF to sign: a lease, a permission slip, an offer letter. You don't need to print it, sign it with a pen and scan it back. You can sign it in your browser, for free. How to sign a PDF, step by step 1. Open the PDF. Go to a free tool to sign a PDF online and choose your file. 2. Press Add signature. You have three ways to make your signature: Draw it with your finger (on a phone or tablet) or with your mouse or trackpad. Type your name and it's shown in a handwriting style. Use a photo of your signature. Sign a sheet of plain white paper, take a close-up photo, and pick that photo. 3. Place it. Drag the signature onto the signature line. Pull its corner to make it bigger or smaller so it fits the line. 4. Add the date. Press Date to add today's date next to your signature. If the form asks for your printed name as well, press Add text , click on the line and type it. 5. Download. Press Download edited PDF . You get a signed copy with ...

You don't need Adobe Acrobat to edit a PDF. A free editor in your browser can add text, sign, fill in forms and rearrange pages, on a computer or on your phone. Here's how, step by step. What you can change in a PDF With a free online PDF editor you can: add text anywhere on a page: a name, a date, a note, an answer on a form sign it with your own signature fill in form fields : text boxes, checkboxes, dropdowns add a picture , like a logo or a stamp mark it up with a highlighter, a pen, arrows, boxes and circles, ticks and crosses rotate, delete, reorder or add pages , including pages from another PDF One thing this editor doesn't do is change the text that's already in the PDF, like rewording a paragraph. More on that below. How to edit a PDF, step by step 1. Open your PDF. Go to a free online PDF editor and choose your file, or drag it onto the page. Files up to 100 MB work. If the PDF has a password, it asks for it. 2. Add text. Press Add text , click o...

Visa portals, universities and insurers still ask for a scanned copy, long after most homes stopped owning a scanner. What gets rejected, and why. Somewhere in the last fifteen years, the flatbed scanner quietly left the house. It survived in offices, print shops and the occasional all-in-one printer that nobody has plugged in since 2019. What did not leave is the paperwork that assumes you still own one. Visa portals ask for a scanned copy of your passport page. University systems want scanned transcripts. Insurance claims, rental agreements, bank onboarding, school admission forms, government benefit applications — all of them, in 2026, still ask for "a scan". The instruction is often oddly specific: a scanned copy, in PDF, under 200 KB, in colour, A4. So people do the obvious thing. They put the document on a table and photograph it with a phone. And then a surprising number of those submissions get rejected. What actually gets rejected, and why The rejection is rarely abo...

The usual steps for scanning with a phone, with the specific failure that goes with each one. Most guides on this stop at "open an app, take the photo, export a PDF." That part is easy, and it is not where things go wrong. Things go wrong at the upload screen, days later, with a message that says only that your document was not accepted. These are the same steps everyone else lists, with the failure attached to each one — because the failures are specific, repeatable, and almost all preventable in the ten seconds before you press the shutter. Before the photo: three things that decide the outcome Put the page on something darker than the page. This is the single highest-leverage thing in the whole process, and nobody mentions it. Every automatic edge-finder — in every app and every web tool — works by looking for the boundary between the paper and what is behind it. A white page on a white table has no boundary to find, so the crop either fails or grabs something wrong. A wo...

ID cards are 85.60 × 53.98 mm. Print dialogs default to “fit to page”. Put those two facts together and your copy comes out oversized. There is a small errand almost everyone runs eventually: an office wants a copy of both sides of your ID card on a single sheet of paper. A bank, a landlord, a university, a visa centre, an employer. The instruction is always short — "both sides, one page" — and it sounds like the easiest thing in the world. Then the copy comes back rejected, and nobody tells you why. Often it is not the photograph at all. It is the size. Identity cards have an exact size, and the person checking knows it Almost every national identity card in the world is the same physical object: 85.60 × 53.98 mm . That is a real standard — ID-1, the same format as the bank card in your wallet. Aadhaar, the Spanish DNI, the Vietnamese CCCD, the Indonesian KTP, most driving licences: if your card is the same size as a credit card, it is an ID-1 card. You do not need to rememb...