How to Edit a Scanned PDF for Free

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

  1. Open the scan in a free editor that can add text to a scanned PDF.
  2. Press Add text, click where the text should go, and type. The text starts exactly where you click.
  3. 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.
  4. Use Add signature to sign, ✓ and ✗ for tick boxes, and Date for today's date.
  5. Press Download edited PDF.

Sideways pages are fine: rotate them in Pages, and text you add still lands upright where you clicked.

To change a few words: cover and retype

If a scan has a small mistake, like a wrong date or a misspelled name:

  1. Use Cover to put a box over the old words, in the page's own colour or white.
  2. Press Add text and type the correction on top.

One warning: Cover only hides what's under it. The original scanned words are still in the file and could be uncovered, so don't use this to hide private information. To remove a whole page with sensitive details on it, delete the page in Pages instead.

To rewrite a lot of text: convert the scan to text

If you need to edit whole paragraphs, turn the scan into editable text first. This is called OCR (optical character recognition). Google Drive does it for free:

  1. Upload the PDF to Google Drive.
  2. Right-click it and choose Open with > Google Docs.
  3. Edit the text in Google Docs, then use File > Download > PDF document to save it as a PDF again.

Google's own limits are worth knowing (Google's guide): the file should be 2 MB or smaller, text should be at least 10 pixels high, and pages must be the right way up. Bold, italics and font sizes usually survive, but tables, columns and footnotes usually don't, so check the result carefully.

Tips for a better scan

  • Scan straight and sharp. Clear, evenly lit pages are easier to type over and convert much better with OCR.
  • Keep the original scan. If a conversion goes wrong, you can start again.
  • Check the final file page by page before you send it.

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