How to edit a PDF for free on Windows
You need to edit a PDF. You don't want to pay $22.99 a month for Adobe. Here's how to do it for free with SwiftPDF — a small Windows app that handles common PDF editing offline.
Step 1: Install SwiftPDF
Download SwiftPDF from the link on this page. The installer is under 15MB and takes about 30 seconds. No account required — install it and open it.
Step 2: Open your PDF
Drag the file onto the SwiftPDF window, or use File > Open. SwiftPDF renders the document with its original layout intact.
Step 3: Edit the text
Click the Edit toolbar at the top, then click on any text in the document to start editing it like a Word doc. You can change content, font, size, and colour. SwiftPDF preserves the original formatting where it can.
Step 4: Add annotations
Use the Annotate toolbar to add highlights, comments, sticky notes, freehand drawings, or shapes. Everything is embedded in the PDF and shows up in any PDF viewer.
Step 5: Fill out forms
If the PDF has interactive form fields, click them and type. If it's a flat scanned form, SwiftPDF lets you place text boxes anywhere on the page to fill it in manually.
Step 6: Merge or split pages
Use the Pages panel (View > Pages) to rearrange, delete, or extract pages. To combine multiple PDFs, go to File > Merge PDFs and add the files.
Step 7: Save
File > Save overwrites the original. File > Save As creates a new file. You can also export to Word, Excel, or image formats through File > Export.
Quick reference
- Change text: Edit toolbar > click the text
- Merge PDFs: File > Merge PDFs
- Split a PDF: File > Split PDF > pick page ranges
- Add a signature: Annotate > Signature
- Shrink a PDF: File > Optimize PDF
- Convert to Word: File > Export > Word
One tip
If you're editing a scanned PDF where the text is actually an image, run SwiftPDF's OCR first (Tools > OCR Text Recognition) so the text becomes editable. OCR works best on clean, high-resolution scans.