How to Edit PDF on Windows 10/11 for Free

Given that editing wasn’t a primary consideration in the design of PDFs, and the lack of inbuilt PDF editing solutions on Windows, it can be a challenging task to make changes to your PDF files on Windows.

However, this article shares some free and powerful tools for you to edit PDFs on Windows 11 and Windows 10.

Edit PDF Locally on Windows with a Free PDF Editor

PDFgear for Windows is a free and powerful PDF editor that offers a plethora of practical PDF editing features at no cost, like editing PDF text, changing PDF font, editing PDF objects, etc.

Especially when you need to edit large or private PDF files or looking for advanced PDF editing features like changing existing PDF content, then PDFgear software for Windows is exactly what you need.

Now get PDFgear for Windows for free to get started!

Step 1. Download and install PDF on your computer, open PDFgear, and click Open File to open the PDF.

Step 2. Go to the Edit section and click on Edit Object, then select any existing objects to edit.

For example, you can resize, rotate, or delete a PDF image.

Step 3. Click on the Edit Text tool and you’ll be led to the text editing mode where you can select and edit PDF text like in Microsoft Word.

Once done, click Exit editing to go back to the main workplace.

Step 4. Click on Page Number, Header & Footer to add, update, or delete them in one click.

Step 5. Click the upper Add Image button to add an image from your device to the PDF, then drag on it to resize it or reposition it.

Step 6. Go to the Comment section for all the PDF markup and annotation features.

Here you can highlight/underline/strikethrough text in PDF, add shapes, add callout boxes, etc.

Step 7. A unique feature is that you can use Area Highlight to highlight a part of a PDF page, like an image.

Step 8. Go to the Page section and you’ll find options to rearrange PDF pages, add pages to PDF, rotate PDF pages, delete PDF pages, etc.

Step 9. Once done editing the PDF, go to the upper-left corner and click Save as to save the modified PDF.

Edit PDF on Windows Online for Free

The simple way to edit PDFs on Windows is using PDFgear’s online PDF editor, which you can access from your device anywhere, anytime.

It allows you to add text to PDFs, mark up PDFs, add images to PDFs, white out PDFs, draw on PDFs, etc.

It’s free to use, there’s no watermark, and there’s no signup needed.

Step 1. Go to PDFgear online PDF editor, and click the Select PDF File button to open the PDF you need.

Step 2. First off, if you need to mark up the PDF text, simply click the upper-left Highlight Text, Underline Text, or Strikethrough Text button, and select the PDF text to apply the markup.

Step 3. Click the upper Free Text button and click on the PDF to add a textbox. Double-click on the inserted text box and start typing your needed text!

Step 4. Click the upper Draw Ink button and you’ll be able to draw on the PDF with any color you like.

Step 5. Click the upper Shapes button to add a preferred shape to the PDF.

Step 6. For any inserted drawing or shapes, click the upper Change Color or Change Stroke Color button to change their color.

Step 7. When you’re done working with the PDF, click the upper-right Download file button to download and save the PDF.

Edit PDF on Windows in Microsoft Word

Yes, this is not technically free unless you have an activated Microsoft Word on your Windows computer. But if you do, you can use Microsoft Word to edit text in PDF on Windows easily.

Note that Microsoft Word converts PDF documents into Word files for editing, this method only works well if your PDF document consists mainly of plain text content, or if you don’t mind document formatting issues like line breaks.

Step 1. Open the Microsoft Word, go to Open > Browse and select the PDF file you need to edit.

Step 2. Word will display a warning that you may lose some of the original formatting of the PDF. If you are okay with this, click OK.

Step 3. You will now see an editable version of the PDF in the Word program. To change or edit text, select the existing text and perform the desired task.

Step 4. After making changes, you can save the file back to a PDF. Click on File in the upper left corner, select Save As, and click Browse from the screen that appears.

Choose a folder to save your file in the “Save As” window. Select “PDF” from the “Save as Type” drop-down menu. The edited PDF is now available in your chosen folder.

Edit PDF on Windows in Microsoft Edge

You may not know that Microsoft Edge also supports users in making simple edits to PDFs.

In the Microsoft Edge browser, you can easily add text, drawings, or highlighting to PDFs.

Step 1. First, find your target PDF in File Explorer on Windows, then right-click on your PDF and select “Open with” > “Microsoft Edge”.

Step 2. When your PDF is opened in Edge, some editing options are presented at the top of the PDF preview.

Add Text: Supports you in adding a new text string to the PDF.

Draw on PDF: Draw lines of various colors and thickness levels.

Highlight PDF: Customize using various colors to highlight any item in the PDF.

Erase tool: Use this eraser tool to delete any changes you have made to the PDF.

Step 3. After making the desired changes to the PDF, click “Save” in the upper right corner to save the file. If you want to save the edited PDF as a separate file, select the ‘Save As’ option.”

FAQs

Is it possible to edit a scanned PDF document?

PDFgear only allows you to add text or mark up scanned PDF documents, you can’t edit existing content as you would with editable PDFs.

Does PDFgear work on Windows 10 or Windows 11?

PDFgear works great on both Windows 10 and Windows 11.

Can I edit PDF text using PDFgear?

Yes, PDFgear allows users to edit existing text in a PDF, add new text, and adjust font styles.

Can I merge and split PDFs with PDFgear?

Yes. In PDFgear, the Page section provides options to merge multiple PDFs into one and split large PDFs into smaller files.

Is it possible to convert PDFs to other formats in PDFgear?

Yes, PDFgear allows you to convert PDFs to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, images, and other formats.

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