How to Strikethrough Text in a PDF for Free

Strikethrough text in a PDF is perfect for editing, reviewing, or suggesting changes without fully deleting anything.

On this page, you’ll find some free and practical methods to do strikethrough on PDFs on computers and mobile phones.

Strikethrough Text in PDF Online for Free

PDFgear online PDF editor is the simplest choice for PDF markups, it works in a web browser on various devices, allowing you to strikethrough, highlight, and underline a PDF in a few clicks.

Moreover, PDFgear is free to use, there’s no watermark in the output file, and there’s no need to sign up for an account.

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

Step 2. Click the Strikethrough Text button from the upper menubar and select the PDF text to cross out the text.

Step 3. With the PDF strikethrough selected, click the upper Change Color button to change the strikethrough color. You can change the strikethrough opacity as well.

Step 4. If you can’t select PDF text, that means the PDF is a scanned copy or image-based.

In that case, click the upper Shapes button and select Add Line, then draw a horizontal line to strike out the unwanted text.

Step 5. To check and manage all your PDF strikethroughs, click on the Comments button on the leftmost panel, and you can edit or delete all PDF strikethroughs.

Step 6. When you’re done working with the file, click the upper-right Download file button to download and save the modified PDF.

Strikethrough or Delete Text in PDF for Free

If you intend to work with large/private PDF files on Windows or Mac, look no further than the PDFgear software.

PDFgear software is a full-featured PDF editor that allows you to edit PDF text like a professional.

It allows you to strikethrough/underline/highlight PDF text, and you can even directly replace/delete existing text.

PDFgear software is also free to use. Now get it on your computer to get started!

Step 1. Download PDFgear and install it on your device. Open PDFgear, and click the Open File button to open the PDF you need to strike in.

Step 2. Go to the Comment toolbox, click on the Strikethrough button, and select the PDF text you need to cross out.

Step 3. With a text strikethrough selected, click on the Color button on the upper ribbon to choose a preferred color.

Step 4 (Optional). If you want to permanently remove unwanted text in PDF, go to the Edit section and click the Edit Text tool.

Then you’ll be able to select and delete text in the PDF as you would in Microsoft Word.

Step 5. To save the PDF with strikethrough, go to the upper-left corner and click Save as.

Strikethrough Text in PDF on Mobile Phones

PDFgear is a powerful mobile app for iOS and Android that lets you easily strike through text in PDFs on your smartphone.

With a user-friendly interface, PDFgear ensures smooth navigation and precise text markup.

Now get PDFgear from the Apple App Store or Google Play to get started.

Step 1. Open the PDFgear app, and click the lower-right blue Plus icon to add a PDF file to PDFgear.

Then you’ll see the PDF in the Files list, tap on it to open it.

Step 2. Tap Edit in the upper-right corner.

Step 3. Tap the Strikethrough button on the upper ribbon, and long press on the text to add a strikethrough.

Step 4. You can also use the color button next to it to change the strikethrough color.

Step 5. Lastly, tap on the triple dots button in the upper-right corner to save or share the PDF.

Strikethrough Text in PDF in Adobe Acrobat Reader

The free version of Adobe Acrobat Reader allows you to do some simple markups in PDFs, including text strikethrough. That means you don’t need a pro subscription.

Here’s how to use Adobe Acrobat Reader to do strikes in a PDF:

Step 1. Open Adobe Acrobat Reader, go to Menu > Open to open a PDF file.

Step 2. Click on the Highlight tool form the toolbar on the left side, and select Strikethrough.

Step 3. Select to strike through the text in the PDF. Select the text strikethrough and click on the Color button to change the strikethrough color.

Step 4. Go to Menu and click Save as in the dropdown to save the PDF with strikethrough.

FAQs

What is the shortcut for strikethrough in PDF?

In PDFgear, the keyboard shortcut for striking through text is Alt + S.

In Adobe Acrobat, the keyboard shortcut for striking through text is the Delete key.

Does strikethrough permanently remove text from a PDF?

No, strikethrough is an annotation and does not remove text from the PDF. The original text remains in the document and is simply marked with a line.

Can strikethrough be undone in a PDF?

Yes, in PDFgear, strikethrough annotations can be undone or removed by the author of the annotation or by someone with editing rights to the PDF.

Is strikethrough visible to everyone who reads the PDF?

Yes, once saved, the strikethrough annotation is visible to anyone who opens the PDF unless it is removed or the document is otherwise edited to hide annotations.

Is it possible to search for strikethrough text in a PDF?

PDFgear does not have a feature to search for strikethrough text specifically. However, you can go to the Comment Panel to check all annotations including strikethrough.