Match the tool to the task
PDF jobs fall into a few clear groups, and naming the group points you straight to the right tool. You are usually either combining or separating files, changing the file size, converting to or from another format, inspecting what is inside, or adding marks and fields before sharing.
Working out which group your task belongs to is half the job; from there the choice is obvious, and you avoid forcing the wrong tool to do something it was not built for.
Combine, separate, and shrink
Use Merge when several finished PDFs need to become one file, and Split or the page organizer when you only want some of the pages. Merge joins; split carves out a known range; the organizer is for visual reordering and deleting.
Use Compress when a file is simply too heavy for an email or upload limit. It optimises the document's structure, so an already-lean or image-only PDF may shrink only a little — for those, resize the images before building the PDF.
- Merge to join finished PDFs
- Split or organize to keep only some pages
- Compress to meet a size limit
Convert, inspect, and edit
Convert in the direction your destination needs: images, text, Markdown, or HTML into a PDF, or a PDF out to images or plain text. Use the metadata viewer to check a document's title, author, and page count before publishing it.
When a PDF needs real changes — signing, filling a form, adding a note, watermarking, numbering, or fixing rotation — the visual editor and the finishing tools handle it without converting the file to another format first.
- Convert to or from images, text, or HTML
- Inspect properties with the metadata viewer
- Sign, fill, watermark, number, or rotate in place
Chain tools for two-step jobs
Many real tasks are two steps: convert images to a PDF, then add page numbers; or split out a section, then watermark it. Each tool downloads a finished file, which becomes the input for the next, so you can build a workflow without any single tool needing to do everything.
Keep the original at each step and review the output before moving on, so a mistake early in the chain does not carry through to the final document.