Add text to a PDF

Fonts, sizes and colors

Each has a Bold version. The size slider runs from about 7 to 67 points, and dragging the corner of a text goes further. Colors: black, dark blue, red, green, purple and white, plus any color from the picker. White is for writing on something dark, such as a photo or a colored banner.

New text takes the look set on the right when you click. To change a piece of text later, select it, and its font, size, color and boldness appear in the panel.

Changing words that are already there

Octoolo cannot edit a PDF's original text in its own font. What it can do covers most small fixes, such as a wrong date, a misspelled name or an old price:

• Press White-out and drag a box over the old words.
• Press Text, click on the white box, and type the new words.
• Choose the font closest to the page: Clean for sans-serif text, Classic for serif text.

On a white page the fix is hard to spot. On a colored background the white box shows, so this works on plain pages above all. If the new words are longer than the old ones, make the box a little wider than the old text first.

White-out hides; it does not remove. The old words are still in the file under the box: anyone can select and copy them, and a search finds them. Never use White-out to hide an account number, a salary or anything private before sharing a PDF.

Text that stays text

Text in the Latin alphabet is saved as real text in the PDF: sharp at any zoom, and selectable and searchable in any reader. Text in other alphabets, and emoji, is saved as a picture of the words instead. It looks the same but cannot be selected or found by a search.

Lines break only where you press Enter; text does not wrap on its own. For a block of text, such as an answer box, end each line yourself. Pasting works too: Ctrl V brings copied words in as plain text, in the font you chose.

Want the same text on every page, like a footer note? Type it page by page, or use a watermark or page numbers, which go on every page at once.

Common jobs

Most jobs are small additions rather than rewrites:

• Filling in a form that is not fillable.
• Adding the date and a printed name next to a signature.
• Writing comments on a draft before sending it back, together with highlights.
• Labeling scans: “Receipt 3, taxi, March”.
• Adding an address, a reference number or a short message to a letter before printing it.
• Fixing a typo in a flyer or price list you made yourself and no longer have the source file of.

For anything longer than a few lines, it is usually easier to change the original document and make a new PDF from it, for example by writing it in Documents and saving it as a PDF.