How to Choose the Right PDF Tool for Your Task

Three questions to ask first

1. What should the output be, in one sentence?
2. Does the text need to stay searchable and selectable?
3. Is uploading the file acceptable?
4. Which group of tools below matches?
5. Keep the source, and check the result before you share it.

Reorganizing pages

Use Merge to combine documents, Split to divide at boundaries, Extract Pages for a selected excerpt, Delete Pages for unwanted material, Reorder for sequence, and Rotate for sideways pages.

These browser tools copy or adjust page structure without turning the page into another format.

Making a file smaller

Try lossless compression when search, forms, links and quality matter. Use a target size only when a real byte limit requires it and the document can tolerate softer images.

Removing unneeded pages or splitting a file can be safer than degrading every page.

Changing the format

Use PDF to JPG or PNG for page images, and JPG or PNG to PDF to assemble images. Use PDF to Word for editable text, PDF to Excel for detected tables, and PDF to PowerPoint for one slide per page, editable or as an exact picture.

Scanned PDFs need OCR before any text-based conversion.

Adding or removing a password

Lock adds a password in your browser. Unlock removes protection only when you already know the password. Neither recovers a lost one, and some submission systems reject encrypted files.