PDF editing guide

How to Edit a PDF Online: Add Text, Images and Replace Page Areas

A practical guide to using a visual PDF editor to add, move, resize and remove new text or images, clear selected page areas, and check the exported document.

By Ankit Adarsha Behera · Updated 11 November 2026

What you can change with a visual PDF editor

A PDF is designed to preserve the appearance of a page across devices. That makes it convenient for sharing, but it also means editing can work differently from editing a Word document. Convert Hau's visual PDF editor provides a page preview and lets you place additional text or images on top of a page. You can select an added item, move it, resize it, or remove that change before exporting.

The editor also lets you mark an area of a page to be cleared before adding replacement content. This is useful for covering an old label, correcting a visible field, or placing updated text in a specific area. It is not the same as directly selecting and rewriting the original text objects inside the PDF.

Before you start

• Keep an unchanged copy of the original PDF.
• Check that you have permission to edit the document.
• For a scanned PDF, remember that page content may be an image rather than selectable text.
• Decide which page needs the change and prepare any replacement wording or image.

Steps: add or change visible content

1. Open the PDF editor page and launch the Edit PDF tool.
2. Select the PDF from your device and wait for the page preview to appear.
3. Choose the option to add text or add an image. Place the new item on the page.
4. Select the added item to move or resize it. Remove it if you need to try a different placement.
5. If you need to cover an existing area, use the page-area removal control, then add replacement content if required.
6. Process the document and download the result. Open the exported PDF and inspect every affected page.

Important limitations to understand

Adding text or an image creates new page content; it does not guarantee that the original underlying text or image is rewritten. A white area used to cover page content can hide what is visible without securely erasing the original information from the PDF structure. Do not use a visual cover-up as a substitute for a dedicated, verified redaction process when removing confidential information.

Fonts, alignment, transparency, page rotation and complex layouts can affect how an edit looks after export. Always check the downloaded file in a PDF reader, not only the preview.

Where is the PDF processed?

The page preview is rendered in the browser. When you export an edit, the selected PDF and edit instructions are sent to Convert Hau's conversion service for processing. Review the Privacy Policy for the current description of file handling. Avoid uploading documents containing sensitive information unless you have reviewed the relevant privacy and retention information.

When another PDF tool may be better

If you only need to combine documents, use Merge PDF. To extract a continuous range, use Split PDF. To place a repeated label across pages, use Add Watermark. Choosing a task-specific tool can make the steps clearer.