Free PDF tools

Small tools for the parts of working with PDFs that are more annoying than they should be. No account, no upload — each one runs entirely in your browser, so the file or text you give it never leaves the tab.

• PDF text layer checker

  Find out whether a PDF has real selectable text or is a scanned image, and how many of its words are split across lines.

• PDF text cleaner

  Paste text copied from a PDF and get it back readable: rejoined words, no stray line breaks, no broken ligatures.

Both came out of measuring 60 academic papers to find out how often PDF text is broken in the first place.