Most "free" PDF editors ask you to upload contracts, invoices, and IDs to their servers before you can touch them. I built an alternative I'm comfortable using on my own documents.
ToolsMonk PDF Editor edits PDFs locally in the browser — the file never leaves your device.
What it does
- Edit — add text, images, shapes and annotations directly on pages
- Merge & split — combine documents or extract exactly the pages you need
- Compress — shrink files without the usual quality collapse
- Sign — draw or place signatures on contracts
- OCR — pull text out of scanned documents
- Convert — PDF ↔ Word / Excel / PowerPoint, both directions
Why on-device matters here
A PDF is usually the final version of something sensitive — an offer letter, an NDA, a bank statement. Privacy policies are nice; not uploading the file at all is nicer. Everything above runs client-side. The few tools on ToolsMonk that do use a server (some AI features) are listed openly at toolsmonk.com/where-your-files-are-processed.
Three ways to use it
- 🌐 Web: toolsmonk.com/tool/pdf-editor
- 🖥️ Windows desktop app: same tools as an Electron app, v1.1.24 via GitHub Releases
- 📱 Android app: built with Flutter, on Google Play
No account, no watermark, no "upgrade to export" wall.
If you try it, tell me which PDF task you reach for most — merge and compress are the heavy hitters in my own usage, but I'm curious what yours are.
