Quick Guide for Windows

Product Introduction

• Open, save, print and markup PDFs;
• Add, remove, move, re-size and rotate any graphical element within your PDF;
• Secure your PDFs with password protection;
• Convert PDF documents into Word, HTML, text and image files;
• Create interactive form field and recognize form field automatically;
• Extract data from interactive PDF forms and export in CSV format;
• Insert page numbers, bates number, and page elements;
• Approve and sign documents digitally;
• Unlock text within images using OCR;
• Perform partial OCR on specific user-define fields in scanned PDFs;
• Batch process to convert, data extraction, bates number and watermark.

Download and Install

1System Requirement

2Download PDFelement on Windows Computer

Register and Remove Trial Watermark

1Trial Version Limitations

• Places a watermark on your PDF files when you save after editing or commenting on the file. (It is recommended that you click the "Save As" button in "File" menu to save it to a new copy with the watermark, then it will not affect your original PDF.)
• Will only convert half of your PDF pages only and convert 5 pages at most when your PDF file has more than 10 pages.
• When using the batch process to extract data, it will process two files only.
• When using the batch process to add watermark or bates number, it will process all the files you load but will still add the trial watermark in each file.

2Purchase PDFelement

3Register PDFelement

Video of how to activate PDFelement

4Remove Trial Watermark

Toolbar

File Menu

2File Preferences

In "File">"Preferences", you will get more settings about "General", "Font", "Convert", "OCR", "Update" , and “Shortcut”.

• General: You can set the quantity for the recent file list, the display mode, automatic save time and measurement units.
• Font: You can set Default Textbox Font for comments and Default Text Font.
• Convert: You can see the full listing of different output formats for conversion.
• OCR: You can set the default language to use in Document Language list.
• Update: You can set the frequency to check updates.
• Shortcut: You can find shortcuts for main functions.

Shortcut Keys

• F1: Open "Online Help" page by your browser.
• Alt + Shift + F11: Know the version number of this program and it only works when you do not open any file in the program.
• Ctrl + O: Pop up the window to select a file to open.
• Ctrl + F: Open the "Find and Replace" box after opening a searchable file.
• Alt: Display the tooltips for all the buttons in the ribbon bar.
• Ctrl + F1: Display or hide the ribbon bar.
• Ctrl + Tab: Change to next file tab when you open multiple PDF files in the program.
• Ctrl + Shift + Tab: Change to previous file tab when you open multiple PDF files in the program.

• Ctrl + W: Close the current opened PDF document.
• Ctrl + S: Save the current opened PDF document.
• Ctrl + Shift + S: Save the current opened PDF document as a new file.
• Ctrl + Z: Undo your last step.
• Ctrl + Y: Redo your last step.
• ESC: Close the "File" menu after clicking it.
• Ctrl + N: Open a blank PDF document.
• Ctrl + P: Print the current opened PDF document.
• Ctrl + F10: Change to maximum or original window size after opening a document.

• Ctrl + 1: Fit to the actual page size for viewinng the opened PDF document.
• Ctrl + 2: Fit to window width for viewing the opened PDF document.
• Ctrl + 3: Fit page to window for viewing the opened PDF document.
• Ctrl + +: Zoom in for viewing the opened PDF document.
• Ctrl + -: Zoom out for viewing the opened PDF document.
• F11: Exit the full screen mode.
• Ctrl + 4: Open a new PDF document.
• Ctrl + 5: View pages continuously with scrolling enabled.
• Ctrl + 6: View two pages side by side.
• Ctrl +7: View two pages side by side with continous scrolling enabled.
• ↑: Scroll up or go to previous page.
• ↓: Scroll down or go to next page.
• ←: Move to left when there is a slider at the bottom of the document view.
• →: Move to right when there is a slider at the bottom of the document view.
• Alt + ←: Go to previous view.
• Alt + →: Go to next view.

• Ctrl + Shift + 1: Hide the side panel when it is opened on the left side.
• Ctrl + Shift + 2: Display the thumbnail panel.
• Ctrl + Shift + 3: Display the bookmark panel.
• Ctrl + Shift + 4: Display the search panel.
• Ctrl + Shift + 5: Display the annotation panel.

• Ctrl + H: Change to hand mode.
• Ctrl + T: Change to select mode.
• Ctrl + U: Enable the underline feature, you can start to select text to add underline.
• Ctrl + L: Enable the link feature, you can start to select area to add hyperlinks.
• Shift + Alt + 1: Add sticky note.
• Shift + Alt+ 2: Add text box.
• Shift + Alt+ 3: Add lines.
• Shift + Alt+ 4: Add arrows.
• Shift + Alt+ 5: Add ovals.
• Shift + Alt+ 6: Add rectangles.
• Shift + Alt+ 7: Add polygon.
• Shift + Alt+ 8: Add cloud shapes.
• Shift + Alt+ 9: Add connected lines.
• Shift + Alt+ P: Use pencil to draw.
• Shift + Alt+ E: Use eraser to erase the pencil drawings.
• Shift + Alt+ P: Use pencil to draw.

• Ctrl + E: Change to edit mode, you can start to edit text or objects.
• Ctrl + B: Change the selected text to be bold.
• Ctrl + I: Change the selected text to be italic.
• Ctrl + [: Change the font size to be bigger for the selected text.
• Ctrl + ]: Change the font size to be smaller for the selected text.
• Ctrl+ A : Select all the text or objects.

• Ctrl + Shift + D: Pop up the window to delete pages.
• Ctrl + Sift + Q: Pop up the window to insert blank pages.
• Ctrl + B: Start to add new bookmarks when you are in the select mode.

Different Ways to Open PDF

Open a Secured PDF

To ensure the security of data, some PDF’s will have a password to protect it. If you have received a PDF that is protected with a password, you just need to enter the correct password to view the file.

Some protected PDF files have other restrictions to prevent from printing, editing, copying, etc. When you try to print or edit this secured PDF file, you will be notified that you are prohibited to do so without the permission password. You can click the "Enable Editing" button to enter the permission password to edit it.

Page View Mode

1Document Layout

You can find some settings about the layout of your PDF document under the "View" tab option or in the right bottom column.

• Continuous: Arrange the pages in the document panel in a continuous vertical column and scrolling enabled.
• Single: View one page in the document panel at a time.
• Facing: Arrange the pages side by side, displaying only two pages at a time.
• Facing Continuous: Arrange the pages side by side in a continuous vertical column and scrolling enabled.

2Zoom

With the zoom tool, you can enlarge the view of a PDF to see more details. You can zoom in to a minimum of 10% and maximum of 6400%.

• Click the "View">"+" (Zoom In) or "–" (Zoom Out) button under the "View" tab option or in the right bottom column to change the zoom level of the PDF page.
• Choose a level in the "Zoom" box, the zoom level ranges from 10% to 6400% as you need.
• Hold the "Ctrl" key on your keyboard and scroll your mouse wheel to zoom in or zoom out.

3Page Layout

You can find the settings to change the page layout of the pages in the "View" tab too.

• Fit Width: To resize the page to fit the width of the window. Part of the page may be out of the view.
• Full Screen: Arrange the pages to fill the entire screen, with Menu Bar, Toolbar, Status Bar and Thumbnail panel hidden behind. Press Esc or F11 key to exit full screen mode.
• Fit Height: To resize the page to fit the height of the window. Part of the page may be out of the view.
• Fit Page: To resize the page to fit entirely in the document panel.
• Actual Size: To resize the page to its actual size of 100% zoom level.

4Multi-tab Viewing

PDFelement allows you to open up to 15 documents in a single application window, and will arrange them into different tabs in that window for you. This allows you to keep all of your documents readily available to work with, or review as needed.

5Preference of Viewing

To assist in keeping all of your PDF's in the same viewing format, you can set a viewing preference from the PDFelement software file menu. To do this, please click on "File>Preferences>General" and set the "Default Page Layout" and "Default Zoom" as preferred.

Initial View

• Navigation tab: You can set whether to open the bookmark panel and thumbnail panel automatically when you open this document to view
• Layout: You can set the layout mode to view this document.
• View: You can set the view mode for this document.
• Open To Page: You can set the open page for this document. For example, if you set to open page 2, then it will open page 2 automatically when you open this document every time.

Navigate PDF

1Page Navigation

• Click the "Previous Page" button to navigate to the previous page of the current document.
• Click the "Next Page" button to navigate to the next page of the current document.
• Enter the page number and press Enter key to navigate to the page immediately.

2Thumbnail Panel

3Bookmark Panel

4Annotation Panel

5Search Panel

PDFelement has a powerful built-in search tool that allows you to navigate through your document, looking for specific text in the active document. There are different ways to perform a search:

• Click the Search panel in the left navigate column to enter the keyword in the box and press Enter key to start the search process.
• Click “Home” Tab > “Find” and enter keyword in the search box and press Enter key to start the search process.

6Show/Hide/Adjust Navigation Panel

The buttons on the left side of the Navigation panel provide easy access to various panels, such as Bookmark panel and Annotation panel, etc.

• To hide the navigation panel, click the to hide.
• To show the navigation panel again, click on one of the icons (Thumbnail, Bookmark, etc.) to show the panel again.
• To adjust the size of the navigation panel, place your mouse curser on the edge of the panel, and once it turns into a double arrow, click to adjust the size as needed then release the mouse to set it.

Multiple Windows for Multiple PDFs

• Open multiple PDF files in the program first, then click "View" > "Tile" button.
• Choose to tile the windows Horizontally or Vertically

• Alternatively, you can open multiple PDFs first, and reduce the window size, then drag the tab of the file to create other windows for each file directly, then adjust the window size as you want by dragging the edge of the window again.

• After tiling to multiple windows, drag the tab of the file back to one window one by one, you will get all the opened files back into one window.

Bookmarks

1Add Bookmarks

• Navigate to the page in which you want to insert a bookmark. Then click the Bookmark panel and select the "Add" button to insert bookmark.
• Open one file and click "Bookmark" button at the left side panel, and it will open the Bookmark panel to create the bookmark for the current page directly.

2Edit Bookmarks

• Right-click the bookmark in the Bookmark panel to choose "Rename Bookmark" to change the name.
• Right-click the bookmark in the Bookmark panel to choose "Add Child" to add a child bookmark.
• Right-click "Set Destination" to change the bookmark to the current page.
• Right-click "Expand All Bookmarks" to expand all the bookmarks including the child bookmark.
• Right-click "Collapse All Bookmarks" to collapse the child bookmark.

Snapshot

To create a snapshot of your PDF file, click on the "Home" > "Snapshot" button and then you will want to click and drag the mouse to the desired area. Once you release the mouse button, the following options will appear:

• Click to undo the snapshot, you can use the mouse click to drag a new area for the snapshot.
• Click to save the snapshot on your computer.
• Click to exit the snapshot.
• Click to copy the snapshot, you can paste it somewhere else.

Attachment
(Only available in PDFelement Pro)

• Click the Attachment panel, click the "Add attachment file" button.
• Browse and select a file that you want to attach.
• Click the attachment, the other buttons will be enabled, such as "Open attachment file", "Save attachment" and "Delete attachment". Or you can right-click the attachment to choose these functions from the menu.

• (Optional) To add a description to the attachment that helps differentiate between similar files in the Attachments panel, select the attached file, choose "Edit Description" to edit the text of the description, and then save the file.

One-click PDF Creation From Any File

Create in PDFelement Window

1Create a PDF from a File

• Launch PDFelement, click "Create PDF" box, select files to open. Then the file will be opened in the application window, you can click "File" > "Save As" button to save it to a PDF file directly.

2Create a PDF from Multiple Files

You can easily combine different formats files into a single PDF file.

Launch PDFelement and click the "Combine PDF" box, "Add" button or "+" button to select multiple files you want to combine, or drag these files into this window directly, you can click the "..." button to change the output folder. Adjust the order of files as desired by dragging the file up or down to change the file order. Click the "Next" button, the final created single PDF file will be opened in the application window. If you want to change the page order, you can drag the page on the left Thumbnail panel to move the page up or down, then you can click the "File">"Save As" button to save again.

3Create a PDF From a Blank Page

You can create a PDF from a blank page rather than beginning with a file, image or scanning. Click the "File" > "New" button, set the "File Name", "Size" and "Pages" as you desired, click the "Blank" button to create directly. Then you can click the "Edit">"Add Text" button or "Comment">"Typewriter" button to add text on the page, or click other buttons to do what you want to this PDF. Click the "File" > "Save" button to save it on your computer.

Video of Creating PDF

Create PDF Files Using Print Command

Create PDF Files from Scanners
(Only available in PDFelement Pro)

• After opening the program, click the "Home">"From Scanner" button.
• Select your scanner or your device, and click the "Scan" button to start creating.
• Select the scanned image to create as a PDF, or continue to scan more pages to create as one PDF.
• The created PDF file will be opened in the program directly, you can start to work with it or save it on your computer.

Video of Creating from Scanners

Add Comments

1Add Notes/Typewriter/Text Box/Area Highlight

• Note: To add a note comment, please click the "Comment">"Note" button,click where you want to place the note and make comments in the box.
• Typewriter: To add a typewriter comment, please click "Comment">"Typewriter" button,click where you want to place it and double click it to type comments as you want.
• Text Box: To add a text box, please click the "Comment">"Text Box" button, click where you want to place the text box and double click the box to type comments in the box. A textbox is a rectangle of any size, possibly with a border that separates the text box from the rest of the interface, allowing the user to input text information. A text box usually remains visible on the document page, it does not close like a pop-up note.
• Area Highlight: To highlight an area, please click the "Comment">"Area Highlight" button, drag the mouse click to select the area to highlight.

2Add Comments Continuously

3Move/Copy/Paste comments

Text Markups

• Highlight: To mark important passages of text with a fluorescent marker as a mean of memory retention or for later reference.
• Underline: To draw a line under to indicate emphasis.
• Squiggly: To draw a squiggly line under.
• Strikethrough: To draw a line to cross out text, making others know the text is deleted.
• Caret: A proofreading symbol used to indicate where something is to be inserted in a line.

If you want to change the color of the Text Markups, please click the "Select" button, right-click the highlight or underline to choose "Properties". In the right side Properties panel, you can change the color and opacity in "Appearance" options, you can also click the "Use as Default" button to set it as default for future use.

Drawing

Drawing tools allow you to add different graphic elements into your PDF, such as rectangles, polygons, ovals, and other images. It is useful when you need to use an image to bring attention to a section of your document.

• Rectangle: A proofreading symbol used to indicate where something is to be inserted in a line.
• Oval: To draw an oval or a circle with pressing Shift key.
• Cloud: To draw cloud shapes.
• Polygon: To draw a closed plane figure bounded by three or more lines segments.
• Connected Lines: To draw an open plan figure with three or more line segments.
• Line: To mark with a line.
• Arrow: To draw something, such as a direction symbol, that is similar to an arrow in form or function.
• Pencil: To draw free-form shapes.
• Eraser: To erase the pencil markups only, it cannot be used to erase other markings.

Video of How to Draw on PDF Files

Stamps

1Stamp a PDF

Click "Comment" > " Add Stamps" button, click one predefined stamp from the types of "Standard Business", "Sign Here" and "Dynamic", then click on the position where you want to place it.

2Create/Manage Stamps

You can create custom image stamps, and manage all your created stamps, however it does not support the creation of customized dynamic stamps.

• Click the "Comment" > "Custom Stamp" > "Create" button, click the "Select Picture" button to browse the picture as you want to, you can also name the stamp. Then click the "OK" button, it will be added in the Custom type under "Stamp" button.
• Click the "Comment" > "Custom Stamp" > "Manage Stamps" button, select the customized stamp to "Create", "Edit" and "Delete".

Add Attachments as Comments
(Only available in PDFelement Pro)

• Click the "Comment" > "Add Attachment" button, click on the page where you want to add this comment.

• A pop-up dialog will be opened, you can browse to select a file to attach.

• Right-click this comment to open attachment/save attachment/cut/copy/delete/open properties,etc.

• You can change the icon style/color/opacity in its properties.

• The attachment comment will also be listed in the Annotation panel. Click one of the attachment in the panel, it will lead you to that page.

Undo/Redo/Delete/Hide Annotations

Comments Properties

You can change the appearance for all the comments. Click the "Select" button to go into select mode, right-click the comment to choose "Properties", then the "Properties" panel on the right side will be opened. You can change its "Info", "Appearance" or "Font" settings. You can also click the "Use as Default" button to set the properties as default when you add this type of comment again. For example, it shows the Text Box properties as follow:

Tips: You can change properties for multiple comments in a batch. In the "Select" mode, you just need to hold the Ctrl key, and click all the comments one by one, they will be selected at the same time. Right-click one comment to choose "Properties", then set as you want. All the selected comments will be changed.

Edit Text

1Edit with Different Modes: Line Mode and Paragraph Mode

• Select the "Edit" button on the left side, click the desired text to start editing by typing new text and deleting text. There are two modes for you to edit the text: "Paragraph Mode" and "Line Mode". When you use the "Paragraph Mode", the whole text will appear in one complete block. When you use "Line Mode", each line of the text will be a separate block.

  

• Click the "Edit" > "Add Text" button to add new text on the position that you want.
• Choosing the text will allow you to change its font, font size, bold, italic and color, etc, as you want.

2Create and Edit Superscript and Subscript Text

• After opening the PDF file in the program, please click the "Edit" button and click the text where you want to the superscript or subscript text first.
• Select the text and click the "Superscript" or "Subscript" button, then the text will change to be superscript or subscript.

3Find and Replace

• After opening the PDF file in the program, press Ctrl+F keys to open the window, enter the keyword that you want to find.
• And you can click the "Replace with" button to enter a new word that you want to replace with.

Video of Editing Texts

Spelling Check

• Make sure the option of "Enable word spell check" in the "File" > "Preferences" > "General" menu has been checked.
• Click the "Edit">"Edit Text" button, then highlight the section you wish to check. When there is an error, a red wavy line will appear under the suspect word.
• Right-click the words, you will get the suggestions for correction. Click on one of the suggested spellings to update the spelling or to insert the proper word.
• If the incorrect text is an acronym or a special term, you can choose the "Ignore All" option, then this acronym or the term in this file will be cognized as correct when you do spell check. When you reopen this file, the acronym or special term will be recognized as incorrect again
• If you want some words to be cognized as correct all the time, then you can add these words to dictionary. Selecting the "Add to Dictionary" option, this word will be recognized as correct no matter which PDF file you open. Alternatively you can go to "File">"Preferences">"General", click the "Custom Dictionary" button and add or remove the word as you want.

Video of Checking Spelling

Edit Object

• Click the "Edit" button, then click the image or object to select, then you can drag to move. When moving the object, you will also notice there is an alignment grid line, to allow you to keep your documents alignment set. Alternatively, you can click the object and press the arrow keys in your keyboard to move it to the desired location.

• Placing the mouse cursor on the edge of the blue box to drag will allow you to resize the image. Right-click it to choose "Rotate left", "Rotate right", "Overturn horizontal", "Overturn vertical", "Replace image", "Clip image" and other options. These options are also accessible in the right-side panel.

• Click the "Edit" > "Add Image" button to select the image you as you want to add in the PDF.
  Tips: After clicking the "Edit" button on the top-left corner, you can copy/paste an image from your clipboard into the PDF directly.

• You can rotate the image as you want, hover the mouse click over the green round button, holding the mouse click to rotate at any degree.

Video of Rotating Image

Edit Link

1Add Link

2Edit Link

You can move, resize, delete and edit the link after you have created it. Click the "Edit">"Link" button, drag the link to move to the desired position. Or drag the rectangle around the link to resize it. Alternatively, right-click the link you create to choose "Delete" or "Edit Link" to reset. After clicking the "Select" or "Hand" button, when you click the link in your file, it will execute the link to go to the target that you set.

Video of Adding Links

Keep the Same Aspect Ratio When Resize the Image

Crop Pages

PDF Watermark

1Add Watermark for A Single PDF

• After opening your PDF file in the program, please click the "Edit" > "Watermark" > "New Watermark" button.
• In the "Add Watermark" window, you can input the text as the watermark and choose the font, size, color and position or add an image as the watermark from your computer via clicking the "File" > "Browse" button. If you choose another file as the watermark, you can set the "Absolute Scale" of the watermark. In this way, the watermark size will not change no matter what is the size of your PDF page.

• You can set the rotation degree and opacity. . If you choose "Behind" in the "Location" option, the page content will obstruct your view of some part of the watermark. If you choose "Above", the watermark will cover some content, however you can adjust it via setting of the opacity of the watermark.
• Set the vertical and horizontal distance between the target page and the watermark.
• Choose the page range and appearance to apply the watermark.

• Click the "Save Settings..." button to save this setting for your future use. Next time, you can click the "Saved Settings" button to choose the one you want to apply directly without setting again.

2Add Watermark for A Batch
(Only available in PDFelement Pro)

• After opening the program, please click the "Batch Process" box in the welcome window.
• Click on the "Watermark" tab to drag and drop the selected PDF files for the operation.
• Select the setting you previously saved in the "Configuration" box. If you have not saved any watermark setting yet, you cannot do the batch process. So please go back to open one PDF file, click the "Edit">"Watermark">"New Watermark" button to set and save one configuration first.
• Click the "Start" button to begin the process.

Video of Adding Watermark

PDF Background

• Choose one color as the background, or add an image/pdf file from your computer via clicking the "File" > "Browse" button.
• Set the appearance by choosing the rotation degree and the opacity. You also can choose to make the scale relative to the target page or not.
• Choose the page range to display the background. You can select all pages or specify the page range.

PDF Header and Footer--Page Number

PDF Bates Numbering
(Only available in PDFelement Pro)

1Add Bates Number for A Single PDF

• After opening your PDF file in the program, please click the "Edit" > "Bates Numbering" > "New Bates Numbering" button.
• In the Bates Number dialog box, you are able to set a Prefix, Start At, and Suffix for your pages.
• Set font, position and page range to apply the Bates number.
• Click the "Save Settings..." button to save this setting for your future use. Next time, you can click the "Saved Settings" button to choose the one you want to apply directly without setting again.

2Add Bates Number for Batch

• After opening your PDF file in the program, please click the "Batch Process" box in the welcome window.
• Click the "Bates Numbering" tab, drag and drop a batch of PDF files in it.
• Select the setting you previously saved in the "Configuration" box. If you have not saved any bates numbering setting yet, you cannot do the batch process. So please go back to open one PDF file, click the "Edit">"Bates Numbering">"New Bates Numbering" button to set and save one configuration first.
• Click the "Start" button to begin the process.

Video of Adding Bates Number

Organize Pages

Video of Rearranging Pages in PDF

Page Boxes

• Click the "Page" menu first.
• Select the "Page Boxes" button, the Set Page Box dialog opens, indicating the margin measurements of the cropping rectangle and the page to be cropped. You can override the crop area you defined, making new selections in the dialog box before clicking OK.
• To apply these settings to additional pages, set the page range or click "All" under Page Range.
• Click "OK" to crop the page or pages.

Note: Cropping does not reduce file size because information is merely hidden, not discarded.

• CropBox: Defines the boundary for the contents of a page when it’s displayed or printed.
• ArtBox: Defines the meaningful content of the page, including white space.
• TrimBox: Defines the finished dimensions of the page after trimming.
• BleedBox: Defines the clipping path when the page is printed professionally to allow for paper trimming and folding. Printing marks may fall outside the bleed area.

Extract Pages

• Click the "Page" menu first.
• Select the "Extract" button, then set the page range as you want. Or click the page thumbnails below first (you can press Ctrl key and click multiples pages to select), then click the "Extract" button.
• Click "File" > "Save" button to save it as a new PDF in the computer.

Insert Pages

• Insert Blank Page: You can go to the "Page" > "Insert" button and choose "Blank Page". In the dialog box, you can set as many blank pages as you need to insert. By default the new blank pages will be inserted after the current page in the document. If you want to change the pages order, you can drag and move the page to change the order.

• Insert From PDF:
  A. Choose the "Insert" > "From PDF" button to select the PDF document you wish to insert. Here you can choose the page range that you need from the target PDF, then select the location for the inserted pages.
  
  B. If you have opened multiple PDF files in the application window, you can drag a page from one PDF Thumbnail panel and drop at the place where you want to insert in another PDF's Thumbnail panel.

Video of Inserting Pages to PDF Files

Split Pages

Video of Spliting a PDF into Separate Files

Replace Pages

Page Labels

• Click the "Page" menu.
• Select the "Page Labels" button, then set the page range and page number style/prefix as you want.
• Click "OK" button to add the page labels

Rotate Pages

• Click the page thumbnail or enter the page number in the box to select a single page, then you can click the button to rotate to left or rotate to right.
• Keep pressing the Ctrl key and click multiple page thumbnails, or choose "Even Pages"/"Odd Pages"/"Even and Odd Pages" in the box to select multiple pages at the same time, then you can click the button to rotate to left or rotate to right.
• Click the "File" > "Save" or "Save As" button to save the changes.

Video of Rotating Pages

Delete Pages

• Click the page thumbnail or enter the page number in the box to select a single page, then you can click the "Delete" button to remove the page.
• Keep pressing the Ctrl key and click multiple page thumbnails to select, or choose "Even Pages"/"Odd Pages"/"Even and Odd Pages" in the box to select multiple pages at the same time, then you can click the "Delete" button to delete them.
• Click the "File" > "Save" or "Save As" button to save the changes.

Video of Deleting Pages

Duplicate Pages

What is OCR?
(Only available in PDFelement Pro)

Download and Install OCR
(Only available in PDFelement Pro)

Perform OCR
(Only available in PDFelement Pro)

1Searchable OCR

• After clicking the "Convert">"OCR" button in the Ribbon bar, select "Searchable Text Image" mode, click the "Change Language" button to choose the correct languages of your PDF content to perform OCR.

• The newly created PDF file will be searchable, you can press Ctrl+F keys to search the keywords. Or select the text to copy, then paste in another document as you want, such as a Word file.

2Editable OCR

To edit or convert the scanned PDF files, perform the following steps:
• Click the "Edit">"OCR" button in the Ribbon bar, select "Editable Text" mode.
• Then click "Change Language" button to choose the correct language of your PDF content (PDFelement Pro supports over 20 OCR languages) from the OCR language list. You can also click "Customize Pages" to choose an individual page or a set of pages for OCR.

• Now click "OK" to perform OCR. Here you will see a progress bar to indicate the state of the operation, and let you know when it has completed.
• When the process is completed, it will open the newly created editable PDF file in the program. Once this is completed, click the "Edit" button to modify the text of the PDF file.


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Video of Performing OCR

Convert PDF Files to Other Formats Files

1View and Convert

• After opening your PDF file in PDFelement, click the "Convert" > "To Word". "To Excel", "To PPT", "To Image", ect, to convert the file to the format you need.
  Alternatively you can click the "File" > "Convert" > "Word", "Other Files" or "Other PDFs" button to convert.
• In the new dialog box you will be able to choose the output folder to save the converted file. Here you will have another chance to change the output format by changing the “Save as type” option.

  

• After conversion, you can go to the output folder to find the converted file on your computer. Or click the link in our dialog box, it will lead you to the output folder directly.

  

2Convert Directly

• After opening the program PDFelement, you can click the "Convert PDF" box in the welcome page.
• In the new dialog box, please select the PDF file that you want to convert.

  

• In the second pop up dialog window, please select the output folder where you want to save the converted file and select the output format as you want.

  

• After conversion, you can go to the output folder to find the converted file on your computer. Or click the link in our dialog box, it will lead you to the output folder directly.

Video of Converting PDF Files to Word

Convert PDF Files to PDF/A
(Only available in PDFelement Pro)

• After editing or working with your PDF file in the program, please click the "File" > "Convert" button.
• Click the "Other PDFs" button to save it to a PDF/A file.

  

Video of Converting PDF Files to PDF/A

Batch Convert
(Only available in PDFelement Pro)

• After opening the program PDFelement, please click the "Batch Process" box to open.
• Load multiple PDF files in the window, select the output format as you want, and choose the output folder to save the converted files.
• Click the "Start" button to begin the process. After conversion, you can go to the output folder to find the converted files.

  

Convert Scanned PDF Files to Editable Files
(Only available in PDFelement Pro)

• You can click the "Perform OCR" button or the "Convert" > "OCR" button in the ribbon to open the OCR window.
• In the OCR window, please click the "Change Language" button to select the correct language of your PDF content in the list. If the PDF you are working with contains many different languages, be sure to select all of the needed languages in the list.
• Click the "OK" button to start the performing OCR process. When it completes, the newly created editable PDF file will be opened in the program automatically.
• Click the "Convert">"To Word" or "To Others" button to convert it to the word file or other format file.

Video of Converting Scanned file to Editle Files

Modify Conversion Settings

Convert PDF Files to Image Files

1Convert Each Page as One Image File

2Convert all Pages as One Image File

Fill In Forms

If a PDF form contains interactive form fields, you can fill in the form with the Hand Tool. You will see a blue highlighted notice appear as following. It informs you that this document contains fillable forms.

• Hand iconappears when hover over a text field, radio button or check box.
• I-cursor iconappears when you click the text field, you can type text into the field.

Video of Filling Out a PDF form

Create Interactive Forms Automatically
(Only available in PDFelement Pro)

• PDFelement supports to create interactive forms automatically with one click, which can dramatically improve your efficiency. If your non-interactive PDF form contains the blank lines and tables. For example, this application form is not fillable.

• After opening it in our program, you can click the "Form" > "Form Recognition" button to recognize the blanks and tables automatically, then you will get the fillable fields created. All the corresponding type of form fields will be automatically named with the text near the form fields.

• Click the "Close Form Editing" button, then place the cursor in the field that you wish to fill in, and enter the information requested.

Video of creating interactive forms automatically

Create Interactive Forms Manually
(Only available in PDFelement Pro)

• Open the PDF file in PDFelement and click "Form" > "Add Text Field" button or other buttons.
• Select the location for the filed you need, and the text field or check box will be added.
• Click the "Close Form Editing" button, click the text field and start to type directly.

Video of Creating PDF Forms

Form Alignment
(Only available in PDFelement Pro)

• Click the "Form" > "Form Edit" button after opening the interactive form PDF file in PDFelement.
• Hold the "Ctrl" key on the keyboard, select all of the fields that you need to need at the same time. Alternatively, you can right-click one field to choose "Select All", then all the fields within this page will be selected.
• The "Alignment" tab will appear, please click it to choose the alignment you want to do for the selected fields. Upon selecting at least three files, the “Distribute” option will be enabled for you. (Note: please select at least three fields, otherwise the distribute option will be disabled.)

  

Form Properties
(Only available in PDFelement Pro)

• General: You can set the field name and common properties.
• Appearance: You can set borders and colors, and the font/size/color of the filled in text.
• Positions: You can change the text field position according to your requirement.
• Options: You can set the alignment of the filled in text. Set multi-line, scroll long-text or limit the characters available for that text field. It also has the spell check function of the filled in text.
• Actions: You can set the field actions. For example, you can choose "Open a web link" in the "Action", click the "Add" button to enter the website link in the new dialog box.

  

• Format: Set the format category for this field.
• Validate: Set the value of this field.
• Calculate: Set the calculation of the fields. Choose the calculation as you want, click the "Pick" button to pick the fields that you want to calculate. For example, the following is the text field 3 properties, so it means text field 3=text field 1+text field 2.

  

Set Tab Order
You can set the tab order of the form you created. The order number will show on the top left corner in purple box. By default, the tab order is the order of creating these fields and buttons. You can change to set the tab order as you want: After opening the interactive form PDF file in PDFelement, please click the "Form">"Form Edit" button, then right-click one field to choose "Set Tab Order". The default order will show, the you can click the field or button one by one as the new order that you want. After setting, click the "Close Form Editing" button, fill in the field or button using the Tab key as the order that you set.

Note: You can only set tab order within one page.

Extract Data
(Only available in PDFelement Pro)

1Extract Data from PDF Form Fields

• If your PDF file is the fillable form, you can click the "Form" > "Data Extraction" button, then select the option of "Extract data from form fields". If your PDF file does not contain the fillable form, please refer to the chapters of "Create Interactive Forms Automatically" or "Create Interactive Forms Manually" to create the fillable forms first. (If you have not installed the OCR yet, when you click the "Data Extraction" button, it will ask you to download OCR first.)

  

• Click the "Next" button, go to the Batch Process window, you can load more PDF forms in it to extract in a batch.

  

• Click the "Start" button, all the fields data including the data filled in the fields and the fields names will be extracted in the same .csv file

2Extract Data from Marked PDF

• After opening your PDF file in the program, click the "Form">"Data Extraction" button, choose "Extract Data from Marked PDF".

  

• Click the "Next" button, then use your mouse click to draw the area that you want to extract. You can select as many areas as you want.

  

• After selecting all the areas that you want to extract, please click the "Yes" button in the grey notice bar, save the current setting for future use.

  

• Once the Batch Process window pops up, you can also load multiple PDFs in it, using the same area setting, click on the "Start" button to initiate the operation.

  

• After extracting, you can click the "Finish" button to open the exported .csv file directly.

3Extract Data for Batch Process

• After opening the program, please click the "Batch Process" box to open.

  

• Click the "Data Extract" tab to load multiple files in it, then choose the "Mode" as you need to extract.

  

• Click the "Start" button to start the process. After completing, click the "Finish" button to open the extracted .csv file directly.

Video of Extracting Data

Import/Export Form Data

• Click "Form" > "Export" button to choose the folder and rename the file, it will export the data in a .fdf format.
• Click "Form" > "Import" button to select a .fdf format file to import for the same PDF file.
• Click "Form" > "Clear" button to clear all the filled in data in the PDF form.

Template

• After opening the program, you can click the "PDF Templates" box to open. Or click the "Form" > "Template" button to open it.

  

• Select a form in any category that you want.

  

• Click the form to enlarge it to view. And click the "Download" button to download it. You can also click the "Star" button to add it in your favorite category.

  

• After downloading, the form will be opened in the program automatically. You can work with it as you need, then click the "File">"Save" button to save on your computer.

Password and Permissions

1Check PDF Permissions

Some PDF files may contain restrictions preventing actions such as printing, editing, copying, etc. To review the different permissions that have been listed on the file, click on "File "> "Properties" > ”Security” to review the listed permissions.

2Add Open/Permission Password

Click the "Protect" > "Password" button to set the Open password or Permission password. In the new dialog box, you will get:
Open Password settings:

• Require a password to open the document—selects to require users to type the password you specify to open the document.
• Password—type the password as you want that users must type to open the document.
• Confirm password—type the password again to confirm the password.

3Remove Open/Permission Password

Digital Signature

1 About Digital ID

2Sign a PDF

Open a PDF which already has the Signature field and click the "Protect" > "Sign Document" button, then choose your ID to sign.

3Create a Signature

If you do not already have an ID, click on the “New ID” button and follow the instructions on the screen to create one.

• New PKCS#12 digital ID file—Stores the digital ID information to a file with the extension .pfx on Windows and .p12 on Mac OS. You can use the files interchangeably across different operating systems.
• Windows Certificate Store—Stores the digital ID to a common location. Other windows applications can also retrieve it.

4Place Signature

If your PDF file does not have the signature field, you can click the "Protect">"Place Signature" button to add the signature. You can also change the appearance of your signature by clicking the "Appearance " drop down list to choose "Create New Style", allowing you to check the options that are needed for that specific signature.

5Validate and Clear Signature

To remove the signatures, please click the "Protect" > "Clear All Signatures" button, which will assist you in removing all of the digital signatures within a PDF file.

Video of Signing Document

Redaction
(Only available in PDFelement Pro)

1 Mark for Redaction

2 Set Redaction Properties

3 Apply Redactions

4 Search and Redact

You can redact multiple text using the Search and Redact tool.

• Select "Protect" > "Search&Redact" button. Then type the text you wish to find and redact into the search box in the Search and Redact panel.
• Check the item in the search result list, it will help you redact the text automatically.
• Click the "Apply All Marks" button, you will get the warning message to ask you if you are sure to remove them permanently.
• Click the "OK" button if you are sure to remove

Video of Redacting Sensitive Content in PDFs

Print PDFs

1Print a PDF document

• Make sure you have installed the printer successfully.
• Click the "File" > "Print" button.
• Specify the "Printer", “Orientation”, ”Color”, "Page Size", "Page Range", “Print Mode”and other options.
• Click the "Print" button.

2Print a portion of a page

To print a portion of a page, you need to use the "Crop" tool.

• Select the "Crop" button by choosing "Edit">"Crop".
• Use the mouse click to drag the area that you want to print.
• Double click the selected area, you will get a new dialog window of more settings.
• After setting the selected area, click the "OK" button to crop.
• Click "File" > "Print" button print this cropped page as you want.

3Print multiple pages through page thumbnails

To perform a quick print, you can select multiple pages from a document from the thumbnail list.

• Open the document that you want to print, and then click the Thumbnail panel on the left navigation panel.
• Ctrl-click to select multiple pages from the document.
• Select "Print Pages" from the right-click menu, and then do the settings to print.

Print Settings

• Copies: set the quantity of copies you need to print.
• Orientation: choose Portrait or Landscape to print.
• Color: select to print with colors or black and white.
• Printer: choose the printer that you wish to print to.
• Page Size: select A3, A4, A5 or other paper size to print.
• Page Range: specify the page range you want to print.
• Subset-Provides options for setting non-contiguous page range.
  "All Pages in range"- Prints all the pages within the specified range.
  "All Odd pages in range"- Prints only pages with odd numbers within the specified range.
  "All Even pages in range"- Prints only pages with even numbers within the specified range.
  
• Reverse Pages- Prints pages in the reverse order. If page ranges are entered, the pages print opposite of the order in which they are entered. For example, if you select to print the document from page 5 to page 30, selecting Reverse Pages option will print page 30 to page 5.
  
  
• Print Mode: choose to print in Size, Poster, Multiple, Booklet.
  "Size"- choose Fit, Actual Size and Custom Scale according to the page size of the PDFs when printing.
  "Poster"- means to tile the pages that are larger than the selected paper size at a specified scale.
  "Multiple"- it will be printed on the same sheet of paper. You can specify the settings like Pages per sheet, Page order, etc.
  "Booklet"- enables to print multiple pages on the same sheet of paper in correct order if the pages are folded. This requires the printer to support double sided printing.
  
• Auto Rotate: adjusts the PDF document's orientation to match the orientation specified in the printer properties.
  
  
• Auto Center: places the PDF pages in the center.
• Print What: specifies to print documents only, comments only, form only or all of them.
  
  "Document"- Prints the document contents without comments and forms.
  "Comments"- Prints comments only.
  "Form"- Prints forms only.
  "Documents and Comments"- Prints document contents and comments.

Printer Properties

Email Documents

• Choose the "File" > "Share" button.
• Click the "Email" button, it will open your email application.
• The PDF will be attached in the email automatically.
• Type the subject and email address to send.

Send to Evernote

• Click the "File" > "Share" > "Evernote" button.
• Now you can view the PDF document attached in Evernote.

Upload to Dropbox

• Click the "File" > "Share" > "Dropbox" button.
• Select "Send PDF to Dropbox" or "Send All open PDF to Dropbox".
• Log in your Dropbox account to upload.

Upload to Google Drive

• Click the "File" > "Share" > "Google Drive" button.
• Select "Send PDF to Google Drive" or "Send All open PDF to Google Drive".
• Log in your Google Drive account to upload.