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, PowerPoint, Excel, 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-defined fields in scanned PDFs;
• Batch process to convert, create, optimize, data extract, 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 and only 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 a 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", "OCR", "OCR", "Update" , "Proxy", "Password", "Redaction" 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.
• OCR: You can set the default language to use in Document Language list.
• Update: You can set the frequency to check updates.
• Proxy: You can select the proxy settings.
• Password: You can set the password to open the encrypted documents.
• Redaction: You can set redaction to black out the sensitive text.
• Shortcut: You can find shortcuts for main functions.

Shortcut Keys

• F1: Open the "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 the next file tab when you open multiple PDF files in the program.
• Ctrl + Shift + Tab: Change to the previous file tab when you open multiple PDF files in the program.

• Ctrl + W: Close the currently opened PDF document.
• Ctrl + S: Save the currently 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 currently opened PDF document.
• Ctrl + F10: Change to a maximum or original window size after opening a document.

• Ctrl + 1: Fit to the actual page size for viewing the opened PDF document.
• Ctrl + 2: Fit to window width for viewing the opened PDF document.
• Ctrl + 3: Fit page to the 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 continuous scrolling enabled.
• ↑: Scroll up or go to the previous page.
• ↓: Scroll down or go to the next page.
• ←: Move to the 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 the previous view.
• Alt + →: Go to next the 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 the 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 a pencil to draw.
• Shift + Alt+ E: Use an eraser to erase the pencil drawings.
• Shift + Alt+ P: Use a 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 + Shift + 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 you can select the page view mode in the bottom floating bar that automatically appears when you move your cursor to the bottom.

• 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 a maximum of 6400%.

• Click the "View">"+" (Zoom In) or "–" (Zoom Out) button under the "View" tab option or in the bottom floating bar 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 PDFs 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 navigation column to enter the keyword in the box and press Enter key to start the search process.
• Click “Home” Tab > “Find” and enter a 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 cursor 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 the "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 the bookmark.
• Open one file and click the "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 "Tool" > "Capture" 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 in the left column and then tap on 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, "Choose File" button, and "+ Add file" option 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 "Apply" 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" > "Create" button, set the "Blank PDF" 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.

4Create PDF Files from a Batch

PDFelement allows you to create PDFs from a batch at once. You can click the "Batch PDF" button on the Home menu. Then a window pops up and you need to select the "Create" option, and you can add the files that you need. In addition, you can choose the folder options by clicking on the "..." button. Finally, you can click on the "Apply" button to achieve this process.

Video of Creating PDF

Right Click to Create PDF

Create PDF Files Using Print Command

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

• After opening the program, click the "File">"Create">"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

Combine to PDF by Right-Clicking

Combine Files in PDFelement Window

1Combine PDFs

• Launch PDFelement, click the "Combine PDF" box in the main interface.

• In the new "Combine" Window, click the "Choose file" and then "+ Add file" button to select the import the PDF files on your computer. Or simply drag and drop your files into the window.
• Click "..." to set an output folder for the combined PDF file.

• Click the "Apply" button. PDFelement will combine the PDF files you add within a few seconds. Besides, the combined PDF will be automatically open in PDFelement and you can now edit or manage it as your requirements.
• More importantly, PDFelement supports to generate a new catalog page from bookmarks when combining files. So there is a new catalog page in your combined PDF, helping you find the target page quickly.

2Combine to PDF from Different Format Files

• Click the "Combine Files" button under the "Tool" tab.
• Click the "Choose file" and then "+ Add file" button to import the files you want to combine, and you can choose different formats files from your computer.
• Click the "Apply" button. All the files you add will be combined into a single PDF document.

Add Comments

1Add Notes/Typewriter/Text Box/Callout/Area Highlight

• Note: To add a note comment, please click the "Comment">"Note" button, and click where you want to place the note and make comments in the box.
• Typewriter: To add a typewriter comment, please click the "Comment">"Typewriter" button, and 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, and 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.
• Callout: To add a callout comment, please click the "Comment">"Callout" button, and click where you want to place it and double click it to type comments as you want.
• 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 means of memory retention or for later reference.
• Underline: To draw a line under to indicate emphasis.
• Squiggly: To draw a squiggly line under.
• Strikeout: 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, and 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 the 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 the "Comment" > " Add Stamps" button, and 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 Image" 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 the "Stamp" button.
• Click the "Comment" > "Custom Stamp" > "Manage Stamps" button, select the customized stamp to "Create", "Edit" and "Delete".

Handwritten Signature

1Sign PDF

Click the "Comment" > "Signature" button, and tap on the "+ Create" button to start to create your handwritten signature.

2Create Handwritten Signature

• Click the "Type" button, and enter your signature to create your handwritten signature. There are five fonts making you choose. You can select one of the fonts as you desired, and once done, click the "OK" button.

• Tap on the "Upload" tab, and click "Choose Image" to upload your image within your handwritten signature. After uploading the image, click the "OK" button.

Add Attachments as Comments
(Only available in PDFelement Pro)

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

• A pop-up dialog will open, and 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 attachments in the panel, and it will lead you to that page.

Undo/Redo/Delete/Hide Annotations

Comments Properties

You can change the appearance of 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 follows:

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 top right, and click the Edit mode icon to choose the edit mode. 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. Then you can edit the desired text to start editing by typing new text and deleting text.

  

• 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 the 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", Extract 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-right 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" > "Add Watermark" button.
• In the "Add Watermark" window, you can click the "+" box to select watermark type. If you choose the Text option, 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 "Image" > "..." 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 by clicking the "<>" button. If you choose "Looks behind the page" in the "Location" option, the page content will obstruct your view of some part of the watermark. If you choose "Looks above the page", the watermark will cover some content, however, you can adjust it via the 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" button to save a watermark template for your future use. Next time, you can click the "Add Watermark" button to choose the one you want to apply directly without setting again.

2Add/Remove Watermark for a Batch
(Only available in PDFelement Pro)

• After opening the program, please click the "Tool" > "Batch Process" button.
• Click on the "Watermark" tab to drag and drop the selected PDF files for the operation.
• If you have not saved any watermark template yet, you cannot do the batch process. So you can click the " + " button on the bottom of the pop-up window to set and save one template first. On the other hand, if you want to remove the watermarks, you can click the "Remove Watermark" option.
• Click the "Apply" button to begin the process.

Video of Adding Watermark

PDF Background

• If you choose to set a color as the background, you can just select a color you like to set in the "Create Background Template" window. If you want to make an image or PDF file as the background, you need to click the "..." button to select the file as you desired.
• Click the "<>" button to 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

1Add Bates Number for a Single PDF

• After opening your PDF file in the program, please click the "Edit" > "Bates Numbering" > "Add Bates Numbering" button.
• In the Bates Number dialog box, you are able to set a Prefix, Start At, and Suffix for your pages. Also, you can set the font for the Bates number.
• Set appearance, position, and page range to apply the Bates number.
• Click the "Save" button to create a Bates number template for your future use. Next time, you can click the "Add Bates Numbering" 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 "Tool" > "Batch Process" button.
• Click the "Bates Numbering" tab, drag and drop a batch of PDF files in it.
• Select a template you previously set. If you have not create any bates numbering tempalte yet, you cannot do the batch process. So please click the "+" button to create a template first.
• Click the "Apply" button to begin the process.

Video of Adding Bates Number

Flatten PDF

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 the "Apply" button.
• To apply these settings to additional pages, click "<>" to set the page range or click "All" under Page Range.
• Click "OK" to crop the page or pages.

• 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 the "File" > "Save" button to save it as a new PDF on the computer.

Insert Pages

• Insert Blank Page: You can go to the "Page" > "Insert" button and choose "Blank Pages". 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 order of the pages, 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 the "Apply" 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, 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, 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 "Tool">"OCR" button in the Ribbon bar, select "Scan to searchable text in 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 "Tool">"OCR" button in the Ribbon bar, select the "Scan to editable text" mode.
• Then click the "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 "Range" to choose an individual page or a set of pages for OCR.

• Now click "Apply" 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 "Convert" > "To Word", "To Excel", "To PPT", "To Image", etc. to convert the file to the format you need.
  
• 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 on 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.

3Right Click to Convert

• Select the PDF file you want to convert to other file formats.
• In the reviewed menu, choose "Convert to...".

• Then PDFelement will start and pop up the convert window. In this window, you need to select the "Output Format". There are many options available in the drop-down menu.



• After you select the output format, just hit the "Apply" button.



• Within a few seconds, the PDF file will be converted to other formats. You can click the "Finished" button and this will open the output folder for you.

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 "Convert" > "PDF/A" button.
• Now, the "Save as" window pops up, and then in the "Save as type" box, there are many options of PDF/A you can choose, such as PDF/A-1a, PDF/A-1b, PDF/A-2a, PDF/A-2b, PDF/A-2u, PDF/A-3a, PDF/A-3b, and PDF/A-3u. After selecting one of them, click the "Save button.

  

Video of Converting PDF Files to PDF/A

Batch Convert
(Only available in PDFelement Pro)

• After opening the program PDFelement, please click the "Convert" > "Batch Process" button 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 "Apply" 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 "Tool" > "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 "Apply" 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 Others formats 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 follows. It informs you that this document contains fillable forms.

• Hand iconappears when hovering 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" > "More" > "Form Recognition" button to recognize the blanks and tables automatically, then you will get the fillable fields created. All the corresponding types of form fields will be automatically named with the text near the form fields.

• Click the "Form Edit" 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 the "Form" > "Add Text" button or other buttons.
• Select the location for the filed you need, and the text field or check box will be added.
• Click the "Form Edit" button, click the text field, and start to type directly.
• Click the "Keep tool select" button to add form fields continuously without clicking the tool buttons again.

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 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.
• 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 the 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, then you can click the field or button one by one as the new order that you want. After setting, click the "Form Edit" button, fill in the field, or button using the Tab key as the order that you set.

Note: You can only set a 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" > "More" > "Data Extraction" button, then select the option of "Extract data from form fields in PDF", and click the "Apply" button. 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.)

  

2Extract Data from Selected PDF Text

• After opening your PDF file in the program, click the "Form">"More">"Data Extraction" button, and choose "Extract data based on selection".

  

• Click the "Apply" button, then use your mouse click to draw the area in the pages 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 "Apply" button, then save the .csv file in your local folder.

  

3Extract Data for Batch Process

• After opening the program, please click the “Too" > "Batch Process" button to open.

  

• Click the "Data Extract" tab to load multiple files in it, then choose the "Extract data from PDF form fileds" as you need to extract.

  

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

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

Open Password settings:

• Password—type the password as you want that users must type to open the document.

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 select the “A new digital ID I want to create now” button and then click the "Next" button.

• 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.

4Validate 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 it.

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 "Tool">"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.

4Print multiple PDF files in Batch

What's more, you can batch print multiple PDF files. For that, you can click the "Tool" > "Batch Process" button, and then select the "Batch Print" option at the bottom. After that, you can upload the PDF files you want to print. For the print settings, you can click "More Settings" to set the print settings as you needed.

Print Settings

• Copies: set the number 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 sizes to print.
• Page Range: specify the page range you want to print.
• Subset-Provides options for setting a 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.
  
• Print Option- "Reverse Pages" - Prints pages in the reverse order. If page ranges are entered, the pages print the 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 the Reverse Pages option will print page 30 to page 5.
  "Print as Image"- allows you to print the PDF pages as the image format.
  
• 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 us to print multiple pages on the same sheet of paper in the 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 Content: 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

• Click the "Send email" button on the top left bar, it will open your email application.
• The PDF will be attached in the email automatically.
• Type the subject and email address to send.

Upload to Dropbox

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

Upload to Wondershre Cloud

• Click the "File" > "Share" > "Wondershre Cloud" button.
• Select the "Upload" button to import the file.
• After finishing uploading, click the "OK" button.