PDF6 min read
Why You Cannot Edit Text in a Scanned PDF
A scanned page is a photograph, so there is no text to edit. How to tell the difference in seconds, and what OCR can and cannot recover for you.
September 29, 2026Read article
Guides & Insights
PDFixel Blog
Guides, tips, and insights for PDFs, images, video, office files, and online file tools.
PDFFeatured Article
How to Sign a PDF Online Free and Whether It Holds Up
Draw, type or upload a signature and sign a PDF in your browser. What a SHA-256 summary actually proves, and the limits no tool can talk around.
October 8, 2026•7 min read
Read articlePrivacy & Security7 min read
How to Redact a PDF So the Text Is Actually Gone
A black rectangle over a name does not remove it — the text underneath stays selectable. Here is what real redaction does and how to check your file.
September 20, 2026Read article
Image5 min read
How to Open a HEIC File on Windows, Mac, Android and the Web
What a HEIC file is, why iPhone photos will not open on Windows, what the HEIF codec fixes, and three reliable ways to view or convert a .heic file.
September 1, 2026Read article
PDF4 min read
How to Edit a PDF: Change Text, Redact and Fill Forms
PDF was designed as a fixed-layout format, which is why editing one is awkward. What can be changed in place, what cannot, and how to redact safely.
September 1, 2026Read article
PDF4 min read
How to Merge PDF Files (and Combine Photos into One PDF)
Combine several PDFs into one document, or turn a folder of phone photos into a single PDF, without the page sizes or the order going wrong.
September 1, 2026Read article
Privacy & Security5 min read
How to Remove or Add a Password to a PDF (and When You Cannot)
How to remove a password you know from a PDF, how to password protect a PDF, user vs owner passwords, and why a forgotten AES-256 password is gone.
September 1, 2026Read article
Guides5 min read
How to Scan Documents to PDF With Just a Phone Camera
No scanner needed. How to photograph pages so they come out straight and legible, combine them into one PDF, and make the text searchable.
September 1, 2026Read article
PDF5 min read
How to Reduce or Shrink PDF File Size Without Losing Quality
How to shrink a PDF for email or an upload portal, compress it to 1 MB, 500 KB or 200 KB, and what each method does to text and images.
August 31, 2026Read article
Privacy & Security5 min read
Local vs Server Processing: How Client-Side Tools Protect Data
A technical guide comparing cloud file converters with client-side processing, and why files no longer need to be sent across the internet at all.
August 31, 2026Read article
Image5 min read
JPEG vs WebP vs PNG: Which Image Format Should You Choose?
A practical breakdown of JPEG vs WebP and WebP vs PNG: compression, transparency, browser support, and how to pick the right format for web speed.
August 31, 2026Read article
Office3 min read
How to Convert PDF to Word (DOCX) and Preserve the Layout
Step-by-step methods to transform read-only PDF documents into fully editable Word documents without breaking fonts, tables, or paragraph formatting.
August 31, 2026Read article
Video6 min read
How to Compress a Video to 10 MB for Discord, Email or Web
Compress a video to 10 MB, for Discord or Instagram: how codecs, bitrate and resolution shrink MP4 and WebM files without pixelated artifacts.
August 31, 2026Read article
PDF5 min read
PDF vs PDF/A: What Is the Difference and When to Use PDF/A?
An in-depth guide explaining PDF/A archival standards, why standard PDFs fail long-term preservation tests, and how to create compliant archival files.
August 31, 2026Read article