Merge, split and clean PDFs without uploading them anywhere

The PDF is the format for documents that matter: contracts, statements, payslips, scans of your passport. Which makes it odd that the usual way to merge two of them is to upload both to a website you have never heard of. Browsers can do all of this locally now, and it is worth knowing which jobs need which tool.

Combining documents

The PDF merger takes several files, lets you drag them into order, and produces one document. Typical uses: a cover letter plus a CV, an invoice plus its receipts, or a signed page inserted back into the original contract.

Scans and photos usually arrive as images rather than PDFs. Convert them first with the JPG to PDF converter or the PNG to PDF converter, which put each image on its own page at a sensible size, then merge the result with the rest.

Taking documents apart

The reverse jobs are just as common. The PDF splitter breaks a document into separate files by page or by range, which is how you get one statement out of a year's worth. When you need just a few pages from a long report, the PDF page extractor pulls them into a new document, and the PDF page deleter removes the ones you do not want to send. The PDF rotator sorts out the page that was scanned sideways.

Before you split a large file it helps to know what you are dealing with; the PDF page counter reports the count without opening the file in a viewer.

What a PDF says about you

A PDF carries metadata: the author name, the software that made it, creation and modification dates, and sometimes the original file path. A CV exported from a template can name the template's author rather than you; a redacted contract can carry the date it was last edited. The PDF metadata remover strips all of it and gives you a clean file to send.

The same applies to images before you convert them. A phone photo of a document contains the GPS location where it was taken and the exact time. The EXIF stripper removes that from JPGs before they go anywhere. If you want to see what is in a file first, the image dimensions inspector shows the basics.

Redaction is not a black rectangle

Drawing a black box over text in a PDF editor hides it on screen and leaves it in the file, where anyone can select and copy it. If you need to redact, use the image redactor on an image of the page: it paints over the pixels, so there is nothing underneath to recover. Then convert back to PDF.

Why local matters

Every tool linked here runs entirely in the browser. The file is read into memory on your machine, processed there, and the result is offered back as a download. Nothing is uploaded, so there is no server copy to leak, no retention policy to read, and it works offline once the page has loaded. For anything with a name, a number or a signature on it, that should be the default.

The short version

Merge, split, extract, rotate, then strip the metadata before you send. Keep the whole chain in the browser and the document never leaves your hands.