For Mac users who work in PDFs all day
Change the text that is already in the file. Read the words off a scan.
Nothing is uploaded. The file is opened, changed and saved in this window, on your own machine.
What it does
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01
Lists the text the file already shows
Every line, the page it sits on, and the font it is set in. Change one line and save a new PDF next to the old one — the original on your disk is never touched.
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02
Lifts the text layer out
Copy the whole text layer, or save it as a text file. Useful when the words are in the file but you cannot get at them.
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03
Reads a scanned page
A page that is a picture of a page is read into words. Those words go into a layer of their own — under the picture, never printed over text that is already there.
Two plates, never one over the other
A scanned page is really two plates: the picture, and the words read from it. Keep them apart and you can search the file, copy from it, or turn the words off again in a reader that shows layers. Print one over the other and you have a document that lies about what it says.
So: text that is already on a page is exactly where you left it, and words read from an image go into a second layer that the page can be shown without. If a page already has text and you want the second layer on it anyway, the tool asks you first.
Your file stays on your Mac
There is no upload step to forget. A PDF is opened, changed and saved by the page you are looking at, using the machine in front of you; no copy of your document is sent anywhere, and no account is needed to open one.
The whole tool ships with the page — the PDF library, the text reader, its character data — so once the page has loaded, nothing leaves the machine while you work, and it keeps working with the network off.
What it will not do
- Build forms or fill-in fields
- Add a field, a button or a checkbox? Not here. This tool changes text that already exists and reads text that is in a picture.
- Sign or certify
- No signatures, no certificates, no stamps. Nothing is added to a document's signature chain.
- Reflow the page
- A changed line keeps its font, size and place. Make it longer and it runs on; the rest of the page does not move out of the way.
- Read handwriting
- Printed text from a clean scan, yes. A page of joined-up handwriting will produce guesses, and this tool will not dress them up as text.
- Open locked files
- A PDF with a password is left alone: its pages cannot be read here at all.
- Place a text layer on a turned page
- If a page is turned inside the file, words read from its picture would land in the wrong spot, so they are not added to it.
And one more, because it matters more than the rest: if a line cannot be changed safely — a font this tool cannot write through, a character the font has no room for — it says which line and why, and the file is left as it was.
What it costs
$9/month
A monthly subscription, billed monthly in advance. The card is charged at checkout — there is no trial and nothing later.
Stop any time by writing to support@textlayer.co: the plan is cancelled and the month you are in is refunded in full if you cancel within 14 days of a charge. Refund rule on the Refunds page.