What Makes Us Different
Features Built for Real Work
27 powerful PDF tools, all 100% free, running privately in your browser with no server round-trips.
Core Features
Everything you need in one place
⚡
100% Browser-Based Processing
All PDF operations run directly in your browser using WebAssembly and the PDF-lib library. There are no servers involved in file processing.
- Processes locally, instantly — no upload delays
- Works offline after initial page load
- No file size limits imposed by our servers
- Faster than any server-based alternative
🔒
Absolute Privacy Guarantee
Your documents never leave your device. This isn't just a policy — it's architecturally enforced. We genuinely cannot access your files.
- Zero file uploads to any server
- No document logging or storage
- GDPR-compliant by design
- Safe for confidential business documents
✏️
Full PDF Annotation Editor
Draw freehand with multiple colors and sizes, highlight important sections, and erase mistakes with a full in-browser annotation suite.
- Freehand drawing tool with size control
- Transparent highlight tool
- Eraser tool for corrections
- 6 color options + multi-page support
✍️
Digital Signature Tool
Add your signature to PDF documents by drawing it with a mouse or touchscreen, or typing it in a styled format.
- Draw signature with mouse or touchscreen
- Type signature in cursive style
- Choose placement page and corner
- Supports all PDF page sizes
⬛
Permanent Redaction
Permanently remove sensitive information by drawing black boxes over regions. Applied through page re-rendering — the content is gone for good.
- Click-and-drag to select redaction areas
- Multi-page redaction supported
- Permanently rendered, not layered
- Cannot be reversed or revealed
🔡
OCR Text Extraction
Extract selectable text from PDF pages using PDF.js's text layer parsing, with intelligent grouping by page and paragraph detection.
- Extracts from all pages or custom range
- Maintains page structure and grouping
- Copy to clipboard in one click
- Exports as .txt for editing anywhere
Under the Hood
Open Source Technology Stack
Built on the best open-source PDF libraries available.
📦
PDF-lib
Create, modify and save PDFs entirely in JavaScript with WebAssembly performance. Powers all PDF manipulation tools.
🔍
PDF.js
Mozilla's PDF renderer. Powers page-by-page rendering, text extraction, and the PDF preview viewer.
🗜️
JSZip
Creates ZIP archives for batch file outputs like multi-page image conversion or extracted page collections.
🖌️
HTML5 Canvas
Powers the annotation editor, signature drawing, redaction overlay, and all visual PDF rendering at high resolution.
🌐
File API
Browser's native file access API. Reads files from your disk into memory without any network transmission.
⚡
WebAssembly
Near-native execution speed for PDF processing. Handles large files in seconds that would take minutes in pure JS.
How We Compare
iLovePDFs vs. Alternatives
| Feature | iLovePDFs ❤️ | Typical Online Tool | Desktop Software |
| Price | Free forever | Free / $9+/mo | $14+/mo |
| Files leave your device | ✓ Never | ✗ Always uploaded | ✓ Local only |
| No signup required | ✓ | ✗ Usually required | ✓ |
| Works offline | ✓ After load | ✗ | ✓ |
| No watermarks | ✓ Always | ✗ On free tier | ✓ |
| File size limits | ✓ None | ✗ Usually 25–50MB | ✓ |
| PDF Annotation Editor | ✓ | Limited | ✓ |
| Redaction Tool | ✓ | Pro only | ✓ |