Everything you need to work with PDF files lives right here — 28 free, browser-based tools that compress, merge, split, sign, convert, watermark, OCR and organise PDFs without installing anything. Your documents never leave your device.
These eight PDF utilities together cover the most common document tasks. All free, all private, all instant.
Unlike cloud-based PDF services, BunchTool processes every document locally. Your files stay on your device — not on our servers, not on Google's, not on anyone's.
The PDF format — Portable Document Format — was invented by Adobe in 1993 and became an ISO open standard in 2008. Today it is the universal format for sharing documents that must look identical regardless of the device, operating system or software used to open them. From legal contracts and medical records to tax filings, academic papers and business proposals, PDFs are everywhere. And yet working with them has historically required expensive software or services that either charge a monthly subscription, impose daily usage limits, or — most critically — upload your documents to a remote server you do not control.
BunchTool changes this. Our 24 free PDF tools are built on a simple but powerful principle: modern web browsers contain everything necessary to process PDF files locally. Using JavaScript, WebAssembly and browser-native APIs, every tool on this page performs its full function inside your browser — on your device, using your CPU — without sending a single byte of your document to any external server.
No. Adobe Acrobat Pro DC costs approximately $19.99/month — a significant expense for tasks most people only need occasionally. BunchTool provides the core functionality that drives the majority of Acrobat subscriptions, completely free: PDF compression, merging, splitting, signing, form filling, page rotation, OCR, watermarking, metadata editing and more. For the vast majority of everyday PDF tasks, you do not need Acrobat.
PDF files grow large primarily because of embedded images. A photograph scanned at 600 DPI and embedded in a PDF is enormous — but most screens can only display at 72–96 DPI, and most printers work at 150–300 DPI. Our PDF Compressor re-encodes embedded images at a resolution appropriate for the chosen output (screen, email, printing), strips redundant metadata and optimises the internal document structure. The result is a file that looks identical in practice but is 40–90% smaller. This happens entirely in your browser using a WebAssembly-compiled PDF processing library.
It depends entirely on how the tool works. Most online PDF services — including well-known names — upload your file to their servers to process it. This creates a privacy risk: your document travels over the internet, sits on someone else's server and may be retained in logs or backups. For confidential documents — legal agreements, financial statements, medical records, HR documents — this is a serious concern.
BunchTool PDF tools work differently. Every tool processes files locally using your browser's JavaScript engine. Your PDF data never leaves your device. It is not uploaded, not transmitted, not stored and not accessible to anyone other than you. This makes BunchTool the safest free PDF tool available for sensitive documents.
OCR (Optical Character Recognition) is the technology that converts images of text into actual, machine-readable text. You need it when your PDF was created by scanning a paper document rather than exporting it directly from a word processor. Scanned PDFs look fine on screen but contain no selectable, searchable or copy-able text — they are just images. Our OCR PDF tool analyses each page visually and produces a PDF with a real text layer, enabling search, copy-paste, accessibility tools and text extraction.
Use our PDF Split tool. Upload your PDF, enter the page numbers or ranges you want to extract (e.g. "1-3, 5, 8-10"), and the tool outputs each range as a separate downloadable PDF. You can also extract every page individually. This is useful for sharing specific sections of a document, removing outdated pages, or restructuring a large file into smaller chapters.
Yes. Our Visual PDF Signer lets you draw, type or upload a handwritten-style signature and position it anywhere on a PDF. In most jurisdictions — including the United States under the ESIGN Act, the EU under eIDAS and the UK under the Electronic Communications Act — a clearly applied electronic signature on a PDF is legally equivalent to a wet ink signature for most contract types. You do not need DocuSign, Adobe Sign or any other paid e-signature service for straightforward agreements.
Privacy reminder: All 24 PDF tools on this page process your documents locally in your browser. No file — however sensitive — is ever uploaded to any server. BunchTool logs no file content, no document metadata and no user data from tool interactions.
| Feature | BunchTool | Smallpdf (free) | ilovepdf (free) | Adobe Acrobat |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free to use | ✓ Always | ⚠ 2 tasks/day | ⚠ Limited | ✗ $19.99/mo |
| No file uploads | ✓ 100% local | ✗ Cloud upload | ✗ Cloud upload | ✗ Cloud upload |
| No login required | ✓ Always | ⚠ Required for some | ⚠ Required for some | ✗ Account required |
| File size limits | ✓ None | ✗ 5MB free | ✗ 100MB limit | ✓ None |
| Works offline | ✓ Yes | ✗ No | ✗ No | ⚠ Desktop only |
| Mobile-friendly | ✓ All tools | ⚠ Partial | ⚠ Partial | ✗ App required |
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