What happens when you open a PDF
Click Open PDF on the start screen. Each page of the PDF becomes a full-page picture on a page of the same size. The document is then an ordinary stillPUB layout: you can add text boxes, shapes and pictures on top, add pages, and export.
The text inside the PDF is not turned back into editable text. That is deliberate: rebuilding a layout from a PDF is guesswork, and a wrong guess is worse than a picture. If the file the PDF was made from still exists (a .pub, a .docx), open that instead.
Good uses
- Change a date on last year's flyer. Draw a rectangle in the background color over the old date, put a text box on top, export a new PDF.
- Add a "canceled" or "new location" banner across a poster you no longer have the source for.
- Get JPG or PNG images of the pages for a website or social media: File, Export page images, choose format and resolution. The sizing table on Word to JPG applies here too.
- Add a page after the PDF's pages for a reply slip or a map, then export the lot as one new PDF.
Not good uses
- Retyping a paragraph inside the PDF. Cover and replace is the only option.
- Filling forms. stillPUB is not a PDF form tool.
- Very large PDFs. Pages are rendered as pictures at the size needed to print well, so a 200-page manual is the wrong job for it.
Nothing is uploaded
The PDF is read by a renderer that runs inside your browser. It is not sent to a server, and after the first visit that renderer is cached so it works offline. The many "edit PDF online" tools that rank above this page mostly upload the file; if the PDF is a contract or a medical letter, that difference is the point.