Find and Replace Text - Free Online Browser Tool

Change a word or phrase wherever it appears on the page, drawing the new text over the old.

The draft goes out with DRAFT across the top of page one, a date from last year in the footer, and a client name that changed three weeks ago. None of it is wrong, and all of it is embarrassing. This finds each of those and writes the replacement over it, keeping the position, the size and the colour of the original so the page still looks like a document rather than a ransom note. The honest part first, because it decides whether this is the right tool: it draws the new text on top of the old. It does not rewrite the text inside the file. The word DRAFT is still in there underneath, selectable, searchable and readable by anyone who opens the file in an editor. That is what makes this useful for a date, a status word or a company name on something going out tomorrow, and what makes it useless - dangerous, even - as a way to remove something confidential. For anything that has to actually be gone, redaction is a different operation and a different tool. Capitalisation follows what it found, so DRAFT becomes FINAL and Draft becomes Final rather than both becoming Final. Overriding that is one setting away if you want your replacement exactly as typed. Two details that are easy to overlook. If one word sits inside another word, the longer match is used and the overlapping one is skipped and counted - drawing both would write twice into the same letters. And the white cover box is sized to whichever of the old and new words is wider, so a longer replacement does not leave the tail of the original sticking out past it. You can turn the cover off, which is faster and the right choice when the new text is at least as long as the old and sits in the same place. It needs a text layer to search. On a scan there is nothing to find until OCR has run, and rather than returning a file with nothing changed the tool says that - because a search that quietly matched nothing is indistinguishable from a search that found nothing to change. Search Text in PDF is the tool for finding a term without changing it, and this one finds and changes in the same pass. Everything happens in this tab. Nothing is uploaded.

This find and replace text utility runs completely inside your web browser. Your document is opened locally and processed on your own device using JavaScript and WebAssembly, so your file is never uploaded to any server. There is no signup, no watermark and no limit on how many documents you can handle.

  • 100% client-side - files never leave your device
  • Instant processing, no upload wait
  • Works on desktop, tablet and mobile
  • Free forever, no account required

Common next steps: Edit Text In Place, Add Text Overlay.

How to Use the Find and Replace Text Tool

Five steps, and the whole thing runs locally on your own device.

  1. Add the PDF

    One file. The text layer is read first, so a scan has nothing to search until OCR has run on it.

  2. Type what to find and what to put there instead

    Leaving the replacement empty covers the old text without writing anything over it, which is occasionally what you want.

  3. Decide how capitals are handled

    Following the original by default, so DRAFT becomes FINAL and Draft becomes Final. Or use exactly what you typed.

  4. Narrow to certain pages if you need to

    A range like 1-3, 7, 12-14. Leave it blank and the whole document is searched.

  5. Save

    One PDF with the replacements drawn in, plus a summary of how many were made, on which pages, and how many overlapping matches were skipped.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does this actually remove the old text from the file?

No, and this is the single most important thing to know. The new text is drawn over the top of the old, which is what makes the page look right. The original words remain in the file, selectable and searchable. Use it for a date or a status word on a document going out tomorrow; for anything that has to be genuinely gone, this is the wrong tool.

What if one word is inside another?

The longer match is used and the overlapping one is skipped, and the count of skipped matches appears in the result. Searching for a word that appears inside a longer word would otherwise draw two replacements over the same letters and produce unreadable overlap.

Can it find anything on a scanned document?

No. It searches the text layer, and a scan does not have one until OCR has been run on it. Rather than handing back a file where nothing changed, the tool says that there was no text to search - which is the difference between a useful error and one that leaves you wondering whether it worked.

What if my replacement is longer than the word it replaces?

The white cover box is drawn to whichever is wider, the old word or the new one, so nothing of the original is left showing past the end of your replacement. If you turn the cover off, keep in mind that you are drawing straight over the old text with no margin.

Does it change the capitalisation of my replacement?

Only if you leave the setting on its default. Following the original means DRAFT is replaced by FINAL and Draft by Final. Switching it off uses exactly the characters you typed, which is what you want when the replacement has a deliberate capitalisation of its own.