View a PDF, rearrange its pages and fill in forms

The PDF tools page doubles as a PDF viewer and a simple page editor. Everything you do while editing happens in your browser, and nothing is sent anywhere until you save.

Open a PDF

1. Open PDF tools.
2. Choose Open from Drive and pick a PDF.

You can also open a PDF from Drive: select it and choose PDF tools in its menu. If you choose a file that is not a PDF, you will be told "That file isn't a PDF."

Edit pages

The panel PDF Tools & Edits shows each page as a thumbnail. For each page you can:

• Rotate it.
• Move up or Move down to change the order.
• Delete page.

Note: A PDF needs at least one page. You cannot delete them all.

Fill in form fields

If the PDF has fillable fields, a Form fields section appears with one entry for each: type text into the boxes and tick the checkboxes. Your entries are kept with the file when you save.

Save your changes

You will see two buttons at the bottom of the panel:

• Save writes a new version of the same file. The earlier version stays available under Versions in Drive.
• Save as copy keeps the original untouched and makes a new file.

Save needs edit access to the file. If you only have view access, the button is disabled with a note and you can still use Save as copy.

Tips

• Use Save as copy when working on a file someone else owns, or when you want to keep the original untouched.
• To remove a few pages and keep the rest, delete them here or use the Remove pages tool described in the next article.
• Large files may take longer to open. PDF tools work with files up to 100 MB.

Common problems

• "This PDF can't be previewed." The file may be damaged or unusual. Try opening another copy.
• The PDF could not be downloaded from storage. Try again, or reopen it from Drive.
• Save is greyed out. You have not changed anything yet, or you do not have edit access. Use Save as copy.