The PDF is nearly right. It needs your name in a box, one page turned the right way up, a blank page at the end removed, or a sentence highlighted before you forward it. You don't need a PDF editor subscription for any of that: your iPhone already has one, and it's free.
How do I edit a PDF on iPhone?
Open the PDF in Preview (the app is built into iOS 26 and later) or in Files on older versions, then:
- To add text, highlights, drawings or a signature, tap the Markup button, then the Add button (+), and choose what to add.
- To fix pages (rotate, delete, move, insert or crop), tap the page count to show the thumbnails, then touch and hold a page.
When you're done, tap the back arrow to save, or Share to send. Everything below is a more detailed version of those two moves.
Add text, highlights and shapes
Add text anywhere. Tap Markup, then Add (+), then Add Text. A box appears; tap it to type, drag it into place, and use the formatting tools for font, size and color. On forms, Add Text Form Box does the same and lines the text up with the form.
Highlight, underline or strike through. In Preview, touch and hold the first word and drag the grab points to select text, then tap Highlight and choose a color, or the underline or strikethrough option. This only works when the PDF has real text in it; on a scan, use the marker tool instead.
Draw, circle or point. In the Markup toolbar, pick the pen, marker or pencil and draw with your finger. Add → Add Shape puts in boxes, circles, arrows and speech bubbles; draw a rough shape and pause, and it snaps into a clean one.
Fix a mistake. Tap the More button, then Undo. In Markup, the eraser removes strokes, and the lasso selects them so you can move them.
Rotate, delete, move or add pages
Preview handles the page jobs people most often install an app for. Open the PDF, tap the page count to show thumbnails (tap the page first if the count is hidden), then:
| What you want | How |
|---|---|
| Delete a page | Touch and hold its thumbnail → Delete Page |
| Rotate a page | More button → Rotate Left or Rotate Right |
| Move a page | Touch and hold its thumbnail, then drag it up or down |
| Add a blank page | Touch and hold a thumbnail → Insert Blank Page |
| Add another PDF or image | Touch and hold a thumbnail → Insert from File |
| Add a paper page | Touch and hold a thumbnail → Scan Pages |
| Crop a page | Crop button → drag the blue handles → Crop |
Insert from File is also the quickest way to combine two PDFs on your phone. If you'd rather see all the files side by side and drag them into order, the merge PDF tool and the reorder PDF tool do it in your browser without uploading anything.
What iPhone can't edit (and the workaround)
Apple's apps add things on top of a PDF. They don't rewrite the text that's already in it. If a date or a misspelled name in the body text is wrong, you have three honest options:
- Go back to the source. If the PDF came from a Word, Pages or Google Docs file, fix it there and export a new PDF. It's the cleanest result.
- Cover and replace. Add a white filled rectangle over the old words (Add → Add Shape, then set its fill color to white), then put a text box on top. It looks fine printed. Be aware the original text is still underneath and can be found by searching or copying.
- Ask the sender for a corrected version, if it's their document.
That second point matters for privacy too. Covering an account number with a black box doesn't remove it from the file. To actually remove it before you share, use a redaction tool such as our redact PDF tool, which deletes the content under the box.
Save, rename and lock the edited PDF
Edits in Preview save when you tap the back arrow. To keep the original untouched, make a copy before you start: tap the menu next to the filename, then Duplicate. The same menu has Rename and Move.
To stop anyone else changing the file, tap the menu next to the filename, choose Lock, and enter a password twice. Keep an unlocked copy if you'll need to edit it again.
Common problems
I can't select the text to highlight it. The PDF is a scan or a photo, which means the text is just a picture. Use the marker tool from the Markup toolbar, or make a searchable copy first; in Preview, choose Export, pick PDF and turn on Embed Text.
My edits don't show for the person I sent it to. Open the file you sent, not the one on your phone, to check. Some viewers hide annotations; exporting it again as a PDF from Preview usually flattens them into the page.
The file is suddenly huge. Inserted photos and scans add weight fast. Use Export → PDF → Optimize Images for Screen in Preview, or the compress PDF tool.
There's no Preview app on my iPhone. Preview arrived with iOS 26. On older versions, open the PDF in Files and tap the Markup button; text, highlights, drawings and signatures all work there. If you also need a signature on it, here's how to sign a PDF on iPhone.
Where edited PDFs should end up
An edited PDF is usually a final version: the corrected invoice, the annotated contract, the form with your details in it. It's also the one you'll struggle to tell apart from the three earlier drafts sitting next to it in Files.
Paperlock keeps the version that counts. Save it to the vault and Paperlock reads it, gives it a clear title, notes the dates and amounts, and keeps it behind Face ID. It doesn't edit PDFs (Preview does that well); it remembers what's in them, so later you can ask for "the corrected invoice from the plumber" and get the right file.