Add text to a PDF

Yes — 100% free and unlimited. No account, no credit card, no watermark on the result.

Yes — Files never leave your computer — processed in your browser. All processing happens locally on your machine.

No strict server-side limit (processing is local). For PDFs over 100 MB, expect a few extra seconds of processing.

Yes — it is embedded as native vector PDF content in Helvetica, so it stays selectable, copyable and searchable, and it prints crisply at any zoom. The page underneath is left completely untouched: nothing is re-rendered or re-compressed, so a scan keeps its original sharpness.

Five concrete differences: (1) Pricing — iLovePDF is free with ads and a 200-page-per-task cap; Adobe Acrobat Pro is $19.99/mo with a mandatory Adobe ID sign-in even for the "free" online editor; Smallpdf gates real text editing behind Pro at $9/mo after a 2-task/day free cap; pdfFiller starts at $20/mo for full editing once the 30-day trial ends; SimplePDF is free with no signup but caps at 25 MB per file. iFillPDF is free, unlimited, no signup, no card, no upload to any server. (2) Watermark — Adobe leaves no watermark only when signed in; Smallpdf free leaves a Smallpdf watermark on PDFs over 5 MB; iLovePDF on free tier leaves a small footer on annotated documents. iFillPDF never adds a watermark in this tool. (3) Placement — Adobe Acrobat Pro, pdfFiller and SimplePDF let you click an arbitrary point on the page and drag the text afterwards; iFillPDF gives you nine fixed anchor positions and one line of text per pass, which is faster for a stamp. For paragraph-level annotation, use the iFillPDF editor for free placement. (4) Privacy — iLovePDF and Smallpdf upload your file to their servers (Spain and Switzerland respectively); Adobe processes on US infrastructure under Cloud Act 50 USC §3024 reach; pdfFiller is on AWS US under the same exposure. iFillPDF runs WebAssembly entirely in your browser — your file never leaves your device, GDPR Art. 5(1)(c) data minimization compliant, ICO UK registered. (4) Font fidelity — iLovePDF and SimplePDF limit you to Arial/Times/Courier on the free tier; Smallpdf has no font picker until Pro; iFillPDF gives 200+ Google Fonts plus the IRS Pub 1167 standard set on the free tier. (5) Standards — iFillPDF output is fully ISO 32000-1:2008 compliant with text as embedded vector glyphs (selectable, copyable, screen-reader accessible per WCAG 2.2 AA), never rasterized into a flat image like Canva ($14.99/mo Pro to remove watermarks) sometimes does for "edited" PDFs.

Not with this tool — it stamps a line of text in a fixed position, which is not a signature workflow. Use the iFillPDF editor or the sign-PDF tool, where you draw, type or upload a signature and place it where it belongs. On the legal question: a signature drawn or typed there satisfies the federal Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act (ESIGN Act, 15 USC §7001 et seq.) and the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act (UETA, adopted in 49 states; only New York retains its own ESRA), making the signed PDF admissible in federal court with the same weight as a wet-ink signature. The IRS accepts e-signed Form W-9 (Rev. October 2018, per IRS Pub 1345 and IRM 21.3.7.7), Form 8821 (third-party authorization), and most Form 1099 variants under IRC § 6109. In the UK and EU, our signature meets eIDAS Regulation (EU) No 910/2014 Article 25 simple electronic signature requirements — sufficient for most commercial contracts, NDAs, MSAs and Companies House voluntary filings. For documents requiring an eIDAS Qualified Electronic Signature (QES) — notarized real-estate deeds, certain corporate resolutions in some EU jurisdictions — use a qualified trust service provider. See our /tools/sign-pdf workflow which adds a court-admissible audit trail recording signer name, IP, timestamp and document hash. The hard exclusions remain: wills, codicils and testamentary trusts under UETA §3(b)(1) (must be wet-ink before witnesses in the 38 UETA states), IRS Form 2848 Power of Attorney (the IRS still requires wet-ink for most matters), and notarized deeds requiring Remote Online Notarization. For everyday W-9s, NDAs, contractor agreements, equity grant letters under 26 USC § 83(b) and Stripe Atlas founder consents, this tool is sufficient on its own.