Start with the document you have
Four entry points cover almost everything people come here to do.
Metadata, comments, hidden objects and invisible text — see what your PDF is still carrying and remove it.
Vector marks deleted cleanly; marks baked into a scan reconstructed so the text underneath survives.
The everyday PDF jobs, done in the browser so the file does not have to be uploaded first.
Data export, sanctions clauses, export control and supply-chain terms — findings that cite the actual articles.
Why people use this instead of an upload-based tool
| Upload-based online tool | Desktop software | PDFnoted | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Where the file goes | Server | Local | Your browser |
| Installation | None | Required | None |
| Clean, merge, split, convert | Server | Local | Your browser |
| OCR and AI repair | Server | Local | Cloud, per page only |
| Edit and annotate in the same place | Rarely | Yes | Yes |
| Works on a phone | Sometimes | No | Yes |
What is different here
If you are here for a specific job
Working with a Chinese counterparty
Why the data will not come, and what a sanctions clause does in China
Sending documents outside your organisation
What is still in the file when you hit send
Tables into spreadsheets, with the checks that catch a shifted figure
Make a scanned document searchable — and know how far to trust it
Frequently asked questions
What is PDFnoted?
A browser-based document workspace: PDF tools, AI cleanup of watermarks and hidden content, OCR for scans, and document checks against Chinese, US and EU regulation. Most operations run on your device rather than on a server.
Do I have to install anything?
No. It runs in a browser, including on a phone. There is no plugin and no desktop application to install.
Does my file leave my device?
For most operations, no — merging, splitting, compressing, converting and cleaning run in your browser. Features that need a model, such as OCR on a scan or AI reconstruction of a watermark, run in the cloud; only the pages that need that work are sent, and they are not retained.
What is free?
Cleaning metadata, headers, footers, annotations and text watermarks; the standard PDF tools; and basic OCR. AI reconstruction of marks baked into images, and the cross-border compliance scan, are paid.
Can it check a document against Chinese law?
Yes — the compliance scan covers China, the United States and the European Union against a corpus of 219 regulation instruments and 22,671 provisions, and returns the articles it matched rather than an unattributed score.
Start with the document you have
Open the workspace and load a file. The free tier covers enough of the pipeline to see whether it does what you need before any payment.
Open the workspace — free to startKeep going
Sources and further reading: ISO 32000 (PDF specification); Adobe PDF Reference; Schema.org structured data; Aggarwal et al., GEO: Generative Engine Optimization (arXiv:2311.09735). This page is a technical guide, not legal advice.
More from PDFnoted
What people say
“The side-card layout is honestly such a simple fix for something that's bugged me forever — way easier to read than random highlight boxes. Tried it on a contract and the AI review was genuinely useful, not just generic fluff.”