PDF Tools for Legal Professionals
Contract versions, exhibits and confidential files: compare, redact, number and encrypt them
These PDF tools for legal professionals cover routine work on contracts and case files: comparing two versions, removing text by area before disclosure, numbering pages, merging exhibits and encrypting files. They are free, need no account and add no watermark, and each tool below says where the file is processed.
Recommended Tools
Compare PDF
Load two versions of a contract and see, in text mode, deletions in red, additions in green and modified words in yellow. It runs in your browser.
Redact PDF
Draw boxes over names, figures or clauses; the text under each box is removed from the page. Processed on our Paris server, then deleted; check the output before you share it.
Page Numbers
Number a bundle in one of six positions, as 1, 2, 3, Page X of Y, Roman numerals or a custom format with your own prefix, starting from any number and excluding pages such as a cover. Runs in your browser.
Merge PDF
Combine pleadings, exhibits and correspondence into one PDF in the order you set, in your browser, without uploading them.
Protect PDF
Encrypt a file with AES-256 before sending it to a client: the password is required to open it. Processed on our server, which keeps neither the file nor the password.
Unlock PDF
Remove the password from a PDF you received, once you know it, so you can merge or number it. It runs on our server and cannot open a file whose password you do not have.
Sign PDF
Place a visual signature or initials on a document, in your browser. It carries no certificate or timestamp.
Extract PDF Pages
Take only the relevant pages out of a long record, copied without re-encoding, in your browser. What a kept page shares with a page you leave out, such as the other half of a two-page spread, can stay inside the new file, unseen.
Common Use Cases
- Compare the draft a counterparty returned with the version you sent
- Redact names and figures from a document before sharing it
- Number the pages of a bundle, starting after the cover
- Merge exhibits into one file in a set order
- Send an encrypted contract and share the password separately
- Remove a known password from a received PDF so you can work on it
Comparing contract versions: what the tool sees
Compare PDF extracts the text of both files in your browser and matches pages by number: page 3 is compared with page 3. If one version gains a page, every page after it shifts, and the list of differences grows.
The comparison works on sets of words, so word order and repetitions are ignored: a clause moved elsewhere on the same page may not show up. Treat the highlights as pointers and confirm each change in the documents themselves. Scans cannot be compared word by word, only viewed side by side in Visual mode, and the result is shown on screen only, with no report to export.
Redaction and confidential files
Redact PDF sends the file over HTTPS to our server in the Paris region (eu-west-3), where it is processed, then deleted as soon as the task ends. The text under each box you draw is removed from the page, not just covered, so none of it is left under the box to see, select or copy, and the form fields, comments and links under a box are removed too.
The tool does not clean the rest of the file: the title and author in the properties, bookmarks and the files attached to the document stay as they were, the accessibility tags of a tagged PDF lose the redacted text too, except in rare cases, and a digital signature is no longer valid after redaction. There is no preview of the result: open the downloaded file and check it before disclosure, including the lines next to each box. Compare, Merge, Split, Page Numbers and Sign run in your browser if you prefer a document not to be sent anywhere.
Signatures, passwords and page numbers
Sign PDF places a visual signature, an image on the page. It is no substitute when a court, a registry or a counterparty requires a certificate-based electronic signature.
Protect PDF applies AES-256 with a single password, used both to open the file and as the permissions password; printing stays allowed. Unlock PDF removes the protection only when you enter the correct password; for a file that opens without one but blocks printing or copying, that is the permissions password its author set.
Page numbers can use your own prefix followed by a zero-padded number such as 001, or plain numbers, Page X of Y and Roman numerals. Excluded pages get no number and are left out of the total.