Questions about editing and converting PDFs
Do my files get uploaded anywhere?
Mostly, no. 19 of the 28 tools run entirely inside your own browser — merging, splitting, compressing, page numbers, images, reading a scan, passwords, watermarking and redaction all happen on your machine, and the file never travels. The exceptions are the 6 office conversions (Word, PowerPoint, Excel and HTML to PDF, and PDF to Word or PDF/A), which genuinely have to run on a server because no browser contains an office suite, and the editor, which sends us a copy of the PDF so its text can be read and deletes that copy within 24 hours. Each tool says which kind it is on its own page, before you choose a file.
What happens to a file that does get sent to the server?
It is converted and deleted as soon as the answer has been sent back. It is not kept, not indexed, and not used for anything else. If that is still more than you want, every other tool on the site works without sending anything.
Do I need an account?
Almost never. 25 of the 26 free tools never ask who you are, and the editor does not either: there is no sign-up and no limit on documents. Unlock asks, because removing the protection from a document is worth having a name against. Plus — signing, Bates numbering, logos and asking about a document — belongs to an account, because a plan has to belong to somebody; the account is free.
What is in Plus, and what is free?
Plus is three things: signing a PDF, logos in any colour, and asking questions about a document. Everything else is free — the editor, every one of the 6 office conversions, and all the other tools — with no trial, no account and no limit on how many documents.
What does it cost?
26 tools are free and stay free — no watermark and no limit. Plus is $12 for three months or $43.99 for a year, and adds signing, Bates numbering, logos in any colour, and asking questions about a document. There is no monthly plan; the shortest is three months.
Who takes the payment, and what appears on my statement?
Kelviq handles payment for Loopdraw as the merchant of record, so your statement will show KELVIQ rather than Loopdraw. They take the payment, issue the receipt and invoice, and handle refunds — so a card number is never sent to us and never stored here. If a charge you do not recognise appears under that name, it is this.
Can I really edit the text in a PDF?
Yes — the actual words on the page, in the document’s own typeface, rather than a text box laid over the top. A PDF has no paragraphs in it, only instructions to place glyphs, so the editor rebuilds the lines, lets you change them, and writes the page back out using the fonts already embedded in the file. Editing is free — no account, and no limit on how many documents.
Does it work on a phone?
Yes. The tools and the editor both work on a phone or tablet, in the browser, with nothing to install. Very large documents are the one thing to be careful of: the work happens on your own device, so a two-hundred-page scan will be slower on a phone than on a laptop.
Is there anything to install?
No. It is a website. There is no extension, no desktop app and no sign-up wall in front of the free tools — open the page, drop a file on it.
Is it complicated to use?
It is three steps: open the page for the thing you want, drop your file anywhere on it, press the button. There is no project to create first, no dialog to get through before you can choose a file, and no account for 25 of the tools. Each tool has a page of its own with one job on it, so nothing is buried in a menu — and the file can be dropped anywhere on the page rather than onto a small target.
Do I need to know anything about PDFs to use it?
No. Each tool does one thing and its page says what that thing is in a sentence. Where a choice genuinely changes the result — which pages to take out, what quality to compress to — you are asked in plain words, and the finished file is shown to you before you download it. Your original is never written over: what you get back is a new file, so there is nothing you can do here that cannot be undone by ignoring the result.
What happens to my documents when my plan ends?
Nothing is taken away or deleted. Projects live in your own browser’s storage, so they stay where they are. The 6 office conversions and the editor’s "any number of documents" stop; the free tools carry on as they always did.