PDF format guide
What is a PDF?
A PDF is a Portable Document Format file designed to preserve page layout across devices. It can contain text, fonts, vector graphics, images, forms and annotations inside one document.
Why PDFs look consistent
Unlike an editable word-processing document, a PDF describes where page elements should appear. Text fragments, images and drawing instructions are positioned on fixed pages, helping the file retain its appearance on Windows, macOS, iOS and Android.
Text-based PDFs and scanned PDFs
A text-based PDF usually contains selectable characters. A scanned PDF may contain only photographs of pages, so it needs optical character recognition before its words become searchable or copyable. Complex layouts can still require manual review after extraction.
Extract text from a PDFA PDF does not need to leave your device for every task
Modern browser APIs can read and rebuild many PDFs in local memory. PDFPerch uses browser-local workflows for core operations and states separately when a cloud feature would transmit text, signaling data or a file.
Common PDF tasks
PDF questions
What does PDF stand for?
PDF stands for Portable Document Format. Adobe introduced the format to preserve a document's visual layout across different computers and operating systems.
Can a PDF contain selectable text and images?
Yes. A PDF can contain positioned text, vector graphics, embedded images, forms, annotations and other objects. A scanned PDF may contain only page images unless OCR has added a text layer.
Does editing a PDF always require uploading it?
No. Many tasks such as merging, splitting, rotating, watermarking and image conversion can run inside a modern browser without sending the file to a remote server.
Why can PDF-to-text output lose columns or tables?
PDF stores visual positions rather than semantic paragraphs. Extraction tools estimate reading order, so complex tables, equations and multi-column layouts still require review.