PDF find and replace

Find and replace text in a PDF

CrabPDF includes a find and replace sidebar that searches detected PDF text items and lets you replace single occurrences or all matches.

How to use find and replace

Upload a PDF.

Open the Search tool from the right sidebar.

Type the text you want to find.

Review occurrences grouped by page.

Click a result to jump to it.

Replace one match or replace all matches.

Current limitations

Search works on detected text items.

If a sentence is split across multiple PDF text fragments, phrase search may not match perfectly.

Replace all is currently simple and may be slower on large documents.

Future versions can batch replacements into a single PDF save operation.

Private by design

CrabPDF is designed to run locally in your browser. The editing flow does not require uploading your PDF to a backend server. This makes it useful for quick local edits, OCR corrections, search and replace, and redaction experiments.

CrabPDF is experimental. Always verify important documents after editing or redaction.