Forge PDF
Edit PDFs offline with document search, local fonts, image stamps and saved editing sessions while protecting source files.
The problem it solves
Forge PDF A free, offline desktop PDF editor for quick changes without an account, subscription, or upload. White out a line, add a replacement, remove a footer, or put pages in order.
Who Forge PDF is for
- People who need a small, purpose-built utility instead of a broad platform.
- Users working with PDF editor, whiteout, footer removal who want the documented v1.2.0 behavior.
- People who prefer an open-source release with visible limitations, source, and license terms.
Intended result
Edit PDFs offline with document search, local fonts, image stamps and saved editing sessions while protecting source files.
This summary is reconciled from the current catalog and repository documentation.
Features in v1.2.0
Capabilities below come from the current project README and release documentation.
Find literal document text across pages with next/previous matches. Image-only pages need external OCR.
Add text with a selected local TrueType font and check the entered text for missing glyphs.
Place PNG/JPEG image stamps with a drag preview and preserved transparency.
Explicitly save/reopen a self-contained editing session, including bounded Undo history.
Render previews on a single worker; obsolete previews cannot replace newer pages.
Use two toolbar rows, a hideable pages panel and wrapped hints in smaller desktop windows.
Verified examples
Screenshots are shown only when the current README references a local source image. Otherwise, repository example files are linked directly.
Platforms and implementation
The public release claims only the cataloged platforms and technologies.
Supported platforms
- Windows
Built with
- Python
- Tk
- pypdf
- PDFium
- ReportLab
What changed in v1.2.0
- Add literal document search with next and previous navigation.
- Add local TrueType fonts for new text and PNG/JPEG stamps with placement preview.
- Save and reopen explicit local editing sessions while preserving the original source PDF.
Changelog
Release notes from the canonical v1.2.0 source tag.
- Add literal document search with next/previous navigation, including keyboard shortcuts.
- Add local TrueType fonts for new text, with missing-glyph feedback.
- Add PNG/JPEG stamps with immutable selected data, placement preview and transparent export.
- Add explicit unencrypted editing sessions with self-contained PDFs, bounded Undo and original-file protection.
- Coalesce asynchronous previews through one worker with serialized PDFium access and stale-result guards.
- Improve compact desktop controls, focus access and wrapped hints; retain page actions with the sidebar hidden.
- Add export object summaries and synthetic save/reopen checks across cropped/rotated pages.
- Preserve visual-whiteout limitations, existing editing operations, no-network runtime and source protection.
- Update audited runtime pins to Pillow 13.0.0 and pypdf 6.21.2.
- Updated pypdf to 6.19.0 and raised its supported minimum to include the PDF parser security fixes.
Use More page actions → Export page ranges for one-based selections such as 1,3-5. Ranges ascend within each term; terms retain their entered order (3,1-2 exports pages 3, 1, then 2). Duplicate, malformed, empty, and out-of-range selections are rejected. Review every output page in the ordered list; selecting an item previews that source page. Continue to save one new PDF, or cancel at selection, review, or save. Source files stay protected, and exporting does not clear unsaved edits or alter undo/redo history.
Subset export is not secure redaction. Retained pages may contain hidden content, annotations, links, or other PDF objects. Review exported PDFs before sharing.
Initial public release following local desktop testing.
- Whiteout, highlight, and add text on PDF pages, including pages with annotations.
- Adjustable Clear footer across every page with a 5px default and one-step undo.
- Rotate, reorder, duplicate, delete, insert blank pages, merge, and export a page.
- Page-boundary scrolling, right-click actions, Go to page, and 100% default zoom.
- Reliable drag capture with silent tiny clicks and scroll preservation after edits.
- Password opening, source-preserving copies, and undo/redo.
- Portable Windows app, Python source, tests, CI, CodeQL, and dependency notices.
Whiteout is visual cover, not secure redaction. Saved password-opened copies are unencrypted.
Quick start
The shortest documented path into the current release.
- Download Forge-PDF-1.2.0-Windows.zip from the release page and extract it once.
- Open the Forge PDF folder and double-click Forge PDF.exe. No installation or Python setup is needed.
- Open a PDF, select Whiteout, and drag over the area you want to cover.
- Use Add text to place new text, then Save a copy under a different name.
Keep _internal beside the executable. Help, licenses, and a synthetic practice PDF are in Support/. The source archives on GitHub are for developers; the Windows ZIP is the ready-to-run application.
Whiteout and Clear footer are visual covers, not secure redaction. Covered text and images remain in the PDF and can be extracted. Do not use them to remove secrets.
Current limitations
These boundaries are part of the product and prevent the page from implying unverified capability.
- Adds content over existing pages; does not rewrite existing paragraphs, perform OCR,
securely redact, validate signatures, or provide interactive form filling.
- Whiteout retains underlying PDF content. It is inappropriate for hiding confidential data.
- On an edited page, visible annotations and form fields become page content before
new marks are added. Links remain interactive; untouched pages retain their annotations.
- Editing signed PDFs invalidates their cryptographic signatures. Password-opened edited
copies are saved without encryption. Dynamic form appearances and malformed PDFs can fail.
- Added text defaults to Helvetica/Western European characters. Choose a local .ttf font
for other glyphs. Font files are limited to 20 MB; glyph presence does not establish complex-script shaping, font licensing or arbitrary-font compatibility. Text must fit.
- Image stamps accept PNG/JPEG up to 20 MB and 16 million pixels. They fit inside the
selected rectangle with their aspect ratio retained. Stamps are visual images, not signatures.
- Text search is literal and case-insensitive, capped at 1000 matches and 256 query characters.
Search does not perform OCR or highlight exact glyph positions on the canvas.
Privacy and licensing
Review the actual data boundary before using a tool with sensitive inputs.
Privacy and safety
The editor makes no network requests, uploads no files, runs no PDF scripts, and stores work in memory until you explicitly save a PDF copy or editing session. It is not a sandbox for hostile PDFs. Installation and development dependency audits use the network. See SECURITY.md.
License and release
Forge PDF is published under MIT. The current cataloged release is v1.2.0, published 2026-10-23.
Related projects
Related projects are selected deterministically from shared catalog tags, category, and implementation technologies—not popularity or paid placement.
Forge PDF v1.2.0
Use the tagged release for downloads and release notes. Use the repository for source, issues, contribution guidance, security reporting, and complete documentation.
Page source: current Forge catalog plus README and CHANGELOG from the canonical GitHub release tag. Fingerprint: e8a822f997e286c5.