Strikethrough PDF: Drag to Cross Out or Find Every Word

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   What's great about our PDF strikethrough tool

   • Your PDFs never leave your device. Every line is added right in your browser.
   • Drag to strike any part of a page, or find words and strike every match at once.
   • Five colours and your own, solid or dashed, in any thickness.
   • Restyle, Undo and delete any line before you save.
   • Strike many PDFs at once, with a ZIP download.
   • Free, no limits, no watermark, and it works offline after your first visit.
2. 01

   Add your PDFs

   Choose PDFs or drag them into the preview. The first PDF opens as a vertical list of large pages, which is the easiest place to strike. Use Add More to add others later.

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   Strike

   • Pick a colour, a thickness and a style, then drag across the text you want to cross out. The line snaps to the middle of the text you drag across.
   • Or double click a word, triple click a sentence, or click four times for a whole paragraph.
   • Or type words under Find Words, one per line. Matches are highlighted in yellow. Click Strike Matches to mark every one of them.
   • Click a line to select it, then change its options or press Delete. Undo steps back.
   • Press Ctrl+A (Cmd+A on a Mac) to select every line in your PDFs, then change the options to change them all.
   • Press Ctrl+C then Ctrl+V (Cmd+C then Cmd+V on a Mac) to copy the selected line and paste it where your pointer is on the page.
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   Strikethrough PDF and download

   Click Strikethrough PDF, then Download. Change anything and the button goes back to Strikethrough PDF, ready for another run. Several PDFs download together as a ZIP.

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   Loved it?

   • If you're on computer, bookmark this page to your browser.
   • If you're on mobile, add it to your home screen for one-tap access and offline use.
     • Android: Visit this page in Google Chrome > tap three-dot icon (⋮) at top > Install and create shortcut.
     • iPhone and iPad: Visit this page in Safari > tap menu icon in address bar > Share > Add to Home Screen.

How it works

A strikethrough is a thin line drawn through the middle of the text you drag across, over the page. Because the page itself is never redrawn, its text, fonts, images, links and forms stay exactly as they were, and the crossed-out text stays in the file.

When you find words, the PDF's text is read page by page, and a line is placed across each match. After the file is made, it is opened again and compared with your original: the page count, page sizes, rotation, text and links must all match what they should. If anything differs, no file is produced for that PDF.

Frequently asked questions

• Is my PDF uploaded anywhere? No. Everything happens in your browser, on your device. Your PDF is never sent to a server.
• How do I strike part of a page? Press on the page, drag across the text you want and let go. The line snaps to the middle of each line of text you dragged across. Click a line to select it: it gets a dashed blue outline, and you can change its colour, thickness and style, or press Delete.
• Can I strike a word, a sentence or a paragraph with a click? Yes. Double click a word to strike it, triple click to strike its whole sentence, and click four times quickly to strike its whole paragraph. If you click one more time than you meant to, the shorter mark is replaced by the longer one. This works on PDFs that have real text, not scans.
• Can I strike every place a word appears? Yes. Type a word or phrase under Find Words, one per line. Every match in every PDF you added is highlighted in yellow right away, so you can see what was found. Click Strike Matches to mark them all, and you can still remove any single one afterwards.
• Will the text stay selectable and searchable? Yes. The line is drawn over the page, so the text under it is never touched or turned into a picture.
• Can the lines be removed later? They become part of the page, so they cannot be switched off like a comment. Keep your original file if you might want the page without them.
• Why does Find Words say nothing was found? The PDF may be a scan, which holds pictures of pages and no text to search. You can still drag lines by hand on a scan.
• Does strikethrough remove the text? No. A line is drawn through the text, but the text is still in the PDF and can still be selected and copied. To remove text for good, use Redact PDF.
• Which PDFs are not supported? Password-protected PDFs cannot be processed. Remove the password first with PDF Password Unlock. Digitally signed PDFs can be processed, but rewriting the file invalidates the signature.

What happens to your file

Nothing is uploaded, stored on a server or tracked. Your PDFs stay in your browser's memory until you remove them or close the page. The lines become part of each page, so they cannot be switched off afterwards.

How to get the most out of it

• Use the vertical list of large pages for hand marking. Zoom in with the + button for small print.
• For a long document, use Find Words first, then fix any line by hand.
• A strikethrough only crosses text out. To remove it for good, use Redact PDF.
• To highlight or underline text instead, use Highlight PDF or Underline PDF Text.
• Keep your original file. Lines cannot be edited once the PDF is saved.