User Guide
A comprehensive guide to every WysePDF feature. Click a section below to jump to it, or scroll through the full guide.
PDF Viewing and Navigation
WysePDF provides a high-fidelity PDF viewer with multiple navigation tools to help you work efficiently with documents of any size.
Opening PDFs
Open any standard PDF file with rendering that preserves the original layout, fonts, and images. Open multiple documents simultaneously in separate tabs. Drag and drop files directly onto the application window, or use File → Open (Ctrl+O).
Password-Protected Documents
When you open an encrypted PDF, WysePDF prompts for the password. If you enter the wrong password, you can retry without reopening the file.
Zoom and Pan
Zoom from 25% to 800% in 10% increments. Use Ctrl+Scroll to zoom centered on your cursor position. Switch between Fit to Width and Fit to Page modes. Use the click-and-drag pan tool for navigating large pages.
Page Thumbnails
The sidebar panel shows thumbnail previews of every page. Click any thumbnail to jump to that page — the current page is highlighted. Thumbnails load asynchronously so they never block the main viewer. Toggle the panel with View → Thumbnails.
Text Search
Press Ctrl+F to search for text across the entire document. All matches are highlighted with a count displayed. Navigate between matches with Next/Previous buttons. Toggle between case-sensitive and case-insensitive modes.
Text Selection and Copy
Select text by clicking and dragging, then copy to clipboard with Ctrl+C. WysePDF preserves reading order across multiple lines. If text selection is unavailable on a scanned page, WysePDF suggests running OCR.
Page Management
Reorganize your PDF documents by merging, splitting, reordering, deleting, rotating, and inserting pages.
Merge PDFs
Combine two or more PDF files into a single document. WysePDF preserves original page dimensions, content, and annotations. It handles password-protected source files by prompting for each password, and skips corrupt files with a warning listing what was skipped.
Split PDF
Extract a specific page range into a new document, or split by every N pages into multiple files. All content and annotations are preserved in each output file.
Reorder Pages
Drag and drop page thumbnails to rearrange the page order within a document. Changes are reflected immediately in the viewer.
Delete Pages
Remove one or more selected pages from the document. WysePDF prevents deleting all pages — at least one page must remain.
Rotate Pages
Rotate selected pages by 90°, 180°, or 270° clockwise. Useful for correcting scanned documents that were fed in the wrong orientation.
Insert Pages
Add blank pages at any position — choose from standard sizes (Letter, A4, Legal) or enter custom dimensions. You can also insert image files (PNG, JPEG, BMP, TIFF) as new PDF pages, scaled to fit.
Annotations and Markup
Mark up your documents with text boxes, shapes, highlights, sticky notes, and image signatures.
Text Boxes
Add editable text boxes anywhere on a page. Configure font family, font size, font color, and background color. Resize and reposition by dragging.
Shapes
Draw rectangles, ellipses, straight lines, and arrows. Configure stroke color, stroke width, and fill color. Move, resize, or delete shapes after placement.
Text Highlights
Highlight selected text with a semi-transparent color overlay. Choose from yellow, green, blue, pink, or orange. Change the color or delete existing highlights at any time.
Sticky Notes
Place sticky note icons at any location on a page. Click to open a text popup for typing comments. Notes collapse to an icon when closed and can be dragged to reposition.
Image Signatures
Place a signature image on any page. Upload a signature image (PNG, JPEG) or draw one with your mouse or stylus. Resize and reposition as needed. Save signatures for reuse across documents.
Overlay Text Editing
Edit text in your PDFs using the cover-and-replace approach — a practical method used by most lightweight PDF editors.
Cover-and-Replace
Select a region on a page to cover with a white rectangle, then type replacement text over it. This covers the original content and places new text on top — the standard approach for lightweight PDF editing.
Font Matching
Configure the font family, font size, and font color of the replacement text to match the surrounding content for a seamless appearance.
Adjustable Cover Region
Resize the white rectangle to precisely cover the target content. Fine-tune the position and dimensions for exact coverage.
Editable Until Saved
Overlay edits remain editable objects until the document is saved. On save, they are flattened into the page content as static elements.
Form Filling
Fill out interactive PDF forms with automatic field detection and support for all standard form field types.
Automatic Field Detection
WysePDF detects interactive form fields (text inputs, checkboxes, radio buttons, dropdowns) when opening a PDF with AcroForm data. Fields are highlighted for easy identification.
Filling Fields
Click and type in text input fields. Click to check or uncheck checkboxes. Click to select radio button options. Choose from dropdown option lists.
Form Reset
Clear all filled values and reset the form to its original empty state with a single action.
Persistent Values
Filled form data is saved when the document is saved, so your entries are preserved when you reopen the file.
OCR (Optical Character Recognition)
Convert scanned PDF pages into searchable, selectable text using the Tesseract OCR engine.
Scanned Document Processing
Run OCR on image-based PDF pages to extract text. WysePDF uses the Tesseract engine for accurate text recognition.
Invisible Text Layer
OCR generates a hidden text layer positioned over recognized text regions. This makes scanned pages searchable and selectable without altering the visual appearance of the document.
Language Support
English text recognition is supported out of the box. Additional languages can be added by installing Tesseract language data files.
Progress and Error Handling
WysePDF displays the current page and total page count during OCR processing. If OCR fails on a specific page, it skips that page, continues processing the rest, and reports which pages failed.
Export
Export PDF pages as high-quality images in PNG or JPEG format.
Export Pages as Images
Render selected pages as PNG or JPEG image files. Choose output DPI: 72 (screen), 150 (draft), 300 (print quality), or 600 (high quality).
Batch Export
Export multiple pages at once with sequential file naming (page_001.png, page_002.png, etc.). Exported images match the on-screen rendering quality.
PDF Compression
Reduce PDF file sizes while preserving content quality.
Compression Levels
Choose from three levels: Low (minimal quality loss), Medium (balanced), or High (maximum compression). WysePDF compresses by downsampling images and removing redundant data.
Results and Preservation
After compression, WysePDF shows the original size, compressed size, and percentage reduction. All text, annotations, and form data are preserved. If no significant reduction is achievable, WysePDF informs you.
Security and Password Protection
Protect your PDF documents with password encryption using AES-128 or AES-256.
Set Password
Encrypt a PDF with a user password (required to open) and an optional owner password (controls editing permissions). Supports AES-128 and AES-256 encryption.
Change or Remove Password
Verify the current password and re-encrypt with a new one, or remove encryption entirely to save the document without password protection.
Save, Undo/Redo, and Application State
WysePDF tracks your changes and remembers your preferences between sessions.
Save and Save As
Save changes to the current file (Ctrl+S) or to a new location (Ctrl+Shift+S). All annotations, overlay edits, form field values, and page modifications are persisted.
Undo and Redo
Reverse or reapply the last 50 actions per document (Ctrl+Z / Ctrl+Y). Supports undo/redo for annotations, overlay edits, page reorder, delete, rotate, and insert operations.
Recent Files and Window State
WysePDF remembers the 20 most recently opened files and displays them on the start screen. It also remembers window size, position, and maximized state between sessions.
Print your PDF documents using the native Windows print dialog.
Printing
Open the native Windows print dialog (Ctrl+P) with the current document. Print all pages, a specific page range, or just the current page. Printed output matches the on-screen rendering quality.