How iHatePDF Works

Last month, someone emailed me asking why their merged PDF had pages in random order. Turns out they didn't know you could drag the files around before merging. So let me be clear about this:

Drop your PDFs into the upload box. You'll see little preview thumbnails pop up. Drag those thumbnails around to arrange them however you want - first file on top, second file below, whatever makes sense for your document. Then hit merge.

That's it. Your original files don't change. You just get a shiny new combined version.

The opposite problem - you've got a 47-page document but only need pages 12 through 18.

The number one reason people visit our site, honestly. You're trying to upload something to a government portal with a 5MB limit. Your file is 5.2MB. Classic.

After compression, we show you exactly what happened: "Original: 8.4MB → Compressed: 3.1MB (63% smaller)". No guessing.

Got a stack of receipt photos for expense reports? Or maybe you photographed a signed contract because the scanner was being difficult?

Upload your images - JPG, JPEG, PNG, whatever you've got. They'll appear as thumbnails. Drag them into the right order (because we guarantee they'll upload in the wrong order, they always do). Pick portrait or landscape. Convert. Done.

One thing people don't realize: you can upload like 30 images at once. Don't torture yourself doing them one by one.

Your .doc or .docx goes in, a PDF comes out. Formatting stays intact - your fonts, your tables, your carefully positioned images, all of it.

Why would you use this instead of Word's built-in export? Honestly, sometimes Word's PDF export just... doesn't work right. Weird spacing issues, fonts that look different, headers that shift around. Our converter tends to be more reliable, especially with complex documents.

Spreadsheets are tricky because they don't naturally fit on a page like a Word document does. Column G always wants to end up on a separate page somehow.

The tables, colors, and cell formatting all carry over.

Scanned documents come out sideways. Phone photos of documents are upside down. That one page in the middle of your 30-page file is somehow rotated 90 degrees. We've seen it all.

Upload the problematic file. Click on the pages that need rotating - or select all of them if the whole thing is messed up. Pick your rotation: 90° clockwise, 180° flip, or 270° (which is the same as 90° counter-clockwise, if you want to think about it that way).

Preview it to make sure it looks right. Download. Crisis averted.

I'm genuinely surprised how many people don't know this tool exists. Adding page numbers manually in a PDF is painful - I've watched someone try to do it with text boxes once. Took them 45 minutes for a 30-page document.

Here's the better way:

Pick where you want numbers - top or bottom of the page, aligned left, center, or right. Choose a style (1, 2, 3 is standard, but we've got Roman numerals if you're feeling fancy). Add text around it if you want ("Page 1 of 30" format is popular for formal documents).

The whole thing takes about 20 seconds once your file uploads.

Pro tip: If your document has a cover page that shouldn't be numbered, set the page range to start from page 2.

This is basically a visual page manager where you can see everything laid out as thumbnails and just... move stuff around.

Drag page 7 to become page 3. Delete that blank page someone accidentally left in there. Duplicate page 1 if you need multiple copies of a form. Rotate that one sideways page without affecting the others.

Changes happen live - you see exactly what the final document will look like before you commit to anything.

Sometimes you don't need the full organize tool. You just need to delete pages 4, 7, and 12-15.

Upload the file, click on the pages you want gone (they'll turn red so you know they're marked for deletion), and hit the button. Quick and surgical.

Good for: removing blank pages from scans, cutting out that terms-and-conditions section nobody reads, deleting pages with sensitive info before sharing a document.

Two different kinds of passwords, and people mix them up constantly:

• User password (open password) - Someone needs this password just to open the file at all. Without it, the PDF won't even display. Use this for genuinely confidential stuff.
• Owner password (permissions password) - The PDF opens normally, but certain actions are blocked. You can prevent printing, copying text, or making edits. The document is viewable but restricted.

You can use one or both. Set permissions based on what you're trying to prevent.

Let's be clear about what this does and doesn't do:

• Does: Remove password protection from a PDF when you already know the password. Maybe you password-protected a file three years ago and now you're tired of typing it every time.
• Doesn't: Crack passwords, bypass security, or help you access files you don't have permission to open. If you forgot the password and have no way to recover it, we can't help. Nobody can, really - that's the whole point of encryption.

Full disclosure - this isn't Adobe Acrobat. You're not going to do heavy-duty editing here. But for quick fixes? It works great.

Click where you want something, adjust the size and color and font, save it. It's meant to be quick, not comprehensive.

Slap "DRAFT" across every page so nobody treats your work-in-progress as final. Add your company logo to brand documents. Put "CONFIDENTIAL" on sensitive files. Add a copyright notice to protect your work.

Text or image watermarks, your choice. You control the opacity (100% is solid, 30% is subtle), the angle (diagonal looks classic), the position, and which pages get it.

Preview before you commit so you can see if that watermark is blocking important text.

Corrupted PDFs are the worst because you usually have no idea why they're broken. Download got interrupted halfway. File got damaged during transfer. Someone's ancient computer saved it wrong.

Upload the broken file and we'll try to fix it. The tool reconstructs the internal structure, recovers whatever content is salvageable, and patches up broken references.

Honest expectations: Sometimes we can fully recover the file like nothing happened. Sometimes we can recover most of it with a few glitches. Sometimes the file is too far gone and we can only pull out fragments. Depends entirely on what kind of damage occurred.

Worth trying though - it's free and takes less than a minute.