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PDF editor and document tools, job by job
By Alberto Gulotta · Updated 2 October 2026 · 21 min read
This is the entrance to the documents tower. A pdf editor , a converter, something to merge two files, a way to sign a contract without printing it — the jobs are small, they arrive urgently, and the answer that appears first is not always the one you would pick with time to think.
The fastest-looking answer is usually a website that asks you to upload the file. Sometimes that is the right tool; often the same job can be done by software already on the machine. Every floor above starts from the same question: can this be done without sending the document anywhere? Where the answer is yes, the floor says so before it mentions a single product.
That question is not paranoia, and it is not an accusation either. A contract, an invoice, a passport scan and a medical letter are the kinds of file these tools get handed, and uploading one means trusting terms you have probably not read. This tower does not guess at what any service does with your file: each floor states it, quoted from that service’s own documentation, with the date it was read.
Three levels, and you are on the first. This atrium lists the floors; a floor covers one job completely and holds the shorter guides underneath it. Nothing on this island is more than three clicks from the front door, and every floor links back here.
One choice explains why this tower is organised by job rather than by product. What brings people here is rarely an interest in document software; it is a file that has to be a different shape by four o’clock — smaller, editable, signed, combined with another one, or simply openable by a colleague whose software is older. So a floor here is named after the task rather than a brand, and the first thing each one does is tell you whether the computer in front of you can already do it . Often enough to be worth checking first, it can.
Converting to and from PDF
One direction at a time. Every floor says what survives the conversion and what does not, because something always does not.
Changing a PDF
The format was designed to be fixed, which is why editing one is harder than it looks. These floors cover the operations that genuinely work.
Laying out a long document
Margins, page numbers, spacing and contents. Almost every problem in this wing is an invisible mark doing something you cannot see.
Margins The default is already one inch, and why a wider left margin is the wrong fix for binding. Open this guide → Removing formatting in Word Microsoft’s shortcut list, nearly 10,000 words long, does not contain the words Clear All Formatting: what it has is Ctrl+Spacebar for characters and Ctrl+Q for paragraphs. Open this guide → Formatting in Google Docs Margins, spacing and indents — and the mode that removes half of them without telling you. Open this guide → Page numbers Three different cases with three different answers, and the button that makes them all fail. Open this guide → Double spacing in Word Two routes from Microsoft, and the paragraph setting that makes a correctly spaced document still fail. Open this guide → Hanging indents Five steps from Microsoft, and the exact depth APA publishes for a reference list. Open this guide → Hanging indents in Google Docs Google prints the route for a computer and none on its Android and iPhone & iPad tabs, and its shortcut list has no key for it. Open this guide → Deleting a page A page is not an object, which is why clicking on it and pressing Delete does nothing. Open this guide → Page breaks Ctrl and Enter is real, and Microsoft publishes it on a different page from the one that teaches the break. Open this guide → Removing a page break Microsoft lets you delete a manual break and not an automatic one — and when a section break goes, the part after it decides the layout for both. Open this guide → Table of contents Word builds it from your headings — which is why it is empty when nobody marked them. Open this guide → Columns in Word Text flows from one column into the next — which decides whether you want columns at all or a table. Open this guide →
Writing in Word
The document itself rather than its shape: the features people are asked for by name, and the recovery for when it closes without saving.
Watermarks in Word Four clicks — and what the four clicks do not tell you: a watermark labels a document, it does not protect it. Open this guide → Signatures in Word Three things go by that name and they prove three different amounts. Microsoft calls the first one a personal touch. Open this guide → Checkboxes in Word Two things look like a checkbox and only one can be ticked on screen. Microsoft calls the other a print only list. Open this guide → Fillable forms in Word The last step is the one that matters: without it, whoever fills the form in can also rewrite it. Open this guide → Labels in Word The product number on the box is the only setting that matters, plus the test print Microsoft mentions last. Open this guide → Merging cells in Word Two or more cells, touching, in the same row or column — and a Table Layout tab that only exists while the cursor is inside the table. Open this guide → Strikethrough in Google Docs There is no toolbar button, which is the whole reason people look it up. One shortcut, and it toggles. Open this guide → Word without Word Opening and editing .docx properly when you do not have the software it came from. Open this guide → Recovering a document Reopen Word first. And the button, marked safest by Microsoft, that people under stress click past. Open this guide → The work file error Microsoft’s symptom says preview or save, and its last method is about the File Explorer preview pane. Open this guide → Track changes Turning it off does not remove a single mark — and what a document used to say leaves with the file. Open this guide → Combining Word documents The built-in feature hidden behind a small arrow, and the command that sounds right and is not. Open this guide → Find and replace in Word Microsoft’s shortcuts page prints Ctrl+H on its Windows and Web tabs and Control+H on its macOS tab. Open this guide →
In a spreadsheet
The mechanics: rows that will not move, cells that will not show, and the tidying that breaks everything downstream.
Freezing rows in Excel One rule from Microsoft explains every case, including the two that send people to forums. Open this guide → Adding rows in Excel Select as many rows as you want to insert. Microsoft writes it for the Mac and for the browser, and not in the Windows steps. Open this guide → Grouping rows in Excel Microsoft documents the Mac shortcut without the Mac procedure, and the Windows procedure without a Windows shortcut. Open this guide → Sorting alphabetically One word in Microsoft’s first step keeps your rows together, and two documented failures explain every list that sorts wrong. Open this guide → Removing duplicates in Excel Three tools and only one deletes, and what Excel actually counts as a duplicate. Open this guide → Highlighting duplicates in Excel Highlight Cells Rules on Windows and a Mac, Highlight Cell Rules on the web — and Microsoft says the rule reads * and ? as wildcards. Open this guide → Merging cells in Excel Microsoft says merging deletes the other cells — and there is a different command for what was meant. Open this guide → Combining text in Excel A joined column is a column of results. Deleting the cells it points at is the move that empties it, and Microsoft documents both the error and the way out. Open this guide → Merging cells in Google Sheets Google’s own list of keyboard shortcuts for Sheets does not contain the word merge. Here is what it does contain. Open this guide → Wrapping text in Excel Two different ways, which one suits which kind of content, and the two documented reasons the wrapped text stays invisible. Open this guide → Changing case in Excel Excel has no Change Case command, and Microsoft opens the subject by saying so. Everything else follows from that one sentence. Open this guide → Excel showing the formula Three causes, and how many cells are affected is the first clue: a whole sheet is one switch, a single cell is its format or the way the entry was typed. Open this guide → Selecting cells in Excel Ctrl holds the selection open while you click each block — Command on a Mac, by Exceljet’s account — and Microsoft’s own pages disagree on whether you can then click one back out. Open this guide → Arrow keys in Excel Scroll Lock, Extend Selection, Add to Selection and a protected sheet: the status bar names the first three by default, and shows nothing for the fourth. Open this guide → Conditional formatting with a formula Microsoft’s note on absolute and relative references, and the three reasons a correct-looking rule does nothing. Open this guide → Hidden rows in Excel Three clicks — and the four reasons they fail, including the one where the rows were never hidden. Open this guide → Hidden columns in Excel Column A needs a different method, and one explanation can be ruled out immediately. Open this guide → Locking cells in Excel Every cell is already locked, so the real job is unlocking the ones people should edit. Open this guide → Spreadsheets Moving between formats without losing formulas, dates or leading zeroes. Open this guide → Recovering a workbook Two routes depending on whether you ever saved it, and the checkbox that covers the commonest accident. Open this guide → Track changes in Excel Microsoft withdrew the button with Shared Workbooks. It comes back as Track Changes (Legacy), and the modern tool wants the file in OneDrive or SharePoint. Open this guide → Removing spaces in Excel TRIM was designed for the ASCII space, value 32. Text copied from a web page can carry the nonbreaking space at 160, and Microsoft says TRIM alone leaves it. Open this guide → Searching in Excel Neither substitutes for the other: to go to the data, open the window; for a number another formula can use, write the function. Open this guide → Moving columns in Excel The gesture that slides a column between two others on the Windows tab is the gesture that overwrites one on the Web tab. Open this guide → Summing a column in Excel One key on Windows and the web, another on a Mac, no shortcut on the page that teaches AutoSum. Open this guide → Removing blank rows in Excel Microsoft’s Go To Special page says Blanks selects blank cells, and its Power Query page has a command that examines the entire row. Open this guide →
Charts
Whichever spreadsheet you use, the hard part is not the three clicks — it is which shape can carry the data you have.
Graphs and charts in Excel Microsoft publishes four conditions for a pie chart, and most pie charts fail one of them. Open this guide → Bar graphs in Excel Clustered, stacked and 100% stacked answer three different questions, and only one of them is comparable. Open this guide → Line graphs in Excel Microsoft’s one-line rule for when it should be a scatter chart, and what Excel does with gaps in the data. Open this guide → Pie charts in Excel Microsoft sets three conditions before you should use one, and admits a pie cannot be read without labels. Open this guide → Graphs in Google Sheets The chart can stay linked to the data — and Google warns it is then visible to people who cannot open the sheet. Open this guide → Bar graphs in Google Sheets Each row becomes a bar, which is why the chart has the wrong number of them — and Google’s test for a 100% stacked bar. Open this guide → Line graphs in Google Sheets Where each part of your range ends up, and the documented fix when two series have nothing like the same scale. Open this guide → Sorting and filtering in Sheets A filter here is not yours: everyone with access to the sheet finds it, and Google says so in one sentence. Open this guide → Duplicates in Sheets The two companies define a duplicate in opposite ways, and both of them put it in writing. Open this guide → Drop-down lists in Sheets Built from the cells you have already filled in, and a cell that can hold more than one answer. Open this guide → Protecting cells in Sheets No password, no reversed workflow, and Google’s own line that this is not a security measure. Open this guide → Pivot tables in Sheets A photograph in Excel and a window here — and Sheets may insert one it chose itself. Open this guide → Hidden columns in Sheets Excel leaves an indicator you have to notice; Sheets leaves an arrow you press. Open this guide →
Calculations that go quietly wrong, and the controls that turn a sheet into something other people can fill in.
Pivot tables The four clicks are the easy part — the data shape decides, and the Recommendations button is a data transfer. Open this guide → VLOOKUP Four arguments, and the optional one that returns wrong answers without reporting anything. Open this guide → Percentages in Excel The formulas are the easy half. The format changes the number, and does something different depending on when you apply it. Open this guide → Percentage increase A rise and the fall that undoes it are never the same number, and three starting values break the formula. Open this guide → Standard deviation in Excel STDEV.S divides by n-1 because the rows are a sample, STDEV.P divides by n because they are everything — and on ten numbers that is a visible difference. Open this guide → Comparing two workbooks Microsoft’s tool is restricted to enterprise Windows — and one helper column does the job anywhere. Open this guide → Drop-down lists in Excel Put the source in a table so it updates itself, and set the one option that decides whether the list is enforced. Open this guide → Checkboxes in Excel Here the box is the cell’s value, so the ticks can be counted — and Delete takes two presses. Open this guide → Multiple IF statements in Excel Nested IF runs on more versions of Excel than IFS, and Microsoft publishes the boundary on its own pages. Open this guide → Copying a formula in Excel Ctrl+D on Windows and Cmd+D on a Mac, and what copying does to the references that moving does not. Open this guide → Counting cells that are not blank Which function gives which number, and the one catch: a formula that returns empty text is counted as filled by COUNTA and as blank by COUNTBLANK. Open this guide → Calculating the mean in Excel The divisor is the number of numeric cells: text, logical values and empty cells are ignored, zeros are not. Open this guide → Subtracting in Excel Two Microsoft pages describe the same formula, =A2-A3, in opposite directions. Open this guide →
The documents with legal weight and a deadline attached. Accuracy matters more than design here, and several floors are mostly about what must be on the page.
Email and calendar
Not the document but the program that carries it. Almost every floor here turns on something the sender cannot see from their own window.
When Outlook will not start A guided troubleshooter, safe mode, a second profile, the repair tool and a pane reset — in Microsoft’s order, which ends with the one route you cannot take back. Open this guide → Scheduling an email Two Outlooks, two holding places — and in one of them the message waits on your own computer. Open this guide → Unsending an email Gmail delays the departure; Outlook chases the delivery. Only one of the two always works. Open this guide → Bcc It hides the list — and Microsoft warns that junk filters flag messages that use it. Open this guide → Spell check in Outlook Microsoft’s test is the Settings gear: with it you are in new Outlook, without it in classic Outlook. The steps only work on the matching one. Open this guide → Email signatures Five Outlooks, five menus — and the reason the signature you made on the desktop is missing in the browser. Open this guide → Out of office Microsoft warns the external reply goes to every sender including junk — and offers the setting that limits it. Open this guide → Unsubscribing Not a favour: the FTC sets a ten-day deadline, and forbids selling your address once you have opted out. Open this guide → Sending a calendar invite It is not a separate command — an event becomes an invitation when a name goes in the box. Open this guide → Sharing a calendar Inside your organisation it changes the moment you do; into Gmail it can take a day and a half. Open this guide → Sending large files Getting a document to somebody when the mailbox refuses it, without an account or a subscription. Open this guide → Encrypting email in Outlook Options, then Encrypt, is the route Microsoft prints for new Outlook and Outlook.com; S/MIME needs a certificate, and its switch sits elsewhere in each version. Open this guide →
Signing and sending a document
The last step, and the one people are most unsure about — what counts as a signature, and what a file carries with it once it leaves.
Not covered here. It will not send you to a converter site by default. For most of the jobs on these floors there is a way to do it on your own machine, for nothing, with the file never leaving the room — and where that exists, it is the first thing the floor tells you.
It will not rank the paid document suites yet. That requires paying for them, using them for two weeks on real work, and reporting what broke; until then the floors describe what each one says about itself, with the date.
And it will not carry affiliate links. Document tools pay well for recommendations, particularly the subscription ones, which is precisely why the recommendations here have to be free of it.
One practical note that applies across the whole building. Where a floor recommends an online service, it states what that service says it does with your file and how long it keeps it, quoted from its own terms with the date we read them. Those terms change, they are rarely read, and for a category whose entire traffic consists of people uploading contracts and identity documents in a hurry, it is the single most useful sentence a page like this can contain. What holds instead is simple: wherever a job can be done without uploading the file, that route comes first.
AG
Written by Alberto Gulotta
Founder and editor of AI Tools Primer, writing from Palermo, Italy. Thirty-five years of
taking computers apart, starting with a Commodore 64 — the long version is on the
about page .
Something wrong on this page? Write to
aitoolsprimer@gmail.com and it gets fixed.
Written on 20 August 2026 · last checked 2 October 2026.
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