What KovaPDF is
An online PDF toolkit that runs in your browser — editing, converting, compressing and reading PDF documents, scanned ones included.
What it does
KovaPDF covers four kinds of work: editing a document’s text, images and pages; converting between PDF and image formats; managing pages by merging, splitting, rotating, resizing or removing them; and reading text out of documents that do not have any, using optical character recognition.
The last of those is the part that distinguishes it from a viewer. A scanned or photographed page is a picture of words, not words — there is nothing to click and nothing to copy. The OCR PDF tool recognises that text and rebuilds it as real, editable lines while the original page stays underneath as the visual, so a scan behaves like an ordinary PDF.
Who it is for
People who need to change a PDF occasionally and do not want to install anything: freelancers and small businesses handling contracts, quotes and invoices; students and researchers working with scanned material; and anyone who needs to combine, shrink or correct a document and get on with their day. It is built for that job rather than as a lightweight version of a desktop suite.
How your documents are handled
Several tools never send your file anywhere — page rendering, thumbnails, reading an existing text layer, and every edit you make before pressing Save all happen on your own machine. Where a tool does need a server, the file travels over an encrypted connection into a directory created for that one request, is processed, is returned, and the working copy is deleted as that request finishes.
There is no document storage, so there is no file list on your account and nothing to recover later. That is deliberate, and it is why the dashboard shows what you did rather than what you uploaded. The Security page describes the whole path in detail, including what we deliberately do not claim.
What it does not do
Being clear about the edges is more useful than a feature list. KovaPDF is not end-to-end encrypted: a server-side tool has to read your document in order to transform it, and any service that edits a PDF for you necessarily can see it. Text recognition is an estimate and will sometimes be wrong in ways that look convincing. There is no collaboration, no team workspace and no document storage.
Common questions
What is KovaPDF?
KovaPDF is an online PDF toolkit. It provides browser-based tools for editing, converting, compressing, splitting, merging and reading PDF documents, including optical character recognition for scanned files. It runs in a web browser and requires no installation.
Is KovaPDF free?
Yes. Every tool works without paying and without an account. Files can be up to 200 pages and 80 MB.
How does KovaPDF process PDFs?
Some operations run entirely in your browser and never transmit the file at all — rendering pages, reading a PDF's existing text layer, and everything you do in the editor before pressing Save. Operations that need server processing upload the file over an encrypted connection into a directory created for that single request, transform it, return the result, and delete the working copy in the same request.
Does KovaPDF store my documents?
No. There is no document storage and no file library. We keep a record that an operation ran — which tool, whether it succeeded, byte sizes, page count and duration — and never the filename or the content.
Who is KovaPDF for?
People who need to change a PDF occasionally and do not want to install software: freelancers and small businesses handling contracts and invoices, students and researchers working with scanned material, and anyone who needs to fix, combine or shrink a document quickly.
Does KovaPDF work on mobile?
Yes. The site is responsive and the tools work in a mobile browser. The full editor is more comfortable on a larger screen simply because precise editing of a page is easier with more room.
How accurate is the text recognition?
It is an estimate, not a transcription. Accuracy is usually high on clean scans and falls on low-resolution images, photographs, unusual typefaces and handwriting. Recognised text can contain errors that look entirely plausible, so it should be checked before being relied on.