Product and Output Disclaimer

Automated tools can move, change, compress or drop content. Before you rely on a result, compare it with the original, confirm every page is there, and open it in the viewer your recipient will use. Keep your original until you have done this.

WhyUpload is a set of file tools. Nothing on this site is legal, compliance, financial, medical, tax or other professional advice. WhyUpload does not decide whether a document is legally valid, properly filed, compliant, accessible or safe to disclose. Get professional advice when the outcome matters.

Signatures you add here are visual marks: a drawn, typed or uploaded image placed on the page. They are not certificate-based digital signatures, and they do not prove who signed or that the file has not changed since. Whether a signature like this has legal effect varies by country and by document. Changing a PDF, for example by merging or flattening it, can also invalidate a certificate signature it already has.

Conversions may not be perfect. Word, Excel and PowerPoint to PDF are standard fidelity, not an exact copy of what the Office apps would produce:

• Word: text uses a built-in sans-serif font, so line and page breaks can differ.
• Excel: formulas show their saved results, and charts and pictures are not included.
• PowerPoint: text uses a built-in sans-serif font, and charts, SmartArt and effects may not be reproduced.

Anything the tool knows it cannot reproduce is listed under "Notes about this file" before you download. Conversions from PDF to other formats and between image formats can also change layout, quality or structure.

PDF to PDF/A checks its result with a preflight that runs locally in your browser. The result is not certified, and the check is not a certified validator. A page that cannot be made to fit may be saved as an image, which can affect quality and text selection. If you need formal proof, verify the file with a dedicated validator such as veraPDF.

OCR can make mistakes, especially on poor scans, handwriting and unusual fonts. It can misread or miss words, including names and numbers. Check any recognized text that matters against the page.

Redact PDF removes the content under your marks rather than covering it, then checks the result before it lets you download. If it cannot prove that a page is clean, it stops and lists that page. You can then choose to turn the page into an image. Hide visually in Edit PDF is different: it only places a cover over content, and that content can still be recovered.

Redaction still has limits you should know about:

• Search and presets (email, phone, card numbers, SSN-like numbers) find only what they can read as text. They can miss things, and they do not read words inside scanned images, so mark those by hand.
• Removed text leaves a gap of exactly the same width, so a short name could be guessed from the gap's size.
• Embedded fonts are kept, so the shapes of removed characters may remain in the font data, though without text or position.
• If an object or image appears under a mark and also in a hidden part of the same page, such as a clipped area, the hidden copy stays.
• Clipping paths under a mark are kept. Their outlines are not painted on the page, but they remain in the file.
• Remove hidden information is on by default. If you turn it off, metadata, scripts and attachments stay in the file unless they mention a redacted word.

The checks are evidence, not a guarantee against every recovery method. Before you share a redacted file, open it, search it for the removed words, and look at every marked page. Keep the unredacted original somewhere safe and do not send it by mistake.

Compare matches pages by their position, so it does not detect pages that were moved or reordered. A comparison with no differences reported does not prove two files are identical.

Results depend on the file. A file that is already optimized may not get smaller, and stronger settings can reduce image quality.

Use password tools only with documents you are authorized to open or change. If you lose a password, WhyUpload cannot recover it for you. Sanitizing can remove links, forms, attachments, metadata, signatures or accessibility information, depending on the mode you pick, so keep the original.

See our Terms of Use for the warranty disclaimer and limit of liability.

Privacy questions and requests: privacy@whyupload.com

Everything else, including accessibility and security reports: support@whyupload.com