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How-toUpdated Sept 2026

Edit a PDF

The PDF editor lets you mark up, stamp, and redact any PDF in the library without leaving ComplyWise. Your work lives in a shared draft until you save it as a new version.

Before you start

  • Editing needs the Editor or Workspace Admin role. View Only members can open the editor to read and comment.
  • Word documents can't be edited directly: convert them to PDF first.

Open the editor

  1. Open the document from the Documents page.
  2. Switch to the Edit tab.

The tools

  • Highlight: drag over a region of the page to highlight it.
  • Text: place a text box; choose size (8 to 48 pt), color, and bold.
  • Shape: rectangles, ellipses, and lines, with stroke color, stroke width, and optional fill. Switch to select mode to move, resize, or restyle anything you've placed.
  • Image: place a PNG or JPEG (up to 8 MB), then drag to position and resize; proportions stay locked.
  • Redact: mark a region for redaction. Marks show as dashed outlines while you work; the removal happens at save (see below).
The editor with the tool bar and a page carrying a highlight and a redaction mark
The editor with the tool bar and a page carrying a highlight and a redaction mark

Watermarks and page numbers

From the toolbar you can add a watermark or page numbers across the document. Both dialogs show a live preview, so you see the result before committing.

Page operations

The Pages rail thumbnails every page. From there you can:

  • Rotate a page
  • Delete a page (deleted pages stay visible as ghosts with an Undo until you save)
  • Reorder pages by dragging

One shared draft

Each document has a single draft that everyone with edit rights shares. Your changes autosave as you work. If a teammate saves the draft while you have it open, a stale banner appears so you never overwrite each other unknowingly: reload to pick up their changes before continuing.

Save as a new version

  1. Click Save as new version.
  2. The dialog summarises what will be applied; add a note describing the change.
  3. Confirm. Everything burns into a brand-new file version: highlights, text, shapes, images, watermark, page numbers, and page operations. The original version stays untouched in history.

What saving a redaction really does

If the draft contains redaction marks, the save button reads Apply redactions & save and warns you the step is destructive. On the marked pages, ComplyWise genuinely removes the underlying content by re-rendering the page as an image with the marked regions blanked. This is not a cosmetic black box: the text underneath is gone from the new version and can't be copied or extracted. The unredacted original remains in version history, so control access to it accordingly.

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