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SteveTheKiller

SteveTheKiller/KillerPDF

A free, open-source Windows PDF editor with a built-in PDF 2.0 engine for viewing, annotating, OCR, merging, splitting, signing and more.

Open-source alternative to:Adobe AcrobatFoxit PDF Editor

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What is it?

KillerPDF is a free, open-source PDF editor for Windows that aims to cover everyday PDF work without an Adobe subscription. It handles viewing with several page layouts, annotation, built-in OCR with Tesseract, page organization such as merging, splitting and cropping, form filling, digital signatures, and printing. Password-protected files prompt for a password instead of failing, and damaged files can be repaired.

The editor is built on The KillerPDF.Engine, a separate .NET library for PDF 2.0, PDF/A and PDF/UA processing that can also be reused on its own. PDFium handles rendering and PdfPig handles text extraction. Document processing stays local, with no account or telemetry; update checks are optional.

Beyond the GUI, most core operations can run from the command line, including merge, split, decrypt, convert to image, flatten, print and batch resave. Two Windows builds are available: a compact installer and a self-contained portable edition. It targets .NET 10 and is licensed under GPLv3.

Key features

  • 01Multiple view modes, tabbed documents and side-by-side split panes
  • 02Annotations including text boxes, drawing, highlights and stamps
  • 03Built-in OCR that makes searchable PDFs and extracts text
  • 04Page tools for merging, splitting, rotating, cropping and reordering
  • 05Form filling and digital signatures with Windows certificates or .pfx files
  • 06Command-line operations for merge, split, decrypt, OCR and printing

Use cases

  • Editing and annotating PDFs on Windows without a paid Adobe subscription
  • Turning scanned documents into searchable PDFs with local OCR
  • Batch-processing PDFs from scripts through the command line
  • Filling and signing forms on a machine that must not send documents to the cloud

Quick start

  1. 1

    Install via WinGet

    winget install killerpdf
  2. 2

    Or install via Chocolatey

    choco install killerpdf
  3. 3

    Or download the standard installer from the releases page

Things to know

  • Windows 10 or 11 (x64) only.
  • GPL-3.0 license requires derivative works to be released under GPLv3 with source.

Topics

#pdf#pdf-editor#windows#ocr#csharp#dotnet#pdf-viewer#digital-signature#dotnet-core#fast

FAQ

What is KillerPDF?
A free, open-source Windows PDF editor with a built-in PDF 2.0 engine for viewing, annotating, OCR, merging, splitting, signing and more. KillerPDF is a free, open-source PDF editor for Windows that aims to cover everyday PDF work without an Adobe subscription. It handles viewing with several page layouts, annotation, built-in OCR with Tesseract, page organization such as merging, splitting and cropping, form filling, digital signatures, and printing. Password-protected files prompt for a password instead of failing, and damaged files can be repaired.
Is KillerPDF free to use? What license does it have?
KillerPDF is open source under the GPL-3.0 license. Check the license terms before using it in commercial products.
Is KillerPDF still maintained?
Actively maintained. The last commit to KillerPDF was on Oct 14, 2026.
What can I use KillerPDF for?
Editing and annotating PDFs on Windows without a paid Adobe subscription Turning scanned documents into searchable PDFs with local OCR Batch-processing PDFs from scripts through the command line Filling and signing forms on a machine that must not send documents to the cloud
How do I install KillerPDF?
Install via WinGet: winget install killerpdf Or install via Chocolatey: choco install killerpdf Or download the standard installer from the releases page
Where can I get KillerPDF?
The source code and installation instructions are on GitHub: https://github.com/SteveTheKiller/KillerPDF

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