iLovePDF and File4Edit side by side
Everything this page says about iLovePDF comes from iLovePDF's own public pages as of September 2026, and the last column of the table names the page behind each row. Plans and limits change, so check the page itself before you rely on a figure.
| Compared on | iLovePDF | File4Edit | Source for iLovePDF |
|---|---|---|---|
| Where the file is processed | Its web tools upload it to iLovePDF's servers, which keep it for up to two hours so you can download the result | In your browser tab, so the file never leaves your device | iLovePDF FAQ page, as of September 2026 |
| Price | Basic is free; Premium is billed monthly or yearly; Business is priced on request | Free, with no paid plan | iLovePDF Pricing page, as of September 2026 |
| Files per task on the free plan | Set per tool: 25 for Merge PDF, 2 for Compress PDF, 1 for PDF to Word and for OCR PDF | Any number in Merge PDF and Image to PDF; the other PDF tools take one PDF at a time, as often as you like | iLovePDF Pricing page, as of September 2026 |
| File size per task on the free plan | Set per tool: 200 MB for Compress PDF, 100 MB for Merge PDF, 15 MB for PDF to Word; Premium raises most tools to 4 GB | No set limit; a very large file is limited by your device's memory | iLovePDF Pricing page, as of September 2026 |
| OCR and Office files | OCR PDF, PDF to Word, Excel and PowerPoint, and Word, Excel and PowerPoint to PDF | None: no text recognition and no Office conversion | iLovePDF home page, as of September 2026 |
| Signing, editing and passwords | Sign PDF, Edit PDF, PDF Forms, Protect PDF and Unlock PDF | None of these | iLovePDF home page, as of September 2026 |
| Cloud storage | Files can be imported from Google Drive or Dropbox and saved back there | None; files open from and save to your device | iLovePDF FAQ page, as of September 2026 |
| Apps | A desktop app for Windows and Mac and a mobile app for iOS and Android, listed under Premium | None; the site runs in a desktop or phone browser | iLovePDF Pricing page, as of September 2026 |
| Offline use | The desktop app processes PDF tasks offline with a subscription, beside a free PDF reader | Each tool keeps working offline after you have used it once with the network on; a format that needs extra code, such as HEIC in Chrome or WebP in Safari, needs one online use of its own | iLovePDF Desktop App page, as of September 2026 |
File4Edit is not affiliated with iLovePDF; iLovePDF and the other trademarks named here belong to their owners.
When to use iLovePDF instead
Several jobs are beyond File4Edit, and for those iLovePDF is the one to use:
- A scanned document you need to search or copy text from. iLovePDF's OCR PDF tool recognizes the text in a scan, and File4Edit has no text recognition at all.
- A PDF that has to become an editable Word, Excel or PowerPoint file, or an Office file that has to become a PDF.
- A document to sign, a form to fill in, text to correct, or a password to add or remove.
- Files that live in Google Drive or Dropbox, or work you want to do in an installed app on a desktop or a phone.
Its Security and data protection page, as of September 2026, says files processed on its platform are deleted automatically and permanently within two hours, and that signed documents are kept for up to five years to meet legal requirements. Whether that arrangement suits a particular document is for you to decide.
When File4Edit fits instead of iLovePDF
File4Edit's PDF tools open and write the file inside your browser tab with pdf.js and pdf-lib, two JavaScript libraries, so a contract, a tax return or a medical record is changed without a copy going to anyone's server. It fits jobs like these:
- Documents you would rather not upload anywhere, or that your employer or your clients expect to stay on your own computer.
- Long runs of work. Merge PDF takes as many files as you add, and no tool limits how often you use it; the other PDF tools work on one document at a time.
- Quick jobs with nothing to sign up for and nothing to install.
The comparison is closest on the jobs both of them do:
- Merge PDF joins PDFs in the order you set, taking whole files or page ranges, and copies the pages rather than re-rendering them.
- Compress PDF recompresses only the images with Keep text, so the text stays selectable, or rebuilds every page as an image with Rasterize pages, which suits scans.
- Split PDF cuts a file into single pages, typed ranges, or chunks of a set number of pages.
- Organize PDF pages reorders, rotates, duplicates and deletes pages.
The rest of the set crops pages, stamps a text watermark, adds page numbers, edits a PDF's metadata, turns pages into images, builds a PDF from photos, and copies out the text a PDF already holds. Free PDF tools lists every one.
How can you check where a PDF tool sends your file?
Watch the traffic. Open your browser's developer tools, pick the Network panel and run the tool on a small PDF: an upload appears as a request roughly the size of the document. Run File4Edit's tools the same way and no request carries your file.
Is it safe to upload files to online converters? covers what to look for in a service that does upload, from how long it keeps files to who runs it.