How to Check a PDF Before You Share It

A PDF often carries more than the pages you see. Attached files, text that is still there under a black box, identifiers you forgot were in a table, a signature that no longer matches. Looking at the document on screen shows none of that. This is a routine for the minute before you press send, with a tool for each step. Nothing here is legal advice; it is about finding things so that you can decide.

1. Is anything attached inside?

A PDF can embed files: a spreadsheet behind a report, an XML invoice, a document you never meant to include. Most viewers hide them. The PDF Attachments Extractor lists everything embedded, shows what each file really is (not what it is called) and lets you save it. If a file you expected is missing, or one you did not expect is there, you have found a problem.

2. Is there personal data you did not intend to share?

Private IBANs, phone numbers, email addresses, tax and ID numbers and birth dates turn up in exports and scans of contracts. The PDF Personal Data Scanner reads the text layer and lists likely identifiers by page, with a confidence and the reason for each. It finds patterns, so it also flags numbers that only look like identifiers and it misses data written unusually or contained in images. Treat the list as a prompt to look, not as a verdict.

3. Is what you "blacked out" really gone?

Drawing a black rectangle over text in a PDF editor usually leaves the text underneath it: select the area or copy it, and the words appear. Real removal means deleting the text or turning the page into a picture. If a page is an image there is no text to find, which is how the ID Copy Watermark & Redact tool works (it rebuilds each page from an image). After redacting, run the scanner again and try to select text on the page.

4. Is it signed, and still intact?

If the PDF carries a digital signature, any change you make afterwards, even adding a page number, breaks it. The PAdES PDF Signature Inspector tells you whether the signed bytes still match and shows what the signature contains. It does not evaluate trust, and the guide to PDF signatures explains what that leaves open.

5. Does it need to be PDF/A?

Archives, courts and tender portals sometimes ask for PDF/A. The PDF/A Checker & Converter reads what the file declares and flags common structural problems, such as fonts that are not embedded. It is not a full validation, and converting changes the file (signatures and attachments are lost), so keep the original.

6. Can everyone read it?

A PDF without tags, a language and a title is hard or impossible to use with a screen reader, and a scanned page with no text layer cannot be read at all. The PDF Accessibility Checker reports these basics. A clean result does not make a document accessible; reading order and the quality of alternative text need a human.

7. What else travels with it?

Photos you paste into a document can carry camera and location data from the original file. Remove it before you build the document: the guide to EXIF and GPS data explains what a photo reveals, and the Image Metadata Remover strips it without re-encoding the picture.

A last look

Open the file the way the recipient will, in a different viewer if you can, scroll through every page, and check the file name. A file called "final_v3_with_client_bank_details.pdf" says something too.