Create New PDF Document

How to create a PDF from scratch — 3 steps

1. 1

   Open a blank document

   Start with an empty page in the editor. Everything is built in your browser, so nothing you write is transmitted while you work.

2. 2

   Add your content

   Place text, images, and shapes on the page and position them where you want. Add as many pages as the document needs and order them as you go.

3. 3

   Export the PDF

   Generate the finished file. It opens in Acrobat, Preview, browsers, and any other standard reader, and prints as it appears on screen.

When building a PDF directly is the right approach

Most PDFs begin life somewhere else and are exported. That is the right path for anything long or text-heavy, because a word processor gives you styles, automatic numbering, a contents page, and reflowing text — all things you would otherwise arrange by hand. If you are writing a report, use a word processor and export it.

Building directly makes sense when the document is short and its value is in the layout rather than the prose. A one-page notice, a flyer, a certificate, a label sheet, a cover page, a simple form, a signed declaration — these are documents where you want precise control over where each element sits, and where a word processor fights you by trying to flow content into paragraphs you did not ask for.

It also matters when the output has to be exact. A PDF you assemble by placing elements is what a printer or a recipient will see, pixel for pixel. Exported documents can shift depending on which fonts the exporting machine had available and how the application handled pagination — differences that only surface once the file is somewhere you cannot fix it.

Page size, margins, and designing for a fixed page

PDF is a fixed-layout format, and that is its defining characteristic. Unlike a web page or an e-book, the content does not reflow to fit the reader's screen — the page is a fixed canvas, and everything sits at a fixed coordinate on it. Design for the page size you will actually output, because changing your mind later means moving every element rather than adjusting a setting.

Choose that size at the start. A4 is the standard almost everywhere outside North America, where Letter is the norm — they are close enough to be confused and different enough that a document laid out for one can lose content off the edge when printed on the other. If a document is going to an international audience, A4 is the safer default. Keep margins of at least 12–15mm on all sides: most consumer printers cannot print to the edge of the paper, and content placed nearer than that risks being clipped.

Two details make the difference between a document that looks assembled and one that looks designed. Alignment is the first — elements sharing a common left edge or centre line read as deliberate, while ones off by a few millimetres read as careless, and the eye notices even when it cannot say why. Restraint with typefaces is the second: one typeface used at two or three sizes almost always looks better than three typefaces competing, and it avoids the substitution problems that arise when an unusual font is not embedded properly.

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