CECO PDF

How to edit your resume or CV when you only have the PDF

If you still have the file your CV or resume was made from, change it there and save a new PDF. If you only have the PDF, CECO PDF corrects a typo, a phone number or a job title in place, in its own font, without retyping it, and refuses what it cannot match.

By CECO PDF · Published · Updated · Facts about other tools checked on

First, look for the original file

A PDF is a print of a document. Whether you call it a CV or a resume, if it was written in Word, Google Docs, Canva or another app, that file is the CV: change it there, and save a new PDF from it. Look in your documents, in your cloud storage, and in the email you sent your last application with.

Only the PDF? The ways to update it

Updating a CV you only have as a PDF

WayWhat happens to your CVGood for
Change the original fileNothing is lost: you save a new PDF from itAny change, from a typo to a new job
Convert the PDF to Word1A new Word document, in which lines and pages may break in different places1Rewriting it, or adding a section
Type it againA new CV, laid out again by handA new design
Correct it in place (CECO PDF)Only the corrected words change, and that is checkedA typo, a new phone number or address, a new job title

Converting to Word makes a copy; Microsoft says the original PDF is not changed, and that the converted document might not match the original page for page1. A CV laid out in columns, with a photo or a coloured side bar, has more of what can move: Microsoft lists frames, page colours and tables with cell spacing among the elements known to convert badly2.

An example, on an invented CV

Take a one-page CV, or resume, for an invented project coordinator, saved as a PDF two years ago, with the Word file long gone. Three things need changing: a heading that reads “Managment”, a mobile number that has changed since, and the job title in the current role, now that the coordinator has been promoted to project manager.

  1. Open the PDF in CECO PDF, in the browser.
  2. Select “Managment”, type “Management”, and apply the correction. Do the same for the number, and for the job title.
  3. Read each corrected line. The rest of the page, the columns, the side bar and the photo, stays as it was, and that is checked before you can download.
  4. Download the corrected CV, and keep the old one.

A new job, with its own lines, is a new section rather than a correction: write it in the original file, or in Word. And if your CV is a scan of a printed page, editing a scanned PDF works the same way on the scan.

Can I edit my resume or CV PDF online for free?

Online, yes: CECO PDF runs in the browser, with nothing to install, and is free to try. What the download costs is below, after how a correction works.

Select the words, type what they should say, and apply the correction. Where the page has real text, the new words are typed into it, in the document's own font. On a scan they are made from the page's own letters where it has them, or drawn to match the letters around them, and the result says which. Then the page is drawn again, before and after, a scan at 300 dots per inch and a page of real text at 150, and the two are compared pixel by pixel: the corrected file can be downloaded only once no pixel outside the corrected words has changed.

When the paper behind the words, a stamp across the line or the typeface cannot be matched, the correction is refused with its reason, and the document stays as it was. There is no replace-all: each correction is made where you point, and checked there. The corrected file carries a record of every change, and CECO PDF refuses identity documents at upload. Correct only documents that are yours, or that you are entitled to alter, as the terms say.

Corrections are free, up to 10 a day, on files of up to 15 MB and 50 pages without a credit or a plan. Signed in, your first corrected download each day costs nothing; after it, one takes a credit or a plan. One corrected document costs €0.99, and a pack of 10 costs €4.99; the Personal plan is €9.99 a month or €89.99 a year, and Business €24.99 a month or €224.99 a year. Prices include VAT, and the pricing page says what each allows.

Correct your CV or resume now — it opens the tool, with nothing to install. Editing the text of a PDF in its own font says more.

When another way is the better choice

Before you send it

Read the whole CV again, whichever way you changed it, and compare the old and new versions with PDF compare, which shows every change between two PDFs. Keep the old file until the new one has gone out.

How we checked

On we read each maker's own pages, listed under Sources: prices, product pages, help pages and their questions and answers. Every statement about another tool comes from those pages, quoted where the exact words matter, and where they do not say something, neither do we. We did not upload files to any of these tools: this compares what each maker says its tool does, not our own tests of it. Word is the one product this guide names, because converting to it is the usual way to change a PDF; its maker's own pages are cited.

Prices are the ones each page showed us, in the currency it showed. They can differ by country, tax and offer, so check the maker's page before you buy. Facts about CECO PDF come from the service itself: its prices, limits and how long it keeps files are read from its own settings each time this page is served. If something here is out of date, the page is corrected and dated again.

Sources

Each page below was read on , on its maker's own website. A number in the text leads to the page the fact came from.

  1. Microsoft: Edit a PDF, in Word. support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/b2d1d729-6b79-499a-bcdb-233379c2f63a
  2. Microsoft: Opening PDFs in Word. support.microsoft.com/en-us/word/opening-pdfs-in-word

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