Getting Started with the DocLab Desktop App

This guide covers the Windows / macOS desktop app. (For quick edits with no install, use the free web tools.) Everything happens on your device — nothing is uploaded.

1. Open a PDF

Click Pick PDF… on the welcome screen, or
Drag a PDF anywhere onto the window.
Drop two or more files to combine them, or drop images to turn them into a searchable PDF.

Recently-opened files appear on the welcome screen and under File → Open Recent.

2. Find your way around

Top menus group everything: File, Edit, View, Page, Annotate, Help.
Bottom toolbar keeps your most-used actions a click away.
Command palette — press Ctrl / Cmd + K and type to run any action instantly.
All shortcuts — press Ctrl + / for the full list.

3. Annotate

Open the Annotate menu (or use the toolbar) and pick a tool:

Markup — Highlight, Underline, Strikethrough, Squiggly. Drag across text and it snaps neatly to the words.
Notes & text — Sticky notes, text boxes, and callouts.
Draw — Rectangle, oval, line, arrow, and free-hand ink, in your own colors and stroke width.

Click an annotation to move, resize, recolor, or delete it. Ctrl + Z undoes anything.

4. Organize pages

From the Page menu (or the Pages sidebar):

Arrange — rotate, delete, insert, duplicate, or extract pages.
Stamp — add watermarks or headers & footers.
Layout — crop or resize.

Drag thumbnails in the Pages sidebar to reorder.

5. Make a scan searchable (OCR)

Got a scanned PDF or an image? Page → Recognize Text (OCR) — or the Image → PDF action on the welcome screen — adds a searchable text layer so you can Ctrl + F, select, and copy. It uses your computer’s built-in text recognition: no setup, no internet.

6. Redact

Need to remove sensitive information? Annotate → Redact truly deletes the underlying text and image data — a real removal, not a black rectangle drawn on top — and can strip hidden metadata in the same step.

7. Save

Ctrl + S saves; Save As writes a copy.
Saves are atomic: if your computer is interrupted mid-save, your original file is left untouched.

Handy extras

Tabs — open several PDFs at once. Ctrl + T for a new tab, Ctrl + 1…9 to jump between them.
Combine — File → Combine PDFs (or drop multiple files) merges them into one.
Compare — File → Compare highlights what changed between two PDFs.

Need a hand? File an issue or use Help → Report an Issue inside the app.