How to edit a PDF table on iPhone without breaking it

Invoices, price lists, reports, timetables: change what's in a PDF table on your iPhone, and the table still looks like a table when you're done. The whole edit happens on your phone, so the document is never uploaded anywhere.

Why tables are hard to edit in a PDF

A PDF doesn't know it contains a table. It only stores lines and words at fixed positions. If new text is simply drawn where the old text was, a longer price can spill over the grid lines, or a longer description can run into the row below. Sheaf recognises the table's grid, so it makes room for your edit instead.

Change the text in a cell

1. Open the PDF in Sheaf and choose Edit PDF.
2. Tap inside the cell you want to change. It's outlined so you can see what you're editing.
3. Tap Edit cell and type.
4. If your new text is longer, the row grows to fit, and the rows below move down, like in a word processor.
5. Tap Save when you're done.

Resize a whole table

1. Select the table in Edit PDF.
2. Drag its corner to make it bigger or smaller.
3. The grid scales, while the words keep their size and stay sharp, instead of being stretched like an image.

Tables that keep their layout, files that stay on your iPhone

The documents with tables in them are usually the private ones: invoices with client names, quotes with prices, payslips, reports. Sheaf rebuilds the table on your iPhone itself, so you get a clean layout without sending the file to a server. No upload, no account, and it works in airplane mode.

Honest limits

Tables drawn with visible grid lines work best, because the lines are how Sheaf finds the rows and columns. Tables laid out with spacing only (no lines) can be edited line by line instead, with the regular text tools.

What's free

Table editing is part of Edit PDF and free to use. You can save 3 files a day for free by watching one short ad each, on files up to 15 pages or 10 MB; otherwise it's $0.99 per file, or Pro for no ads and no limits.