What's the difference between this and Page Count?

Page Count is a one-line answer (just the number). PDF Inspector is the multi-section dashboard — it includes page count plus every other structural and metadata property. Use Page Count when you just need the number; use PDF Inspector when you need the full picture.

Does this detect malicious JavaScript?

We surface every embedded JavaScript with the action it's bound to (page-load / form-submit / link-click / etc.) and the script source for inspection. Determining MALICIOUS intent requires reading the script — there's no automated malware-detection beyond "does it have JavaScript at all". Treat any JavaScript in a PDF from an untrusted source as suspicious by default.

Will this work on encrypted PDFs?

Owner-password (permissions-only) encrypted PDFs work fully — structural metadata is readable. User-password (open-password) encrypted PDFs need the password to expose anything beyond the basic PDF version. Provide the password if you have it, otherwise use our Unlock PDF tool first if it's owner-password only.

Can I export the inspector report?

Each section has a "Copy JSON" button that copies the section's full data structure to your clipboard. The dedicated per-property tools (Fonts, Links, Forms, etc.) also offer CSV export with all the columns.

Does inspection modify the PDF?

No — read-only. PDF Inspector only parses; it never writes. To CHANGE a property (e.g. strip metadata, remove JavaScript, flatten annotations), use our dedicated tools: Remove Metadata, Strip Links, Flatten.

100% client-side. PDFs are parsed in your browser via PDFium + byte-level parsers; nothing uploaded.

All tools

PDF Inspector

Free

See everything inside a PDF — pages, dimensions, word count, reading time + mixed-size warnings. Free, in-browser.

What you'll get: pages, dimensions, word count, reading time, metadata, and mixed-size warnings — one parse, every stat. For another use, try Page Count.

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Stays in your browser

Free tools run fully on-device — nothing is uploaded to a server.

No watermarks

Clean output, no branding, no daily limits.

Free forever

No signup required. Seriously.

Why people use PDF Inspector

A page count looks simple, but the document around it tells you a lot about what to do next. PDF Inspector packs everything you actually need from a free PDF info viewer into one screen.

Pre-print quality audit

Before sending a PDF to print: are all pages the same size? Are the fonts embedded? Is the file size reasonable? One drop, every check at once. Catches failures BEFORE they cost reprint money.

Forensic / tamper review

Mismatched page sizes hint at exhibits inserted after signing. Metadata reveals authoring software and timestamps. Hybrid scan/text detection catches partial OCR. All the signals investigators look for.

Document health check

Is this PDF healthy? Searchable text, consistent dimensions, embedded fonts, clean metadata, modern PDF version, reasonable file size, appropriate encryption posture — six dimensions, scored at a glance.

Pre-publish QA

Before publishing a PDF whitepaper, brochure, or annual report: scrub PII from metadata, verify all pages match the master template, confirm fonts are embedded for archive compliance.

Ingest pipeline validation

Drop a PDF before feeding it into a downstream pipeline (translation, summarization, archival). Detect scans needing OCR, hybrid pages with partial text, encryption blocking access — fail fast with clear signals.

JSON export for batch audits

Auditors processing 50 PDFs can drop each, download the JSON, and feed into a spreadsheet or pipeline. Schema-stable output means your tooling keeps working as we add fields.

How PDF Inspector works

Three steps, no signup, no uploads.

STEP 1
Drop your PDF
Drag & drop or click to select. Files up to 100 MB.
STEP 2
Click Inspect
Google PDFium loads in your browser (one-time, ~3.8 MB) and parses the document.
STEP 3
Copy or move on
Get page count, file size, dimensions, word count, and reading time. Copy the number or jump to a related tool.

What makes pdfcraft ai different

Same engine Chrome uses
PDFium is Google's PDF engine — the one that powers Chrome's built-in PDF viewer. We compile it to WebAssembly so it runs in your browser at near-native speed.
100% local processing
Most free PDF tools upload your file to a server, process it, and stream the result back. We don't. Your file lives in your browser tab and never touches our infrastructure. Verifiable in your browser's Network panel.
No watermark, no signup, no daily limit
Inspect 1 PDF or 1,000. We don't gate on volume because there's nothing to gate on — the engine runs on your machine.
Beyond just page count
iLovePDF and Smallpdf show you a number. We show you size, dimensions, word count, reading time, and flag mixed-orientation issues — same single PDF parse, much more value.
Open standards, free engines
PDFium is BSD/Apache licensed (free for any use). We don't pay vendor license fees and pass that savings on to you (and to ourselves) as a free, ad-supported tool with no upgrade-to-pro pressure.

PDF health checklist — what makes a PDF actually healthy?

A "healthy" PDF prints cleanly, lets readers search and copy text, doesn't leak metadata, and opens reliably across viewers. Here's what to check, and what PDF Inspector flags for you.

Searchable text on every page
Image-only pages (typical of scans) make Ctrl-F useless and break copy-paste, summaries, and translation. Even a single scanned page in an otherwise digital PDF can sink a downstream workflow.
Inspector flags fully-scanned PDFs (“Looks like a scanned PDF”) and hybrid PDFs where some pages are scanned (“N of M pages have extractable text”), with a one-click CTA to make the PDF searchable.
Consistent page size and orientation
Mixed page sizes break batch printing — most printers default to one paper size and silently scale or crop the rest. Mixed orientation messes up two-up reading and ePaper devices.
Inspector confirms when all pages share dimensions (“✓ All pages share the same size and orientation”) and warns when they don’t.
Clean, accurate metadata
Title, Author, and Creator can leak who made the file and when. That matters for redacted documents, anonymous submissions, and compliance workflows. Conversely, missing metadata makes documents harder to search in DMS tools.
Inspector parses the full Info dictionary (Title, Author, Subject, Keywords, Creator, Producer, CreationDate, ModDate) so you can audit before sharing.
Modern PDF version
PDF 1.4 (Acrobat 5, c. 2001) is still legal but lacks features modern viewers expect. PDF 1.7 (ISO 32000-1) is the current baseline. PDF 2.0 (ISO 32000-2) is the future. Older versions can fail in newer viewers and miss security improvements.
Inspector shows the PDF version as a chip in the metadata block.
Reasonable file size
Bloat usually comes from unoptimized embedded images. A 50-page text-only PDF should be under 1 MB; 50 pages with one image per page might run 5–10 MB. Anything dramatically larger means images aren’t being compressed.
Inspector shows the file size so you can spot outliers; pair it with a Compress PDF tool when needed.
Appropriate encryption posture
Permission-only encryption (“you can read it but not print”) is fine for share-restricted documents. Open-password encryption blocks readers entirely, including search engines and accessibility tools, so use it sparingly.
Inspector surfaces an “Encrypted” badge in the metadata block when an /Encrypt entry is present.

Frequently asked questions

How accurate is the page count?

Exact. PDFium parses the document's page tree directly, the same way Adobe Acrobat and Chrome's PDF viewer do. The number you see matches what your PDF reader shows.

Is my PDF uploaded anywhere?

No. Everything happens inside your browser using Google's PDFium engine compiled to WebAssembly. The file never touches our servers — there is no upload step. You can verify this in your browser's Network tab while running the tool.

What's the file size limit?

100 MB. Larger files would risk freezing the browser tab during PDFium's parse step. For documents above 100 MB, split the PDF first (coming soon) or use the desktop pdf-lib CLI.

Why does the word count show an asterisk for some PDFs?

For documents over 100 pages, the word count is an estimate — we sample the first 20 and last 5 pages, average the words-per-page, and extrapolate. The asterisk and 'approx (sampled)' label flag this. For ≤100-page PDFs, every page is counted exactly.

What does 'mixed page sizes' mean?

We sample several pages and check if they share the same dimensions. If your PDF has, say, mostly Letter pages with a couple of Legal-sized inserts, we flag this — it usually trips up batch printing because most printers default to one paper size and silently scale or crop the mismatched pages.

Why are the dimensions in inches?

Most printers and document workflows in the US/UK use inches. Multiply by 25.4 for millimeters, or by 72 for PDF points (the unit PDFium uses internally). A4 portrait is 8.27 × 11.69 in / 595 × 842 pt.

Can I count pages across multiple PDFs at once?

Not yet — batch mode is on the roadmap (Inspector P2). For now, drop each PDF separately. If you need to count 50+ files for an invoice or audit, contact support — we can prioritize the batch upgrade.

Does this work on encrypted (password-protected) PDFs?

We can read the page count of a PDF with permission-only encryption (no open password). If the PDF requires a password to open, you'll need to unlock it first — Unlock PDF tool returning soon.

What metadata can you see?

PDFs carry an Info dictionary with up to eight fields: Title, Author, Subject, Keywords, Creator (the app that produced the source — Word, InDesign, etc.), Producer (the PDF library that wrote the file), CreationDate, and ModDate. The inspector parses whichever of these are populated. Modern producers also embed an XMP metadata stream (RDF/XML); we don't surface that yet.

Why is some metadata missing for my PDF?

Three common reasons. (1) The PDF was scrubbed — privacy-conscious workflows strip Info before sharing. (2) The PDF uses cross-reference streams (PDF 1.5+) that compress object locations in a way our byte parser can't follow. (3) The PDF is encrypted — we read the encryption flag but can't decrypt the Info dict. In all three, the inspector still shows pages, dimensions, word count, and reading time.

Should I remove metadata before sharing a PDF?

Often yes — Author, Creator, and dates can leak who made the file and when, which matters for redacted documents, anonymous submissions, or compliance workflows. The metadata you see in the inspector is the same metadata Acrobat or Preview would show. A dedicated remove-metadata tool is on the roadmap.

Need more than a page count?

PDF Inspector is one of 113 tools on pdfcraft ai. Most are free, all are private.

Browse all tools

Related PDF tools

Other tools in the Inspect category — built on the same private, in-browser pipeline.

Visual DiffFree

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Search in PDFFree

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PDF Outline ViewerFree

View the bookmark / table-of-contents tree of any PDF, with page references. Useful for previewing long docs before reading. Free, in-browser.

PDF Form InspectorFree

List every AcroForm field in a PDF — name, type, value, required/read-only flags. Export as CSV or JSON. Free, in-browser.

PDF Attachments ListerFree

List every embedded file in a PDF — filename, description, MIME type, size. Useful for compliance audits and security review. Free, in-browser.

Extract Emails & PhonesFree

Pull every email address and phone number out of a PDF as a deduped table. Indian + international phone formats, page references, CSV export. Free, in-browser.

Use cases for this tool

Step-by-step workflows that put this tool to work.

How to remove hidden metadata from a PDF before publishing

Strip author names, software tags, and edit history before a document goes public.