Master PDF Editor
Desktop PDF editor for editing, converting and signing, with vendor-documented redaction and a demo watermark.
Operated by Code Industry Ltd
Where your files are processed
Mixed — depends on version and feature
The vendor's own documentation separates them. On the device: Master PDF Editor on the desktop. On their servers: Activation and update checks. A single answer for the whole product would be wrong for one of them.
It is an installed desktop application, so documents are opened and edited on the machine. That is a statement about the architecture rather than about network behaviour: the activation guide documents online activation options and update checks, so the record does not claim that no server is involved or that the only network step is activation, and the network behaviour has not been independently tested.
What it does
A desktop PDF editor from Code Industry that runs on Windows, macOS and Linux. It edits existing text, images and vector objects, creates and fills interactive forms, runs OCR on scanned pages, and handles watermarks, headers and footers, Bates numbering, bookmarks, digital signatures and password or certificate encryption. It can also merge, split, rotate and crop pages and convert to PDF/A.
Best for: Linux and macOS users who want a full Acrobat-style editor under a perpetual licence rather than a subscription.
Worth knowing: The free download is a demo build whose only stated limitation is a watermark on output, so it is not a clean free tier, and refunds are only given for unresolvable technical faults. Redaction is vendor-documented as permanent removal after Apply Redactions, and the marking is distinct from applying and saving; the output is untested, which is consistent with the unresolved redaction field. Version scope matters when citing historical documentation, because the old 3.7 manual cannot establish unrestricted free use for the current release. Batch support is identified per operation rather than assumed across the feature set.
Details, and where each comes from
Vendor statements, our own reading of their pages, and the things nobody has established yet, each answered separately. Where we have not confirmed something it says so rather than guessing, and a row nobody has established is greyed out.
- Versions covered
- Windows · macOS · Linux
- Website
- code-industry.net
- Requires an account
- No
- Free tier
- No
- Watermark on trial output
- Yes
- Maximum file size
- Not verified
- Batch processing
- Not verified
- Data residency
- Not verified
- Open source
- No
- Self-hostable
- No
- Licence
- proprietary
- Redaction
- Not determined
- Programmatic access
- None
- Last availability check
- Responded in 648 ms 16 October 2026
Checked automatically by our own runner, not reported by the vendor. 100% of our last 30 checks got a response.
Why we have not determined this
“Redacting allows you to permanently hide private or sensitive information in a PDF document. … The redacted parts appear as colored boxes instead of the original information.”
What that does not establish: Downgraded from removes_content on 2026-09-22. Its own documentation says "permanently hide" and describes only the appearance — coloured boxes replacing the information — and its product page does not mention redaction at all. "Hide" is the word covering tools use, and this index exists because hiding and removing are different things. THE WEAKEST BASIS ON THIS PAGE, AND POSSIBLY A WRONG VERDICT. The vendor says "permanently hide" and describes only the appearance — coloured boxes replacing the information. "Hide" is the word covering tools use, and this guide exists because hiding and removing are different things. The product page says nothing about redaction at all. This verdict should be tested on a canary document or downgraded to unverified.
https://code-industry.net/masterpdfeditor-help/redacting-pdf-document/
What the vendor says
Claims are labelled rather than repeated as fact. Where we have checked something ourselves, it says so and shows when. Checked means we read the vendor's own page and it says what we recorded — not that we tested the behaviour, unless the note says we did.
-
“Redacting a PDF document permanently removes the redacted data from the document, so make sure to save the redacted PDF under a different file name than the original document, otherwise the redacted data will be lost.”
Checked by us — the source says this Read 22 September 2026
Confirmed verbatim. Under 'Redacting PDF Document' the manual states: "IMPORTANT: Redacting a PDF document permanently removes the redacted data from the document, so make sure to save the redacted PDF under a different file name than the original document, otherwise the redacted data will be lost." The claim is that sentence, unaltered. Two things it does not establish: the manual describes the desktop editor for Windows, macOS and Linux rather than any browser tool, and we have not run a document through it, so the permanence is the vendor's account of their own implementation and not our observation. The page is also clear that redaction is a two-step operation, marking then applying, which matters to anyone comparing it with tools that remove on save.
Standing: Re-read and matched byte for byte
Check it yourself: the source, the SHA-256, and how we checked
- From
- the text a browser renders
- SHA-256
- 126bcc22019cdcf38429f21e89465fe1236f231f276348778809dcc92a29de5b
How we checked: Re-verified verbatim on 2026-09-22: https://code-industry.net/masterpdfeditor-help/redacting-pdf-document/ re-rendered in headless Chrome with scripts/render-page.mjs and the claim's wording found in the rendered text. Originally verified on 2026-09-21. sourceHash is the SHA-256 of the re-rendered text, held as rv-code-industry-net-masterpdfeditor-help-redacting-pdf-docum-727c7614.txt.
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“Demo version has no functional limitations except for a watermark on output file.”
Checked by us — the source says this Read 22 September 2026
Confirmed verbatim: the sentence appears unaltered, in a paragraph that also says the demo "allows you to test all the possibilities the software provides and see if it fits your requirements". A single watermarked output file is a materially more generous evaluation than the other demos in this index — Aspose caps evaluation documents at four pages and PDFix watermarks free output, while this restricts nothing functionally. Recorded as the vendor's description; no download was made and no control was run.
Standing: Re-read and matched byte for byte
Check it yourself: the source, the SHA-256, and how we checked
- From
- the text a browser renders
- SHA-256
- fdbb2cc09a1920c275937ee1d9010d86493c9c4e84805b012d3b5b38b8fa0c04
How we checked: Re-verified verbatim on 2026-09-22: https://code-industry.net/purchase/ re-rendered in headless Chrome with scripts/render-page.mjs and the claim's wording found in the rendered text. Originally verified on 2026-09-21. sourceHash is the SHA-256 of the re-rendered text, held as rv-code-industry-net-purchase-ff34c9c2.txt.
Each claim is quoted from the vendor's own pages. This section describes what we have and have not checked — it is not a judgement about anyone.
Sponsorship is distribution, not an endorsement or a promise of search rankings, AI citations, traffic, or sales. This listing is a free entry, compiled from published sources.
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