PDkefPDF appOn-device
Install it, use it anywhere

Install a PDF App That Works With No Internet

Add PDkef to your home screen or dock and it becomes a real app, no App Store required: the same tool, filling and signing PDFs exactly the way it does in a browser tab, except it now keeps working with no connection at all, because it never needed the network to begin with.

Why it matters

Paperwork has a habit of happening where the signal doesn't

Think about where you actually end up filling in forms. A clinic waiting room in a basement. The back office of a government building. A plane, an hour before you land and need the arrival form done. A train through a valley. Abroad, with data roaming off and the hotel wifi asking for a room number you don't have yet.

A tool that uploads your document can't help you in any of those places, and it tends to fail at the worst moment: not when you open it, but three fields from the end, when it tries to send. Doing the work on your own device removes that entire category of problem. There is no request to fail, so a bad signal is just a bad signal rather than lost work.

Set up once

Install it like a regular app

Because every tool already runs locally with nothing uploaded, your device can simply keep a copy of the whole thing. Installing takes a few seconds and one connection, after which it opens from your dock or home screen like anything else you've installed.

Chrome & Edge

Click the install icon (a screen with a down arrow) at the right-hand end of the address bar, or open the browser menu and choose "Install PDkef".

Safari (iPhone/iPad)

Tap the Share button, scroll down the list, and select "Add to Home Screen". It has to be Safari; Chrome on iOS can't do this.

Safari (Mac)

Click the Share button in the toolbar and choose "Add to Dock...".

No install icon in the address bar? It usually means the page hasn't finished loading yet, or you're in a private window, where browsers don't offer it. You don't strictly need to install anything either: an ordinary browser tab keeps working offline too once you've visited once. Installing just makes it easy to find when there's no connection to search with.

While you work

Your half-finished form isn't riding on one open tab

Long forms rarely get done in one sitting. As you type into fields, tick boxes and place a signature, the tool writes your progress to your device's own storage in the background. Close the tab, run out of battery, or let the browser quietly discard the page while you take a call: open the tool again and your work is where you left it.

The document itself is saved alongside the edits, so you don't have to find the original file again either. Drafts are kept for 14 days and then cleared, and loading a different file into the same tool replaces the one that was there. Downloading your finished PDF deliberately doesn't wipe it, so noticing a typo two minutes later isn't a disaster.

The honest limit: this is your device's storage, not an account, so the draft stays in the browser you started in. Nothing syncs to a phone, because syncing would mean uploading, and that's the one thing this is built not to do. Crash recovery without a server is a fair trade for that.

What "offline" really means here

Not a reduced offline mode

Plenty of apps have an offline mode that queues your work up and syncs it later, which means the important part still happens on a server eventually. This isn't that. The code that reads your PDF, places your signature and writes the finished file has always run on your device, connection or not, so there's nothing to queue and nothing waiting to be sent when you reconnect. Offline isn't a fallback mode here, it's just the normal mode with the wifi off. You can check that claim yourself in about a minute.

Open the Sign & Fill tool
Got questions?

Frequently asked questions

Do I need an internet connection to fill out a form?

Only for the very first visit, to fetch the tool itself. Once it is stored on your device, it opens and works with no connection at all, the same way an installed app does.

What happens to my progress if I lose connection partway through?

Nothing, because filling out the form never depended on the connection. Your work is saved to your own device as you go, not to a server, so there is no session to drop and no upload to fail.

How long is my in-progress form kept?

Up to 14 days, after which it is cleared automatically. Loading a different file into the same tool replaces the saved draft, and downloading your finished PDF doesn't clear it, so you can come back and adjust something.

Can I start a form on my laptop and finish it on my phone?

No, and this is the honest trade-off of keeping everything local. Your saved progress lives in the browser you started in, on that device, because there is no server holding a copy to sync from. You can use the tool on any device, but a half-finished form doesn't travel between them.

Does the offline install work on my phone, or only a computer?

Both. Install it from Chrome or Edge on a computer, or add it to your Home Screen from Safari on an iPhone or iPad. On iOS it has to be Safari, as other browsers there cannot install web apps.

Once I am back online, does my form data get uploaded?

No. Nothing uploads your file at any point, online or offline. Reconnecting changes nothing about where your document lives, which is on your device and nowhere else.

Same suite

More PDF tools

Every one of these runs on your device, free, with nothing uploaded.