Table of content

Share this article

  • Home
  • /
  • Edit Pdfs
  • /
  • [Proven] 5 PDF Quality Enhancers to Increase Document Clarity

[Proven] 5 PDF Quality Enhancers to Increase Document Clarity

  • By Charlotte
  • |
  • Follow
  • twitter
  • |
  • Updated on August 20, 2025
Introduction:
According to Mobiqode, 98% of businesses use PDFs for external communication. Over 2.5 trillion PDFs exist globally. No wonder a PDF editor remains in high demand. Having said that, users often feel the need to enhance PDF quality to increase the clarity of the file or visual effect for better visibility and readability. This blog post aims to lessen your worries. Explore 5 expert PDF quality enhancers designed to improve text crispness and image sharpness. Enhance your files effortlessly for crisp printing and smooth digital use.
summary

Best PDF Editor to Enhance PDF Quality - SwifDoo PDF

SwifDoo PDF is a flexible, fast, and easy-to-use application. It delivers various tools designed to improve and control PDFs effectively. Be a PDF text enhancer, it helps boost readability and clarity by letting users edit, clean up, or convert files. With tools to enhance both text and images, SwifDoo PDF ensures your documents are sharp, clear, and easy to use. It acts as a PDF quality enhancer to sharpen and clarify document content through text editing functions. 

Discover more top features and functions included in SwifDoo PDF.

  • Deskew a PDF to straighten the scanned page content
  • Use OCR to extract text to convert PDF to an editable version, allowing users to select the text and apply a black or darker color for better visibility
  • Convert PDF to Word and clean up the text and other elements to make everything quality and fine, and save back to an enhanced PDF with improved quality

 Best PDF Editor to Enhance PDF Quality - SwifDoo PDF

1. Online2PDF

Online2PDF is a free PDF enhancer that offers tools to convert, merge, compress, and edit PDFs directly in your browser. This PDF quality enhancer and improver is available online for free. You can adjust image resolution, apply OCR to scanned documents, and reduce file size without losing too much clarity. This makes it a practical option for enhancing readability and optimizing PDFs for digital use.

Online2PDF PDF quality enhancer

Pros

  • PDF clarity enhancer can improve PDF text quality online for free
  • Effortlessly change text color in PDFs
  • Enables users to choose settings like image quality, color depth, and OCR language to fine-tune the output result
  • Does not save uploaded files, ensuring privacy and safety

Cons

  • Not suitable for advanced image/visual quality enhancement
  • Lacks AI-powered enhancement tools
  • Uploaded files are never shared with outside apps or websites
  • The maximum file size is 150 MB, the total upload limit is 200 MB, and only up to 30 files are allowed

Pricing: Free browser (web-based) tool

2. i2PDF

i2PDF is another PDF resolution enhancer that can improve the page quality of a scanned PDF. This results in better display, readability, and printing. Whether it’s class notes, meeting records, or checklists, this online PDF quality enhancer and improver can help you achieve clearer documents. Remember that i2PDF first converts PDF pages into images and enhances them. Then, it converts images back to non-editable PDFs.

i2PDF PDF quality enhancer

Pros

  • PDF image quality and resolution enhancer
  • Offers unlimited uploads, and no email or registration is required
  • Uploaded files are never shared with outside apps or websites
  • Enables setting the background values and saturation for the preferred output

Cons

  • Lacks AI-based tools for image sharpening, noise reduction, or deep quality restoration
  • Limited ability to apply quality enhancements to multiple files at once
  • Doesn’t integrate with cloud storage or offer collaborative editing features
  • May restrict very large files or high-resolution enhancements depending on browser and device performance

Pricing: Free online (web-based) tool

3. Viesus PDF

Viesus PDF is a web-based PDF image enhancer that can improve image quality, sharpness, and color in PDF documents. Designed for the cloud, with apps available for Windows and Mac, it can upscale PDF images and enhance color without hassle. Undoubtedly, it is ideal for low-resolution documents. The best part? This online PDF enhancer, powered by AI, is also available for free. Be mindful of the fact that the free version limits file processing and enhancement features.

Viesus PDF quality enhancer

Pros

  • Free AI PDF quality enhancer in high pixels with efficient processing of multiple files
  • Enhance photos with AI-powered sharpness, color, brightness, and resolution
  • Enhances only the image components with precision while keeping text, vector elements, and layout intact
  • Boosts image resolution up to 400%, turning a 150 DPI graphic into a crisp 600 DPI version for print-ready outputs

Cons

  • Requires an active internet and subscription for advanced use and fuller functionality
  • Financial constraints may affect smaller users or those with limited resources
  • Enhances images only, without improving text, layout, or vector graphics
  • It may include transferring data and relying on third-party hosting services

Pricing: Free plan available. The prices start at US$10 for the Basic plan and US$90 for the Business plan. 

4. Apago

After some qualified, web-based PDF enhancers that enhance resolution and quality of PDFs, we have Apago for Windows and macOS. Unlike other tools, it offers advanced cleanup tools like deskewing tilted pages and despeckling scanned images. In addition, it helps remove artifacts and even clean up defects like ghosts from hole punches.

As a quality enhancer for PDF documents, it can also automatically remove blank pages in a PDF. And correct common scan defects, making it ideal for preparing clean, print-ready files.

Apago PDF quality enhancer

Pros

  • Enables precise image downsampling and compression to shrink file sizes while maintaining high quality
  • The PDF quality enhancer Supports deskewing, cropping, resizing, rotation, and layout imposition
  • Includes effective color management to boost PDF appearance
  • Insert stamps or watermarks, embed or subset fonts, and convert fonts to outlines with ease

Cons

  • Packed with professional features that may be overwhelming or unnecessary for users seeking only basic PDF enhancements
  • Free trial users have reported that the output has a watermark
  • Doesn't provide AI-driven tools for enhancing image clarity or color depth
  • High subscription fees may be prohibitive for casual users and small businesses

Pricing: Free (10-day trial). The price plan starts at PDF Enhancer Professional Annual Support: US$100 per year, Advanced Server Annual Support: US$600, Advanced Server: US$1999

5. Adobe Acrobat Pro

Finally, we have Adobe Acrobat Pro, a robust PDF file enhancer that uses intelligent image and text optimization tools to increase the clarity of a PDF. The "Enhance Camera Image" feature corrects perspective, shadow, and lighting inconsistencies in smartphone photos automatically. This ensures PDFs are more detailed and polished.

This PDF text quality enhancer helps you fine-tune the quality of scanned documents. This includes options such as adaptive compression, deskewing, background removal, descreening, and text sharpening.

Adobe Acrobat Pro PDF quality enhancer

Pros

  • Scanned blurry PDF enhancer enables balancing file size with readability
  • Robust tools to tailor compression, deskew pages, and remove halftone patterns
  • Select precise settings for image downsampling, compression (JPEG, JPEG2000, ZIP, JBIG2), and quality levels
  • Supports advanced optimization controls that help avoid blurry or unreadable PDFs

Cons

  • Suffers from slow performance, crashes, and lag, even on high-end systems
  • Acrobat’s OCR occasionally underperforms compared to alternatives
  • Steep learning curve with cluttered or unintuitive user interface
  • "Reduce File Size" may lower the quality, and "Optimized PDF" can blur text if not properly adjusted

Pricing: Free trial available. The price plan starts at US$6.99 per month for the Monthly Plan, and the Annual Plan at US$4.99 per month (US$59.88 per year)

Conclusion

When you have scanned documents to PDFs or received or downloaded a PDF, the text can be unclear, or the page content is not aligned. How to get the best quality PDF? To make sure the page text and layout are perfectly aligned, not skewed, and easy to read, you’ll need a PDF picture, text, or page enhancer. The five paid or free PDF quality enhancers solve your most common problems.

FAQs - People Also Ask

  • Q: Can I fix a blurry PDF?
    You can fix the PDF blur issue with a text-based PDF enhancer or a PDF scan enhancer. For text-based PDFs, open them in a PDF editor like SwifDoo PDF, enter editing mode, select the text, and change the text color to black. You can use Adobe Acrobat Pro or Online2PDF to automatically sharpen and darken the text.
  • Q: How do I convert a low-quality PDF to a high-quality PDF?
    Multiple methods can help you convert low-quality PDFs to higher quality. You can use a resolution enhancer for PDF documents to enhance PDFs in a few clicks. These tools can automatically sharpen text, increase image resolution, or edit PDFs. Alternatively, you can even replace images in a PDF with high-quality ones using reliable editing tools.
  • Q: How do I turn a PDF into a high-quality JPEG?
    Open your PDF file in SwifDoo PDF, choose the “PDF to Image” tool under the “Convert” tab, add your PDF, set the format to JPG, and select a higher image resolution to start converting. SwifDoo PDF can convert PDF to JPG with 600DPI.
  • Q: How do you enhance image quality and make a PDF?
    You can upload images to the image enhancer tools such as SwifDoo PDF, Viesus PDF, or i2PDF for improved resolution and clarity. And then merge the images into a PDF using SwifDoo PDF or other PDF management tools, depending on your needs.
  • Q: How do I enhance the quality of a PDF in Adobe?
    To enhance the quality of and unblur a PDF in Adobe Acrobat, go to “Tools” > “Scan & OCR”, choose “Enhance camera image” in the left pane to enhance the image quality. You can adjust the enhancement level through a toolbar. Choose “Enhance scanned file” in the pane to recognize the text and increase the clarity. You can also use a PDF document enhancer powered with AI, for example, Viesus.

Charlotte has been in the software industry for 8+ years. She works for AWZWARE now as a passionate writer. She is good at providing simple guides to use various video, office and entertainment software. Charlotte also recommends many other useful tools to make your work and life easier. A food lover too.

Related Articles