Students and teachers

Pro is free for students and teachers.

Sign up with your school or university email and every Pro tool is yours for a year. No card, nothing to cancel, and you can claim it again next year.
Get Pro free I already have an account
What you get

The whole Pro toolkit, not a cut-down edition.

Search scanned handouts

OCR runs on your computer and turns a photocopied reading into text you can search and copy.

Measure on plans and diagrams

Calibrate a sheet, then take lengths, areas and counts. The same takeoff tools estimators use on real jobs.

Make worksheets fillable

Add fields to a handout or a worksheet so the class can type answers straight into the PDF.

Sign with a digital ID

Sign forms and letters with a certificate, not just a picture of your signature.

Plus everything that's already free: reading, highlights and comments, filling in forms, printing. See every feature

How it works

Three steps, about two minutes.

  1. 1
    Sign up with your school email

    Any address at a school, college or university: .edu, .ac.uk, .edu.au and the like.

  2. 2
    Confirm the address

    Click the link in the email we send. That's how we know it's yours.

  3. 3
    Claim Pro and download

    One button on your account page, then sign in to the app with the same email.

Who qualifies
  • Students at a school, college or university
  • Teachers, lecturers and teaching assistants
  • Researchers and staff with an institutional email
  • Studying architecture, engineering or construction? This is the full takeoff toolkit.
Questions

The short answers.

Is it really free?
Yes. Pro is normally $199 a year. For students and teachers it's $0, and we never ask for a card.
Who counts?
Students, teachers, lecturers and staff with an email address from their school, college or university. Tutors and researchers with an institutional address count too.
What happens after the year?
Pro ends on its own; there's nothing to cancel and nothing is charged. If you still have your school email, claim it again for another year. Otherwise you're back on the free plan, which keeps reading, markup, forms and printing.
My school email isn't recognised.
Some schools use a plain web address that we can't tell apart from a business. Tell us your school and we'll sort it out.
Does it work on Mac?
Yes. Redpen is a desktop app for Windows and Mac, with the same tools on both.

Not at school? The viewer is still free.

Download Redpen and open your first PDF in a minute. The free app needs no account. Every new account can try Office or Pro free for 14 days, no card.

Download free Try Pro free for 14 days

Windows & Mac · No credit card · Your files stay on your computer