It's not easy to find a truly free PDF editor that lets you not only edit and add text but also change images, add your own graphics, sign your name, fill out forms, etc. Below, however, is a list of exactly what you're looking for.
Jan 06, 2017 The best answer I've found, since all non-acrobat PDF Editors I've tried have failed me in one way or another, is to NOT use one at all. Now, I upload my pdf file to one of any number of free (and there are paid services also) conversion sites, retrieve a fully converted WORD file, and then do whatever editing I want in WORD. I have been looking for an easy to use and not so expensive fully-featured PDF editor on MAC and finally found Qoppa’s “PDF Studio Pro” the most suitable one. It’s a great piece of software for quickly editing / creating PDF’s and very straightforward.
Some of these are online PDF editors that work right in your web browser, so all you have to do is upload your PDF file to the website, make the changes you want, and then save it back to your computer. That's the quick way—but do bear in mind that, typically, an online editor isn't as fully featured as its desktop counterpart, plus the file is exposed to the internet (which might be of concern if it contains sensitive content).
Because not all of these free PDF editors support the same features, and some are restricted in what you can do, remember that you can process the same PDF in more than one tool. For example, use one to edit the PDF text (if that's supported), and then put the same PDF through a different editor to do something supported in that program (for example, to edit a form, update an image, or remove a page).
If you don't need to change the contents of the PDF but instead just need to change it to another file format (such as .docx for Microsoft Word or .epub for an eBook), see our list of free document converters for help. On the other hand, if you have a file you created yourself that you want to save as a PDF file, learn How to Print to PDF.
Microsoft Word: A Top Choice
If you already own Microsoft Word 2019, 2016, or 2013, then skip all the suggested programs below: you have a great PDF editor at your disposal right now. Just open the PDF as you would any Word document, give the program a few minutes to convert the PDF, and then edit away.
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Sejda PDF EditorWhat We Like
What We Don't Like
Sejda PDF Editor is one of the very few PDF editors that actually lets you edit pre-existing text in the PDF without adding a watermark. Most editors only let you edit the text you add yourself, or they support text editing but then throw watermarks all over the place.
Plus, this tool can run entirely in your web browser, so it's easy to get going without having to download any programs. You can get the desktop version if you'd rather use it that way.
There are some differences between the online and desktop versions that you should know about. For example, the desktop edition supports more font types and doesn't let you add PDFs by URL or from online storage services as the online editor does (which supports Dropbox and Google Drive).
Another neat feature is the web integration tool that lets PDF publishers provide a link for their users that they can simply click to automatically open the file in this online PDF editor.
All uploaded files are automatically deleted from Sejda after two hours.
This online PDF editor works no matter which operating system you use. Sejda PDF Desktop runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux.
You can use both the online and desktop versions to convert a PDF to a Word doc or a Word doc to PDF. Open the Tools section in either program to find that option.
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InkscapeWhat We Like
What We Don't Like
Inkscape is an extremely popular free image viewer and editor, but it also includes PDF editing functions that most dedicated PDF editors support only in their paid editions.
Inkscape is a very capable image editing program. If you're not already familiar with programs like GIMP, Adobe Photoshop, and other image editors, however, it's probably a bit advanced for you.
In the context of PDF editing, though, you should consider Inkscape only if you want to delete or edit the images or text in the PDF. We suggest you use a different tool in this list to edit PDF forms or add shapes and then plug that PDF into Inkscape if you need to actually edit the preexisting text.
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PDFescape Online PDF EditorWhat We Like
What We Don't Like
PDFescape has quite a lot of features. It's free as long as the PDF doesn't exceed 100 pages or 10 MB.
You can't truly change text or edit images using this editor, but you can add your own text, images, links, form fields, etc.
The text tool is very customizable so that you can pick your own size, font type, color, alignment, and apply effects such as bolding, underlining, and italics.
You also can draw on the PDF, add sticky notes, strikethrough text, put white space over anything you want to disappear, and insert lines, checkmarks, arrows, ovals, circles, rectangles, and comments.
PDFescape lets you delete individual pages from the PDF, rotate pages, crop out parts of a page, reorganize the order of the pages, and add more pages from other PDFs.
You can upload your own PDF file, paste the URL to an online PDF, and make your own PDF from scratch.
When finished editing, you can download the PDF to your computer without ever having to make a user account. You need one only if you want to save your progress online without downloading the PDF.
The online version of PDFescape works in all operating systems. There's also an offline PDF editor called PDFescape Desktop, but it isn't free and runs on Windows 7 and newer versions of Windows.
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PDF-XChange EditorWhat We Like
What We Don't Like
PDF-XChange Editor offers some great tools, but not all of them are free to use. If you use a non-free feature, the PDF will save with a watermark on every page.
If you stick to just the free features, however, you can still do some editing to the file and save it back to your computer.
You can load PDFs from your computer, a URL, SharePoint, Google Drive, and Dropbox. You can save the edited PDF back to your computer or to any of those cloud storage services.
The PDF-XChange Editor program has lots of features, so it might seem overwhelming at first. All of the options and tools are simple to understand, however, and they're categorized into their own sections for easier management.
One nice feature is the ability to highlight all the form fields so that you can easily spot where you need to fill in. This is really helpful if you're editing a PDF with lots of forms, such as an application.
• Now search for “ LightX Photo Editor & Photo Effects” using the Play Store. We can do almost anything we want with any of our photographs. Windows photo editor for windows 7. More from Us: Here we will show you today How can you Download and Install Photography App LightX Photo Editor & Photo Effects on PC running any OS including Windows and MAC variants, however, if you are interested in other apps, visit our site about Android Apps on PC and locate your favorite ones, without further ado, let us continue. • Open the installed BlueStacks or Remix OS Player and open the Google Play Store in it. LightX Photo Editor & Photo Effects on PC (Windows / MAC) • Download and install.
Although the free version puts watermarks on your edited documents, this program does let you edit existing text, add your own text to the PDF, and add or delete pages from the document.
You can download this program in portable mode to use on a flash drive or as a regular installer.
Many of the features are free, but some are not. If you use a feature that's not covered by the free version (you're told which features are not free when you use them), the saved PDF file will have a watermark attached to the corner of every page.
Windows 10, Windows 8, and Windows 7 users can install PDF-XChange Editor.
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Smallpdf Online PDF EditorWhat We Like
What We Don't Like
One of the quickest ways to add images, text, shapes, or your signature to a PDF is with Smallpdf.
This website allows you to upload a PDF, make changes to it, and then save it back to your computer all without needing to make a user account or pay for any anti-watermarking features.
Adobe Pdf Editor For Mac
You can open and/or save your PDF to your Dropbox or Google Drive account, too, in addition to your computer.
You can import three shapes into a PDF with Smallpdf: a square, circle, or arrow. You can change the object's main color and line color, as well as the thickness of its edge.
Text size can be tiny, small, normal, large, or huge, but only three font types are available. You can change the color of any text you add.
When finished editing the PDF, just hit the FINISH button and then decide where you want it saved; you can even generate a share link. You can also run the edited PDF through Smallpdf's PDF splitter tool if you want to extract the pages from the document.
If you edit two PDFs within an hour, you have to upgrade to Smallpdf Pro if you want to keep using the website. Or, you can wait an hour to edit another.
Smallpdf works with all operating systems that support a modern web browser.
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FormSwift's Free PDF EditorWhat We Like
What We Don't Like
FormSwift's Free PDF Editor is a very simple online PDF editor that you can start using without even making a user account.
It's as simple as uploading your PDF file to the website and using the menus at the top of the page to quickly perform some basic PDF editing functions before downloading it back to your computer.
When you're done editing the PDF, you can download the file as a PDF file, print it directly to your printer, or save the PDF as a Microsoft Word .docx document.
The .pdf-to-.docx conversion didn't work for every PDF that we tried, but in those that did convert successfully, the images were formatted nicely and the text was fully editable.
Another feature offered by FormSwift at formswift.com/snap lets you quickly edit or sign PDFs from your phone by taking a picture of a document. You can then share or download the PDF when you're done. It's not perfect: Most things done through a web app are spotty. It does work, however, with a little patience.
You can upload Word documents and images to FormSwift, too, if you need to edit those instead of a PDF.
All operating systems can use this PDF editor since it works online.
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PDFelement ProWhat We Like
What We Don't Like
PDFelement Pro, just as the name sounds, is free but with a major limitation: It places a watermark on every page of the PDF. That being said, the watermark doesn't cover much of the page, and it's important to realize that it supports some truly great PDF editing features.
This program would be a truly free PDF editor if it weren't for the fact that the free edition will not save without first putting a watermark on every single page of the PDF.
Depending on what you'll use the PDF for, however, the features it supports might be enough for you to consider living with the watermarks.
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Business • Updated on May 31, 2019
Editor’s note (May.31, 2019): Recently PDFpenPro turns 11. The big upgrade we have tested, and we are confident it’s still our upgrade pick since the core functionality hasn’t changed, and add more features and improvements than ever!
PDF is a necessity in macOS. Without PDF, you can’t easily create & share portable documents. In fact, almost every native macOS application lets you export content into PDF.
Unfortunately, dealing with PDFs can be a pain at times, especially if you need to sign them, merge them or anything else.
That is why a fully-fledged PDF editor for Mac is a necessity indeed! Unlike the common thought, there is an impressive variety of PDF editing programs to choose from.
And, Adobe Acrobat Pro is most people’s go-to option.
We know Adobe Acrobat Pro DC is great, but…
Adobe Acrobat Pro DC has been the standard for PDF editing for quite a long time. Considering that Adobe built the format, it’s quite common too. Anyway, that’s not really a great reason to keep using Adobe Acrobat Pro DC as the macOS PDF editor.
The Good: Acrobat Pro DC is undoubtedly one of the powerful PDF solutions out there. You are linked to the Adobe ecosystem as well. If you are someone who uses Adobe Reader for opening PDF format, you can have the benefits of a uniform UI as well.
The Bad: Even then, Acrobat Pro DC does not offer the best User Interface in town. Sure, it gets the job done, but that’s not enough. We would not recommend Acrobat Pro DC when you want to edit multiple documents and manage everything with ease.
The Ugly: Acrobat Pro DC is damn expensive. It comes with a monthly subscription charge of $14.99. Adobe Pro 2017, an older, standalone version, is available for a hefty price-tag of $449. These rates are way beyond what a normal user can afford.
We believe these reasons are enough for anyone to look for an Adobe Acrobat alternative — or one better PDF editor for Mac.
A word on online PDF editors
Online PDF editors are the next best choice that people make when they can’t afford Acrobat Pro DC. It’s an awesome option too — until you lose the internet connection. The problem with online editors is that you’d need a constant Internet connection.
There are also some security concerns. You basically have to upload the PDF document to a third-party server for editing it. It’s not the ideal option when you are dealing with confidential files either. Also, not all online PDF editors are offering satisfactory features.
Personally speaking, I think online PDF editors are just good for page management of PDF documents. If you need deeper editing or bulk editing, you can’t count on them. More importantly, most people like to edit their files in a native environment.
So, it makes sense to check out some of the actual native macOS PDF editors out there.
TL;DR – These are the Best Mac PDF Editors available for desktop right now:
Choosing the best PDF Editor for Mac – Acrobat Pro DC alternative requirements
As we said, there is a huge number of PDF editors for macOS. As always, we wanted to picks the best ones. As we do every single time, we had a proper criteria as well.
So, we have chosen the best Mac PDF editors based on this criteria.
The pick: PDF Expert (fastest & easiest to dive in)
As the developers say, PDF Expert is a fast, robust and beautiful PDF editor. We tested on different PDF files and read feedbacks from other PDF users online, we came to know how PDFpen beats its rivals.
Without further ado, let’s share our experience with PDF Expert.
The user interface
As you can see, PDF Expert offers a clean and intuitive User Interface. You can simply drag-and-drop a file to get started. Once added to the interface, you can decide what type of editing you want — Annotations and Editing.
On the left, top side of the screen, you have viewing mode controls. For instance, you can enable the sidebar for accessing features like Bookmarks, Thumbnails, Annotations and Outline. This sidebar is a great feature when it comes to navigating within the PDF document.
PDF Expert offers different Viewing Modes as well.
1. You can display one or two pages in the same-screen. This is great when you want to compare pages and make the edits.
2. PDF Expert has a Split View option as well. In this view, you can view/edit two PDF documents at the same time. You can arrange the documents side by side either horizontally or vertically.
This is a helpful feature when it comes to document management.
PDF Expert has a dedicated option for changing the page order of the PDF document. We’ll discuss that later.
In short, we are really impressed by the intuitive UI of PDF Expert.
Reading experience
PDF Expert offers a blazing fast PDF reading experience. The app opened the document in 1.5 seconds. Meanwhile, it took almost 10 seconds to load it with Acrobat.
As you select between PDF pages, all the pages are well displayed with fast speed, even, there is no stop when I switch between different pages.
As PDF Expert also offers iOS version, I uploaded a file into its iOS version, and the file fit in the device well, I got the same good reading experience as than on my Mac.
Editing PDF files
There are actually four main options in the toolbar — Text, Image, Link and Redact.
One thing we love about PDF Expert is that it automatically detects the type of content you’ve selected. If you’ve selected an image, for instance, you will see options to rotate, replace, export and crop the photograph.
Like the same way, you can add/manage links within the PDF document. You can set up links to the web and other pages in the document. If you ask us, PDF Expert has kept this section as minimal as possible. Even when the PDF file is complex, you won’t have trouble in making edits.
The Redact feature is also quite helpful. In a single click, you can white out sensitive content in the PDF file. I’ve found this feature really useful while sharing confidential data with friends.
Annotating PDF files
Annotating PDFs is probably the second most popular thing you do with PDFs after viewing and reading. Whether you’re a student annotating a book or an architect, marking up a blueprint, you can highlight, underline, strikethrough, add shapes, lines or your own stamps, and export all your annotations with ease. Once again, you can count on the toolbar to access a top-class collection of tools.
It’s very easy to add signatures to PDF Expert. You can do it using text, trackpad or even upload an image of the actual signature. Either way, you get awesome results. Other annotation features also work great in this PDF editing suite.
Managing pages in PDF
As we mentioned earlier, PDF Expert has a dedicated viewing option for managing pages. When you want to take care of a big PDF document, this is a great feature.
This section offers a bunch of options such as Add Page, Append File, Copy, Paste, Rotate, Delete and Share. You can easily arrange multiple pages by dragging and dropping them. You can also extract individual pages from a complete PDF document.
Last but not least, PDF Expert offers an option to add page numbers on the header and footer areas as well.
Multi-platform support
PDF Expert is available for both macOS and iOS. It also enables content-sync between the devices, you know.
If you want to access documents that you created using PDF Expert for macOS, you can easily do it from an iPhone or iPad. The app can be downloaded from App Store and everything is kept in sync. It’s a great way to access cloud storage: everything is done via iCloud.
It’s as seamless as it gets.
Additional features in PDF Expert
There are a few advanced features that we should talk about.
PDF Expert has an in-built method for password-protecting PDF files as well. This is a great way to secure your PDF file without further complication. It’s so simple that you can go to File Set Password, and pick the password of your choice.
PDF Expert also has an option to reduce file size of a PDF file. While doing so, you can adjust the image quality as well. When we checked, PDF Expert was able to reduce the file size by 75%, which is quite a great deal.
Last but not least, PDF Expert comes with Touchbar support as well. So, if you have a compatible MacBook, you’ll love it. What could be betterPdf Editor For Mac
There are a few things that we didn’t like in PDF Expert. We understand that PDF Expert is a minimalistic PDF editor but it has left out some basic features as well.
Also, PDF Expert lacks options for customization and control. Everything is basic – too basic, at times.
Availability & pricing
PDF Expert is available for macOS and iOS. You can download the Mac version from the official website and the iOS version from App Store.
PDF Expert for macOS is priced at $79.99 while the iOS version can be bought for $9.99. If you ask us, both apps have been priced quite reasonably. The PDF Expert license actually lets you run the app on 3 Macs.
Verdict
PDF Expert, according to my repeated tests and collected feedbacks from other users, it is faster than Preview. It allows you to edit & manage PDF documents with ease, never compromising the performance as well. It’s true that it lacks advanced tech like OCR but that’s something you should be convinced about. Overall, for the price you’re paying, PDF Expert is worth it.
Upgrade pick: PDFpenPro (most powerful)
There are times when you need more than a basic PDF editor. PDFpenPro is the best choice for that occasion. It comes with a great set of features inside, including the option to create awesome PDF files. If you can spend more for a comprehensive PDF suite, PDFpenPro could be a potential option.
Now, let’s have a look at what this PDF suite has to offer.
The interface
PDFpenPro has been designed to create PDF files with precision. The UI has been optimized for professionals. When you open the program, you can see the blank screen where you can insert content like text, images, shapes and others. Like we saw in PDF Expert, PDFpenPro too offers different viewing options. It has a multi-tabbed UI for managing multiple files as well.
The latest version 11 offers the possibility to see different parts of a document simultaneously with split view. Just as you can in, for instance, Microsoft Word, you can have two views on the same document. Either alongside or below your main view, you get this second window pane on the document.
We should admit that’s useful because it means you can be making some fine edits to page 9 of a PDF while referring to page 99 at the same time.
Editing & annotation
PDFpenPro checks all the boxes when it comes to editing PDF files. You can take care of a wide variety of content like text, images and others. All the editing options are included in the same toolbar. It’s also easy to navigate between multiple pages of the document.
The new Font Bar extends PDFpen’s Editing Bar downward, which provides the same kind of text formatting you’d get in a word processor. Select text and then you can change the font, size, justification and so on.
We also loved the Precision Edit tool in PDFpen, which recognizes the parts of the page and removes them intelligently.
Iphoto mac free download - iPhoto Extractor, Apple iPhoto, Duplicate Cleaner For iPhoto, and many more programs. PicsArt Photo Studio: Collage Maker & Pic Editor. BeautyPlus - Selfie.
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There are also a few features that you can’t find in the standard version. For instance, you can use PDFpenPro to turn websites into PDF in a single click. Thanks to the wider compatibility, it lets you export PDF files to Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint formats as well.
Scanning & OCR
Optical Character Recognition is perhaps the best feature inside PDFpen. It has been designed to extract an impressive variety of data from sources like a scanned image. To use this feature, you can open the image in the software and click an Perform OCR button and you’re off the races. In a few minutes, PDFpenPro will help you convert the content into editable text. You can go about your business, including editing other PDF files, or create interactive forms that you can send to recipients, and PDFPenPro will continue to perform OCR on your files in the background.
It’s quite a time-saver and PDFpenPro happens to have great speeds too. PDFpenPro offers much control over the batch OCR process. The app was able to recognize text in hundreds of pages of documents in a few short moments, making them searchable, editable, and correctable. And you can decide the quality and resolution with ease.
Furthermore, the developer Smile has added both medical and legal terms to the English OCR dictionary in the latest PDFpen 11, making the apps even more attractive to professionals in those fields.
Some other features
PDFPenPro has a few features that have been around for awhile that are worth a mention here. For instance, you can use it to sign digital documents. As we did see in the case of PDF Expert, you can easily add and manage different signs and images. It basically goes like clockwork.
A Form field recognition tool scans your PDFs to see if there are any spaces on a page that are meant for users to add information to. When found, PDFPenPro adds a form field to that location where a user can click and enter text.
It also has support for audio annotations and redaction of PDF document. While the first one allows you to include worthwhile comments, the second feature will allow you to prevent sensitive data from exposure. It can come in handy at many times.
Last but not least, PDFpenPro offers multi-device syncing. Because both macOS and iOS versions are available, you can easily manage documents across platforms. All these features work hand in hand to make PDFpenPro one of the most professional-friendly PDF editing suites out there.
What could be better?
The only thing we think of is this: the UI.
It’s a powerful software, we do understand. It’s made for professionals, we understand that too. However, a slight change in the UI can make it all the more intuitive. This would make it easier for people to not just understand the software but also make awesome PDF documents in no time.
We think that’s something to be done soon.
Availability & pricing
PDFpenPro is available for both macOS and iOS.
PDFpenPro costs $124.95. Still, it’s a single license that can power only one Mac.
You can actually find its standard version, PDFpen, on Setapp.
Verdict
PDFpenPro is made for professionals, and there’s a steep learning curve. Even then, PDFpenPro offers solid OCR, a powerful new Precision Edit tool, and many features that give you better control everything in a PDF file. It is just that you should be ready to pay something extra.
Other apps we considered
Here are some of the top apps we considered as the best Mac PDF editor. They did not, however, make it to the top list.
Best Pdf Form Editor For Mac
Preview is the pre-built PDF and image viewer in macOS. It’s something that you can securely use for viewing and annotating PDF documents. The best part? It’s quite integrated to the system that you get the maximum level of performance. The main limitation here is that Preview does not actually let you edit the PDF files. It has a bunch of effective options for annotation.
You can do a few things like adding text and shapes to the document. Once done, Preview can neatly export the files to PDF as well. Considering that you are not paying anything to get this program, we’d love to keep it aside. So, if you just want to bring some annotations and text boxes to a PDF document — without affecting the existing text, Preview would be fine.
Preview is free and is built into macOS.
iSkysoft PDF Editor 6 Professional for Mac is one of the most well-priced PDF editing suites out there. It has made some compromises in performance and features, though. The best part is that the app comes with full support for OCR and PDF conversion. These two features are great when you consider the overall price tag of the app.
If you ask me what matters the most here, it’s Batch Processing. iSkysoft PDF Editor 6 Professional for Mac is one of the very few editors that allow complete support for batch processing. You can convert and deal with a lot of PDF files at once. The User Interface actually imitates that of PDF Expert, but we wish it had an enhanced level of performance.
Download Pdf Editor For Mac
iSkysoft PDF Editor 6 Professional is available for macOS and Windows, priced at $99.95.
Foxit PhantomPDF is one of the smoothest PDF editors we’ve seen so far. It packs so many features into a smaller-looking tool. Nevertheless, compared to other PDF editors we’ve covered, Foxit PhantomPDF comes with a larger footprint. Multitasking is not easy when you have Foxit PhantomPDF running in background. It also checks the boxes of OCR and automated recognition.
It’s comparatively easier to do PDF editing in Foxit PhantomPDF. We think, however, that the AI could be an impressive one. As of now, the User Interface looks so rudimentary and you will need some time to get used to the deal. Keep that aside, Foxit PhantomPDF is a great PDF editor for teams as well. It has options for real-time collaboration features.
Foxit PhantomPDF is available for Windows and macOS. It has a hefty price tag of $99.95 for Mac.
Free Pdf Editor For Mac![]()
Are you looking for a fully-fledged suite for OCR? Then, ABBYY FineReader Pro for Mac is a great choice for. The problem is that you cannot expect standard features here. The whole program has been made for OCR needs, an area in which you can expect the best results. In just a few seconds, the program would convert a scanned image to editable text.
As far as OCR technology is concerned, ABBYY FineReader Pro for Mac works just great. It was able to do the OCR for even some of the low-quality images we’d tried. But, of course, if you have a better-quality image, the results would be better. We would not recommend the program for standard editing needs, though. The price tag is relatively higher too.
ABBYY FineReader Pro for Mac is available for $119.00.
The bottom lineForm Editor
So, these are the best Mac PDF editors you can find today. We have tried to suggest PDF editors that work well for particular needs. We hope it helps you choose the right one. If you are still confused and want a PDF editor for Mac that’s easy and effective, you can go with our pick, PDF Expert. If you are looking for a powerful solution that provides similar capabilities as Adobe Acrobat, then it is the time to evaluate the upgrade pick – PDFpenPro – as your Adobe Acrobat alternative.
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