Best Free Pdf Editor For Mac
Today, editing a PDF becomes a routine when you are desk-bound to work on files. That’s the reason why PDF Editor is always a hit in the app field. Even for Mac users, there are a wide range of options to edit PDF.
Adobe Acrobat Pro DC? There is no doubt that the is first and most powerful Mac PDF Editor. Almost anything that can be done to a PDF can be done by Acrobat and you’ll pay for the privilege.
But here I am willing to talk about why this powerful PDF editor doesn’t turn to be the best pick for a great part of PDF users. First the price: it is quite expensive.
An annual subscription costs $179.88 (us $14.99/month), and is also available as a stand-alone product for $449. Second the usability: In our opinion, Adobe Acrobat Pro DC is not as easy to use, and most of those features has never or rarely put into use for most people. Still, it can work on only one PDF at one time, while we often need to batch process files at the same time. So, what’s the best PDF editor alternative to Acrobat? You may once flock to free web PDF editors like many of us, or turn to, but only to realize that, both web editors and Preview either fall short of our editing expectations or sheerly can not reach our requirements.
To edit a PDF on mac smartly and feel right at home during the PDF work, here we pick the 2018 best PDF Editor for your Mac after slogging through dozens of PDF editors. Criteria of Evaluation To be measured up to our top options, we refer to following evaluation criteria to pinpoint the best PDF Editor for Mac 2018: User Interface – As the program is designed to deal with PDF files, which itself is a relatively tricky subject to be processed, we will need a quite clean yet beautiful user interface to be easily understood, so we can direct our attentions and efforts straight forward. A cluttered and poor interface will, not only distract us, but also quickly hit our patience limit to work intensively on PDF editing. Reading Experience – A fast reading experience will allow users to open and view a multiple-pages PDF file efficiently. The program should process the file importing sharply, and respond quickly when any action is taken. Besides, PDF format is designed for different platforms and devices, it becomes very critical if it can resize or fit in to look perfectly on different devices.
Mark-up and Annotation – PDF offers a abundant of interactive elements to facilitate seamless group collaboration, while mark-up and annotation tools are the key behind this. Editing Capability – Editing is the main task of a PDF editor, it should allow users to edit anything on the PDF page, no matter it is the PDF text, image or media elements. A satisfying PDF editor should be as powerful as possible to edit every single composition of the file. OCR(Optical Character Recognition) – The movement of “Go Paperless” not only builds us environment-friendly office, but also tucks more and more scanned image and PDF into our digital devices. To work on scanned files, OCR feature is necessary and will become indispensable when choosing a PDF editor. Storing – A great part of PDF users prefer to store their large-size files in the Cloud, for the purpose to save space on devices, also for the purpose to edit and manage PDF files at anytime, anywhere.
Allowing users to interact with Cloud service and store files in the Cloud will offer profound convenience for PDF users. Additional features -To suit all the needs to edit a PDF, additional features is absolutely the killer. To redact sensitive information, to fill out forms, to reorder/delete pages, to export PDF to editable Word format, to digitally signWe all know, we are always asking more. Is the Superior Acrobat Alternative Solution To be frank, we’ve never thought that the final pick would go to PDFpen in the first place, but as we tested on different PDF files and read feedbacks from other PDF users online, we came to know PDFpen how beat its rivals. What is PDFpen? PDFpen from has everything you need to power your productivity with seamless PDF editing.
Smile sells single-user licenses for $75 and $125 for the Pro versions. PDFpenPro is as full featured as Acrobat in nearly every respect and PDFpen just a little less so, while Smile offers each at a standalone price that’s reasonable. PDFpen does 99% of what Acrobat boasts in a much easier, intuitive and quicker way. Let’s have a look! Reading experience PDFpen offers a blazing fast PDF reading experience. PDFpen 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 PDFpen 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. Yet, there is a one thing PDFpen upsets me in PDF reading, it doesn’t allow users to open different PDFs at the same time, you are stuck to only one PDF file at one time.
Mark-up and annotate important parts Remember the first time you wanted to find out how to change the annotation color in Acrobat — I bet you had a hard time. But let’s take a look at PDFpen. You can see the differences at first glance. The design is clean and intuitive. The lastest version 9 makes it possible to select multiple annotations at once, copy the text, delete them, and show highlights in the Annotations sidebar view. You can also choose to print just annotations, making it easier to review comments separately from the document as another PDF or in print form.
As you know, not each PDF editor enables users to print out PDFs with notes and comments added. Besides, for those who require a table of contents (TOC) or need to work with one created elsewhere, PDFpenPro allows substantially more advanced TOC options for more sophisticated and less clunky interaction.
Manage and reorder pages Microsoft Office Word is always deemed as the best tool to mange file pages. However, in terms of managing pages, PDFpen won’t lose in the game. Like in Microsoft Office, PDFpen allows users to add page numbers, specify positioning and format. Besides these, users can move up and down pages to reorder the file, select pages to delete, insert extra pages into the existing easily.
No matter how many pages in your PDF file, it will be well organized in PDFpen. This really helps when you need to edit several individual and random PDF files at the same time. You just need to open one file, then insert other files. After selecting pages to move up or down for reordering, you will be able to edit the file and save it in desired sequence. Work on PDF text Text is always the dominant part of a file, so when we talk about editing a PDF, we mainly refer to editing PDF text.
PDFpen helps users to work on PDF text in 3 flavors: Copy and paste text: you can copy and paste text with original fonts and formatting retained. In case you want to extract some well-formatting text resources to another file, such a feature just cut your time on re-formatting greatly.
Correct Text: in case there is mistaken PDF text, you can select the text you want to correct, then click “Correct Text” button, an editable text blocks will appear. Add Text: this is quite similar to the case when you want to correct PDF text.
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You can select the area where you want to add PDF text, then input the texts as needed. Scan & OCR Aside from performing OCR on scanned PDFs or image captures saved on your devices, the PDFpen is also able to scan papers from scanner then do the OCR to make the files as computer-readable documents. The scanning feature is only activated when your device is bundled with a image capturer or connected to a TWAIN scanner. I scanned a paper document by taking captures from Mac camera, the scanning process is fast. Under OCR process, you are allowed to adjust resolution, color depth, contract, skew and image size, with the aim to enhance OCR accuracy and precision. The Pro version lets you correct the text, too. Though I got to adjust formatting of several parts and re-typed several words, the OCR results from PDFpen proved to be brilliant.
Fill and sign PDF forms Digital signature has used to replace physical signature for a long time, more and more PDF files are authenticated via digital signatures. PDFpen offers AATL or self-signed certificate to sign a documents. It also save your signatures in the library for further use. Though you can only fill in the fields of PDF forms created from other software, PDFpen offers a Pro version for users to create and customize their own PDF forms. Sync and share PDFpen is both available on MacOS and iOS, which means users can sync the PDF files across all manner of Apple devices.
It just becomes much easier if you are seeking a way to seamlessly work on different devices under different situations. By the way, as the best PDF Editor for Mac, PDFpen also collaborates well with Evernote, users can save PDFs directly to Evernote. Either for the intention to save disk space or for the intention to work on the go, we upload PDF files to Cloud for storage. PDFpen also takes this into consideration, it allows users to store PDF files in iCloud and Dropbox, which makes PDF editing never stop. Additional editing features Still, there are 3 editing features from PDFpen that users should never miss out: Redact personal or sensitive information: no matter it is native PDF text or OCR text, PDFpen is capable of redacting or erase sensitive texts easily Record and playback audio annotations: it is an amazing way to add entertaining and innovative elements to your PDF files.
Convert PDF to Word: if you want to convert PDF to editable Word to unlock more editing features, PDFpen allows to. Multiple versions In addition to multiple versions on different operating system (MacOS and iOS), there is PDFpen Pro version offered to suit users’ higher needs on PDF editing on mac. Compared to PDFpen, it adds the features to convert websites to PDF, create and edit forms, export to Excel/PowerPoint/ and PDF/A, etc. Pricing Now, that we’ve got the features covered, let’s talk money. Acrobat DC currently costs $14.99 per month for a subscription or $449 for the full desktop software. While Smile only asks PDFpen single-user licenses for $75 and $125 for the out of your pocket and it’s jam-packed with all of the necessities.
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PDFpen is also available via, a $9.99 monthly subscription service. Other Acrobat alternative we considered Awarded as “App of the Year” 2015 in the Mac App Store, PDF Expert($59.99) continues to outperform others today. As it claims, it is a robust and beautiful PDF editor, helping users to edit, annotate PDF and manage PDF pages on mac, with a Share Sheet build in. I have to say, its neat and elegant interface just make users extremely comfortable to edit PDF within this program. You don’t have to explore the jumble of icons cluttered on the interface, everything you are looking for to edit your PDF, you are going to be navigated to. Speaking of its powerful features, PDF Expert offers extensive tools to edit and annotate your files. You are given the power to edit PDF text, image, link or other objects, also you can harness its power to highlight, annotate, fill form, sign, etc.
Yet, the major disadvantage of PDF Expert lies in its absence of OCR feature. With a growing need to work on scanned PDF files, OCR functionality will be a must adds-on. Personally, I am quite looking forward to getting this OCR feature packed in PDF Expert in its following update. With a cost of $99.95, iSkysoft PDF Editor provides users all-round solutions to work on PDF files.
Admittedly, it is a powerful PDF pack to manage PDF files, but the main problem is, it fails to offer a friendly user experience to its users. Foxit Software started out as one of the earliest competitors for Adobe Acrobat XI. Foxit introduced the PhantomPDF($129.00) line of PDF applications to compete with premium versions of Adobe Acrobat. But it, too much features embedded in the software, causing a much higher learing curves. ABBYY FineReader($199.99) gets the same capabilities from an Adobe Acrobat, and shares many features with PDFpen. But it, too, comes with a higher price tag. The bottom line PDFpen, according to my repeated tests and collected feedbacks from other users, it is faster than Preview and nearly as feature-packed as Adobe Acrobat DC, PDFpen is proof the sequel can be superior to the original in every way.
If you are looking for a solution that provides similar capabilities as Adobe Acrobat but for a price that you can afford, then it is the time to evaluate as your Adobe Acrobat alternative.
PDF editing is a very needed feature but not every app out there provides that functionality. Not only that, the ones that enable PDF editing are very costly.
For instance, take the case of – that costs you $74.95 for the full version. Adobe’s propriety can cause a huge dent in your pocket: about $200 for the editors. Although PDF editors are costly, not everyone wants to edit PDF documents per se. More or less, it’s only to annotate, highlight or certain other research-oriented purposes. Much of this can be achieved through a variety of software that’s less costly or free such as.
It’s completely free to use. We’ll take a look at the options available for Mac users. Sponsored Links Best PDF Editors for Mac #1. PDFelement is all about giving businesses the efficiency they crave when it comes to the world of PDF documents. Talk of creating, converting, editing, annotating and sharing PDF documents with the utmost professionalism. This software features all the tools you can use completely edit your PDF documents, from the simple tasks like editing text and images to even cooler stuff like signing your documents digitally.
You can also convert to PDF or from PDF using virtually any document file type be it to Word, Excel, PowerPoint. Moreover, you can transform the scanned document to editable PDF using a top draw Optical Character Recognition (OCR) feature. Form handling has also been made super simple with this tool keeping in mind that you can create, edit, fill, sign and protect your PDF forms without breaking a sweat. You can even extract data from your PDF interactive PDF forms and export in CSV formats. It gets even better! You can speed up the process of converting, data extraction, Bates numbering and watermarking by batch processing your PDF files. (Free).
($59.99). ($99.99) #2.
Sponsored Links Mac’s built-in solution, Preview, has become quite powerful over the years. One of the most impressive additions is the ability to annotate, highlight, adding images in a PDF file. Preview is as good as any other PDF editor out there, but it is not a full-fledged editor: you can’t edit the entire PDF file as such. You can only take to a certain level of editing where you either add or highlight sections of the PDF file.
Preview can also help you combine files. Skim Skim is a popular, open-source and free PDF reader that doubles up as a research tool with it set of features. It’s pretty much the same as Preview on Mac, but it works well for those quick annotations, comments, and highlights. You can also customize Skim to suit your needs better. The app makes navigation super easy with the table of contents or thumbnails and visual history.
That’s not all, it is integrated with BibDesk and several other third-party apps and has the support for extensive AppleScript as well. Sponsored Links Price: Free #4. PDFEscape (Online) PDFEscape is not exactly a traditional solution, but if you’re okay with online PDF editors, this could very well fit your need.
It’s a free online editor that works with any modern browser. PDFEscape has a wide range of editing options to let you design your PDF files and also create impressive forms.
You can beautifully annotate your files and give them the desired look. And just in case, you wish to offer an additional safeguard to your PDFs, use a password to protect them. Sponsored Links Price: Free #5. PDF Reader – Document Expert Take control of your PDFs with more flexibility and manage them just the way you want!
PDF Reader is pretty simple yet effective enough to let you carry out your tasks with the needed efficiency. You can create quick shortcuts to import your files and folders easily. Using TAG, you will be able to organize your PDFs ideally. Access all the needed information like bookmark, outline, thumbnails, and annotation without breaking any sweat. Keep an eye on your entire library and also check out the last import history.
And yes, you can also sync your data with iCloud to access them from across your devices. Sponsored Links Price: Free Best PDF Editors for iPhone/iPad Now that we’ve talked about PDF editors for the Mac, it’s also a good thing to take a look at some popular options available to do the same on iOS devices. There aren’t many popular apps or services for this, but if you’re ready to shell out some money, there are apps to help you annotate and read PDF docs on iOS devices. Good Reader Right on top of the list is Good Reader. Sells at $4.99 and brings pretty good PDF reading and editing capability.
The app has got a separate version for the iPad. Price: $4.99 #2.
PDF Expert Good Reader is good enough, but you can’t fill/edit forms within the PDF file using Good Reader. PDF Expert is costlier than Good Reader, but there are good features like scanning capabilities that make PDF Expert a little more advanced than Good Reader. Price: $9.99 #3. Foxit PDF Reader & Converter I rate Foxit very highly as it makes PDF editing plain sailing. You can view, annotate and also secure your PDF files.
The app also lets you sign documents using digital certificates. It comes with the ConnectPDF feature that allows you to collaborate with your friends. Shield your PDF files with password and Microsoft Rights Management Services.
Another notable feature of Foxit is the support for 12 languages like English, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Spanish, Traditional Chinese, etc. Price: Free #4. MaxiPDF For editing and designing PDF files, you can’t go wrong with a neat PDF editor like MaxiPDF. You can easily create, modify, delete text and images. It allows you to add and save comments as well. You can upgrade to the premium ($0.99/monthly) version of the app to use it without ads. Besides, MaxiPDF supports several languages including English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Spanish and Turkish.
Price: Free #5. Adobe Acrobat Reader If you want to have an all-in-one PDF editing experience, pick out Adobe Acrobat Reader. There is so much to like about this app, and the first among many is the—wide range of superior editing tools. That means you have the required freedom to create eye-catching files. Take the full advantage of sticky notes and drawing tools to make comments on PDFs. Get the most out of annotating tools to highlight and mark up the text.
With the full support for Apple Pencil, it ensures you have greater precision while creating praiseworthy docs. Price: Free That’s all, folks! What’s your pick? I think you have found an able PDF editor for your device. Which one is it? Feel free to let us know you pick in the comments. Don’t miss:.
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