Want to sign the recent rent agreement or NDA document that you received in the mail? You would usually need to download the PDF, print it out, add details, and then scan it using mobile document scanners and send it back. It’s time-consuming and required additional hardware to get things done. With a capable PDF editor software, one can edit PDF with multiple fonts, add watermark, add a comment, highlight sections, add a signature, and more. There are dozens of PDF editors for the Mac platform. Let’s find the best options among them.
Adobe Photoshop Elements. Where you can use it: Mac and Windows Why we love it: While not truly a free photo editor, Photoshop Elements does have a free trial, and it’s far and away among the best photo editing software for Mac and Windows.The suite of automated editing tools — including for exposure, color balance, and reducing the effects of camera shake — make short work of the.
- Best free PDF editors for Mac 2020. If you are looking for a free Mac PDF editor so you can add or change text in a PDF, add your signature, add comments, redact information, or just to combine.
- Sep 28, 2020 Part 1: Best Free Audio Editors for Windows; Part 2: Best Free Audio Editors for Mac; The Most Recommended Audio Editor - FilmoraPro. Before getting into details with the free audio editor, there’s one tool that needs a special mention when it comes to discussing the best audio editor is FilmoraPro. It is one of the finest audio editor free.
- It is the best free photo editing software for Mac. Adobe Photoshop Express Editor: It is a Mac photo editor which provides an efficient way to improve lighting and exposure problems of an.
We have already covered iOS-friendly PDF editors. However, the overall experience is not as good as on the desktop. And that’s why you must invest in a good PDF Editor on the Mac.
The macOS does come with a built-in PDF viewer and editor, but it’s limited in many ways, and the export options are few compared to a third-party PDF Editor. In this post, we are going to talk about five best PDF editors for Mac. Let’s get started.
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Read More1. PDF Expert Pro
PDF Expert is my go-to recommendation for anyone looking for a solidPDF editor on Mac. It’s simple, easy-to-use, and feature-rich with the right amount of options at the right place.
Apart from PDF editing, the software also works better with the PDFviewing experience. From the Annotate menu, you can use highlighter,strikeout, and underline tools. My favorite function is Notes and you can add a note to any part of the PDF. On that file, a tiny note icon appears.
Speaking of ebooks, you will find the side-by-side page layout very useful. Other features include the ability to add stamps,signature, annotation, and more.
PDF Expert is available on iOS, macOS, and iPadOS. The company isoffering 7-days of a free trial, and after that, the whole suite costs $80.
Get PDF Expert2. Adobe Acrobat Pro
Talking about PDFs and we don’t mention an offering from Adobe? Not achance. The company offers Adobe Acrobat Pro software, which is preferable if you live in an Adobe ecosystem of creative apps.
I like how Adobe offers some of the basic PDF functions on the home screen. You can tap on a PDF from the recent menu and add acomment, signature, share, and edit it. The overall editing UI is intuitive, and I didn’t find any lag navigating the software on my low-powered MacBook Air.
The major functions include integrating text, pictures,password-protect a PDF, watermark, page organization, and more. You can save the PDF to Adobe Cloud and edit the file from any device.
The software comes with a free trial of 7 days, and after that, it costs $15 per month. The software is a part of Adobe Creative Suite of apps for which the subscription costs $60 per month.
Get Adobe Acrobat ProAlso on Guiding Tech
6 Best Free PDF Editors for iPhone That You Must Get
Read More3. Soda PDF
So far, we have talked about software solutions that require installation on the Mac. Let’s talk about some of the best web-basedPDF editors. That can be handy when you only want to make minimal changes to a PDF and don’t want to download separate softwaret.
Soda PDF recently received a welcome makeover on the web. It looks and feels modern now. All the relevant options are nicely divided into the eight categories on the home page. The editing menu is simple, carrying the most basic options. You can add text, image, add a shape, and even draw on PDF.
Other functions include the ability to Compress PDF, PDFconverter to JPEG or PPT or Excel. You can also merge PDF, Split PDF,eSign PDF, unlock PDF, and even password-protect PDF.
Soda PDF offers 14-days of a free trial. After that, it costs $12 per month. It’s web-based, so you can pay on one platform and use the software every desktop platform, including Windows, Linux, and Chrome OS.
Get Soda PDF4. Sejda PDF
Sejda is one of my favorite web-based PDF editors. The home page is quite pleasing to the eyes. The features are presented in an easy to access manner on the default page. Every option is easily identifiable and within reach.
The editing features include the usual text, link, highlighter,signature, shapes, and more. I like the form menu here. It lets you add quick checkmarks (that are usually required to fill-in form) and interactive fields. A well-thought addition from the company.
Before you export, the software offers a bunch of options to make the last-minute changes. You can merge, edit, compress, delete, and split pages before sharing it over the email or any other social network. Hit download, and you can directly save the file on your preferred cloud storage, including Dropbox, Google Drive, or OneDrive.
The software is free to use for 7 days, and after that, it costs $7.5 per month, relatively less than the competition.
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5. Small PDF
Small PDF is one of the solid PDF editors in the market. I like its web version. The homepage is nicely divided into 21 categories to edit aPDF. From the homepage, you can edit a PDF, convert it to other formats, eSign a PDF, split a PDF, and more. There's no need to go through hundreds of options to get things done.
The editing menu offers the most basic options. You can add text, image, add a shape, and even draw on PDF. My only problem withSmall PDF is, you can’t perform a bunch of actions from the same menu.You will have to go back to the home page to make changes.
Small PDF offers 14 days of a free trial, and after that, it costs $12 per month.
Get Small PDFEdit PDFs Like a Pro
Mac platform offers a couple of solid PDF editors and excellent options from the web. If you are planning to live in the Apple ecosystem, then go with PDF Expert Pro. It’s the best option for Mac users and offers a relatively affordable one-time purchase. Adobe users should stick to Adobe Acrobat Pro that uses Adobe Cloud to sync the documents and all the changes.
If you are someone juggling among Mac, Windows, and Linux, then you should look for the web-based PDF Editors on Mac.
Next up:Windows 10 also has some of the best PDF Editors. Read the post below to find the seven best PDF Editors for Windows 10.
The above article may contain affiliate links which help support Guiding Tech. However, it does not affect our editorial integrity. The content remains unbiased and authentic.Read NextTop 7 Freemium PDF Editors for Windows 10Also See#macos #mac apps
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In a digitized era, where practically all business is done online, it’s hard to spend a day without encountering a PDF file. After all, it’s the most popular digital document format — interactive, free to use and, crucially, able to preserve original formatting (including fonts, images, layouts, and more).
Developed by Adobe in the 90s, PDF made it possible to present identical documents using different applications and devices. Originally a proprietary invention that was promoted with Adobe software, PDF became an open format in 2008, which meant free use for all, without any lingering ties to Adobe.
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How To Choose The Best PDF Editor For Mac
Today, there are dozens of applications that can read, modify, and edit PDFs. All are different: free PDF editors, PDF modifiers, costly Mac PDF editors, and even a default PDF reader for Mac that comes with your operating system.
If you need to edit a PDF on Mac, it’s important to not go straight to Google looking for a “free PDF editor download.” In the last decade, lots of bad players have been putting all kinds of malware in those free PDF downloads, hoping for people to be enticed enough by the proposition. So you should know exactly which PDF editor app is best for your needs — luckily you have the perfect guide below.
Apple Preview PDF reader for Mac
If you’re looking for a free PDF editor for Mac, you should start with the one you already have — Preview — which is the default application for viewing any images and PDF files.
Although it can hardly be called a PDF editor app, Preview can perform most of the tasks most people need to do every day: looking through the documents, leaving comments, and signing contracts.
To configure Preview to your liking:
- Launch the app from your Dock or Launchpad
- Select View from the menu bar options
- Set scroll, zoom, and toolbar to what you’d like to see
Then to actually use PDF modifier functions:
- Choose Tools from the menu bar
- Hover over Annotate
- Select from shapes, signatures, notes (comments), and more
When you’re done editing the document, don’t forget to save it (⌘ + S) or export it to create a new file by going to File ➙ Export.
A hidden benefit of Preview that’s not often talked about is its natural integration into the macOS. The app can be easily used within the Apple ecosystem and is quite swift as well.
Adobe Acrobat Reader for Mac
One of the first and hence now widely considered standard solutions for viewing and editing PDF files is Adobe Acrobat Reader. By all accounts, it’s a solid and professional PDF editor for Mac.
There’s, however, one caveat — you can hardly call Adobe Acrobat the best free PDF editor for Mac because to get all of its features you need to pay, a lot. If you subscribe for the whole year, it comes down to $15 a month. Otherwise, it’s $25.
So if you download Adobe Reader for Mac from Adobe’s website, it will only give you a limited number of tools, which are very similar to Apple Preview: comment and sign. To get more you’d need to sign up for the Adobe Acrobat Pro free trial.
Anyway, in case you’re satisfied with Acrobat PDF editor’s limited functionality for the basic version, you can still work with all the PDFs you need:
- Download and install Adobe Reader for Mac from adobe.com
- Open the PDF file of your choice
- To comment or sign the file, navigate to Tools in the top bar of the app
- Choose the tool you want to use and then select a more specific one from the top bar once you’re in the document itself
If you try to choose the tool that’s not available in the free version of Acrobat Reader for Mac, the app will direct you to the website where you can subscribe to get access.
All in all, while the paid Adobe Acrobat Reader for Mac offers you a full toolkit of productivity, its free option is comparable to Apple Preview, with the latter being a bit more lightweight and fast due to its integration with macOS.
But what’s a truly powerful Mac PDF editor?
PDFpen full-featured OCR editor
While the paid version of Adobe Acrobat Reader for Mac is costly and convoluted, PDFpen offers much more in one straightforward package.
Install PDFpen, best PDF editor for Mac
Make any PDF file editable with PDFpen. With in-built OCR support, nothing is carved in stone if you have PDFpen installed on your Mac.
PDFpen lets you edit PDFs by adding text and images, fixing typos, filling out forms, and covering sensitive information. What’s more, the app features an OCR (optical character recognition) functionality, so you can scan printed documents directly into editable PDF files, and even export them to Microsoft Word later on.
Using PDFpen is as easy as Preview:
- Open any PDF document
- In the top bar, find the toggle which lets you switch between text and shapes. These are the tools you can use to enhance your documents. All of them can also be accessed from the Tools dropdown in the menu bar.
One of the most commonly used features with PDFs is highlighting, which is perfectly executed in PDFpen. Just select from the top bar and choose a color. The tool will then switch between a freehand highlighter when hovering over shapes and a structured one when it’s over some text.
Finally, PDFpen’s renowned OCR functionality doesn’t require you to have any specific AI knowledge — it just works:
- In PDFpen, go File ➙ Open (or ⌘ + O) and select your image
- Check all languages that apply
- Turn the image into either an OCR Page or OCR document
- Now you can edit your image freely and export it later
Bonus: Professional PDF Search
When you’re working with lots of PDFs everyday, some things are inevitably going to get lost. Especially, since lots of documents and reports are often dozens or even hundreds of pages long.
In this reality, you absolutely need a tool that will help you retain information at the tip of your fingers. Enter PDF Search. This app doesn’t just search your PDF files for exact matches — it uses the power of AI to check relevant terms, multiple combinations, and even scan PDF files in bulk.
The first time you open PDF Search, it will ask you to index the folder with all your PDFs, which may take some time but will also speed up all future searches. After indexing is complete, simply enter the number or text you’re looking for in the search field, press Return, and the results (including related ones) would instantly appear.
To recap, when you’re looking for the best free PDF editor for Mac, your options might seem infinite, but it really comes down to what exactly you need to edit. If it’s just viewing documents and making comments, Apple Preview can do the job just fine. But when you need some heavy-duty lifting, nothing beats PDFpen. In addition, PDF Search is recommended for anyone working with large number of PDFs on a daily basis.
Best of all, PDFpen and PDF Search are both available to you on a free 7-day trial from Setapp, a platform for over 150 indispensable Mac apps designed to take your productivity to the next level. All that’s left to do now is just read and edit!
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Meantime, prepare for all the awesome things you can do with Setapp.
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