There's a free PDF editor built into every Mac, but what if you need a bit more functionality and precision? Here are the best apps for editing PDFs on a Mac.
SEP 3, 2024 9:14 am PDT
Many workplaces and educational institutions have completely switched from paper documents to digital ones. Consequently, Mac users are increasingly dealing with PDFs and other e-document file formats.
We’re here to help you find the best PDF editor for your Mac from the multitude of options. There are various PDF editing apps that cater to various budgets and workflows and among them are a few that stand out in terms of features, performance, and design.
When selecting a PDF editor, consider one that can create, convert, and export PDFs from various file types, while preserving the original formatting and making the text searchable and editable through OCR technology.
The editor should also allow for content editing, including modifying text, inserting, resizing, and moving images, and reorganizing pages. Additionally, it should enable users to add comments and annotations to PDF files during review, with tools for marking up both text documents and graphic-heavy files. Security features, such as password protection, permissions setting, and content redaction, are also important for access control. Lastly, consider a PDF editor with mobile support, either through a dedicated mobile app or cloud access.
If you’re looking for basic annotation and page organization, the free Preview app that is available as part of macOS may be sufficient. If you need more in the way of editing tools, then one of these apps could better support your needs.
We have reviewed all the PDF editors below, so read on to find out exactly what we thought.
Updated September 2024 to add Wondershare PDFelement.
Apple Preview is the default document and image viewer on macOS, offering a range of useful features beyond just viewing photos and PDFs.
Click on any PDF (or any image format) to open it and it will launch in Preview. Alternatively, open Preview and it will open the Finder, allowing users to browse through folders to locate the file they want to view. The app features a toolbar at the top of the screen, which allows users to view file details, zoom in or out, share the file, fill in a form, or mark up the file.
The Markup button reveals tools for selection, doodling, inserting shapes or sticky notes, signing, and typing text. These tools are easily customizable, allowing users to control the color and size of a shape or text box, as well as pick between multiple fonts when typing. There is also an autofill helper.
Apple Preview is not designed to replace image or PDF editors, but it still offers some power-user features. The menu bar’s Tools button allows users to reveal more advanced image controls, such as granular resizing, color adjustments, and automatic background removal. The File menu includes a Export button that allows users to choose the output’s quality and file format, allowing them to convert images to various formats.
When viewing a PDF file in Apple Preview, users can easily re-order or delete its pages using the sidebar, allowing them to limit the file to the important bits they need. If exporting the PDF using Preview, users can optionally add a password, quartz filter, or file restrictions.
If you’d prefer not to pay for Adobe Acrobat or another solution, Apple Preview may be more suitable for you. Apple Preview offers free tools that Adobe has paywalled, including PDF page organization/deletion, password protection for PDF files, and document scanning.
Just need to turn something into a PDF? Read: How to make a PDF on Mac
Read our full Apple Preview review
PDF Expert has a wide range of reliable tools and an intuitive user interface. It’s a great option if you are looking for more than Preview offers for free.
Upon launching PDF Expert, users are greeted by a Tools tab with shortcuts to various features, such as organizing, optimizing, protecting, reviewing, or converting documents. The app runs smoothly and gives you everything you need to fully control a PDF file, including edit text and images, sign, fill checkboxes, add links, redact content in multiple ways, insert shapes, highlight text, doodle, and even measure the distance between two points or calculate specific areas.
The PDF Expert toolbar features layout settings, an advanced search bar, and an AI Chat button. The AI Chat button allows users to interact with the integrated chatbot, summarize PDFs, list key points, generate hashtags, and more. The toolbar’s center includes commonly used PDF editing functionalities, such as annotation, editing, file conversion and exporting, signing, and optical character recognition (OCR).
For most users, PDF Expert’s features are sufficient, as it allows users to manipulate a document’s content, add or remove elements, protect the file with a password, and shrink its size. While Adobe Acrobat offers more advanced tools, PDF Expert’s core functionalities are sufficient for most users.
There are two payment options on macOS: a lifetime license, or an annual license that includes future updates and mobile support. Students can get 50% off and there is a free 7-day trial. It is available for iOS, iPadOS, and macOS, but is not available on Android or Windows devices.
Read our full Readdle PDF Expert review
Wondershare’s PDFelement is a document manipulation tool that offers essential features on all platforms at a reasonable price. The app features a minimalistic user interface and offers single- and cross-platform licenses, with the main difference being app updates. If you plan to use the PDF editor on your Mac exclusively, you can opt for a one-year, two-year, or lifetime license. PDFelement also supports iOS, iPadOS, Windows, Android, and the web, offering an all-encompassing bundle that supports all of these platforms.
The single-platform licenses include 20GB of cloud storage, while the highlighted bundles offer 100GB. Once you run out of the 20,000 AI tokens included with your purchase, you can buy more. PDFelement features a clean home page showcasing standard PDF editing tools, such as PDF conversion, optical character recognition (OCR), template selection, file compression, and more. It also has a sidebar that grants access to handy destinations like recent files, cloud documents, tagged PDFs, and agreements you’ve sent others to sign.
PDFelement supports most commonly needed PDF editing functionalities, including text manipulation, image and URL insertion, adding, deleting, and editing the document’s pages. It’s not the most advanced selection out there, but it gets the job done in casual workflows. PDFelement is better suited for annotation and artificial intelligence needs, allowing users to insert text, shapes, comments, stamps, forms, checkboxes, text callouts, and more. It can also automatically bookmarks reflecting the document’s chapters.
Beyond text manipulation, PDFelement can redact text, add a password to the file, convert the PDF to a Microsoft Office format, change the pages’ background, compress the size, and insert a watermark. While not the most feature-rich PDF editor, it caters to casual users seeking a lightweight solution.
Despite its minimalism, getting used to PDFelement may take some time. The unlabeled buttons in the editor’s sidebar can be confusing and challenging to identify, and some features, like text editing, can sometimes be unpredictable. PDFelement is an excellent PDF editor for those with casual needs, but its tools aren’t as advanced as those offered by many rival apps.
