PDF ( Portable Document Format ) is one of the document file formats that is widely used today and can be opened in all Desktop PC and mobile (smartphone) operating systems, such as Windows, Mac OS. PDFs are a monster to edit, but these 4 free apps make it easy peasy Basic PDF edits on a Mac. Every Mac comes with a program called Preview from Apple. You can use it to view and edit. Mark Up mode on the iPhone. Just like the Mac, you don't need a special app for basic edits. This pre-installed program comes with every Mac and is the default PDF editor. It does the most basic things except edit text. So if all there is to do is rearrange pages or insert annotations (Tools Annotate), Preview might be enough. To edit PDF documents, you will need to access the editing feature of Preview. So, we have chosen the best Mac PDF editors based on this criteria. The pick: PDF Expert (the fastest, easiest & made-for-all) PDF Expert is a fast, robust and beautiful PDF editor. If you are looking for a feature-rich PDF editor that is available on multiple platforms, PDF Expert could be the right candidate.

1. Best App For Editing Pdf On Mac
2. Best App For Editing Pdf Mac Os
3. Photo Editing App For Mac
4. Best Editing Apps For Mac
5. Best App For Editing Pdf Documents
6. Best Mac App For Editing Pdfs

Are you looking for a best PDF editor for Mac to meet your personal or professional needs? Due to their simplicity and security, PDF documents are now universally used to store and exchange all kinds of information. Though, there are times when we just wish to edit an existing PDF document on our Mac. Since the editing solution is not presently available in a PDF reader, we need to look for a PDF editor instead. In this post, I will make you familiar with the best PDF editor for Mac that you can use presently.

Best Desktop PDF Editor for Mac

Adobe Acrobat Pro

Adobe understands the importance of a PDF editor and has come up with its own application for Mac. Probably one of the best PDF editors for Mac, it has a sleek interface that is packed with tons of features.

• You can edit text, tables, graphics, and all kinds of data in a PDF file.
• Additional features to create new PDF documents and even fillable forms.
• You can import documents of different formats and even convert PDF into other formats.
• There are additional features to protect, sign, annotate, and share PDF documents.

Pros

• An array of PDF editing tools
• Inclusion of digital IDs and signatures
• Can be linked to Adobe’s cloud for collaboration

Cons

• A bit expensive

PDFelement Pro for Mac

PDFelement pro for mac is one of the best PDF editor for Mac that is already used for personal and professional requirements. You can edit, mark, protect, share, convert, create, and do so much more with PDF files.

• The tool has a user-friendly interface with options to create new PDF files or import documents of other formats.
• With a single click, you can edit PDF’s text and other elements of a file.
• There are additional features to comment and annotate PDF documents.
• You can also convert PDF to other formats like Word, PowerPoint, Excel, or images.

Pros

• Extremely easy to use
• Features to protect and sign PDF files

Cons

• No free lifetime upgrade

PDF Expert

As the name suggests, this is an expert tool to edit pdf document on mac of all kinds. There are various editing features in the tool that you can access to customize your PDF files.

• It can edit texts, tables, images, links, etc. in a PDF document.
• You can fill out PDF forms, add digital signatures, and export annotations as well.
• Can also split or merge PDF documents with a single click
• Additional features to optimize and convert PDF files

Pros

• Mobile app also available
• Easy to use

Cons

• Limited collaborative features for professional use

PdFpen

Smile Software has come up with two PDF editor versions for Mac – PDFpen and PDFpen Pro. The standard version is pretty neat and will meet almost every PDF-related requirement of yours.

• You can easily edit the existing text or tabular content of a PDF file.
• Seamless solutions to merge, delete, and split pages of PDF documents.
• Extended compatibility to import/export documents with different formats
• You can also protect your documents by including your digital signature.

Pros

• Inbuilt OCR to read images
• Annotation features to mark pages with comments

Cons

• Can’t create interactive forms (feature reserved for the Pro version)

Phantom PDF by Foxit

Phantom PDF is one of the best PDF editors for Mac that has been developed by Foxit. The tool offers tons of content editing and integration features as well.

• You can edit almost any element in a PDF document easily.
• Create new PDF files/forms and export them into different formats
• It has an intelligent tool to reduce PDF size drastically
• Scan images using its OCR reader and convert them to a PDF file

Pros

• Free trial version
• Annotation and protection features

Cons

• No support for indexing of large-sized PDF files

Power PDF Advanced by Kofax

Already trusted by over 2 million users, this is one of the best PDF editor for Mac that you can try. There are dedicated versions for individual and business use of the application.

• Import files from Word or Excel directly to a PDF or export a PDF into different formats
• Seamless solutions to edit all kinds of content in a PDF doc
• Fill forms, combine files, split them, and do so much more
• Real-time collaborative feature to work with your team

Pros

• Can create and import digital signatures
• Integration with popular cloud-based platforms

Cons

• Does not have its own cloud
• A bit expensive

FineReader Pro

Lastly, you can also try FineReader Pro by ABBYY on your Mac to edit and optimize your PDF documents. It is known for its inbuilt OCR feature that has excellent text recognition capability.

• Apart from text, you can also edit images in a PDF file as well.
• Can directly scan an image and convert it to a PDF document
• You can also export your PDF documents to tons of other formats
• Optimize PDF files and share them with others pretty easily

Pros

• Tons of features in one place
• Batch processing is also supported

Cons

• Can be complicated to use at first

Master PDF Editor for Mac

Lastly, if you are looking for a desktop application for Mac, then you can simply download the Master PDF Editor. From optimizing your documents to editing your files, it will let you do it all in one place.

• It provides complete editing features to work on PDF text, pages, images, and so on.
• You can split your files, merge them, optimize their size, or just convert them into different formats.
• Apart from encrypting your PDF files, you can also include your digital signatures to protect them.

Pros

• It can directly convert XPS documents into PDF
• Can directly export PDF into formats like PNG, JPEG, TIFF, and BMP

Cons

• The free version of Master PDF editor has limited features

Best free pdf editor for mac

Preview

If you don’t want to try any third-party application, then you can edit pdf in preview which is a popular free pdf editor for mac Using this native Mac application, you can perform some operations on PDF, but it won’t help you edit its text.

• Users can rearrange the pages of a PDF document and even merge the pages of different files together.
• You can also delete any page from a PDF document or split a file into another document.
• There are different tools to markup and annotate the document. For instance, you can add comments, a shape, a textbox, and so on.

Pros

• Freely available (inbuilt app in Mac)
• Easy to use

Cons

• You can’t edit texts, images, or any other content of a PDF file
• Limited features

Best App For Editing Pdf On Mac

Adobe Reader DC

As a free PDF editor, Adobe Reader DC is one of the most used PDF reader applications with lots of features such as viewing, printing, signing and commenting PDF documents for free. But if you want to unlock the limited features such as editing or exporting PDF files to word or excel document, you need to subscribe to Acrobat Pro DC.

• View, sign, print and comment PDFs
• Collect , annotate and share PDFs
• It is connected to Adobe Document Cloud with access to store files in Dropbox or Google Drive

Pros:

• Easy to use
• It is free

Cons

• Do not support creating or exporting PDFs
• Converting PDF to word/excel documents is not allowed

PDFCandy

PDFCandy is a free pdf editing software for mac that you can use on your Mac or any other platform. It offers simple yet effective solutions to work on all kinds of PDF documents for free.

• There are dedicated operations listed on its home that you can choose to implement on your PDF documents.
• Some of its prominent offerings are to compress, optimize, merge, convert, split, edit, and resize PDF files.
• You can convert files from other formats like PNG, RTF, HTML, TXT, XML, etc. to PDF and even export your PDF to other formats.

Pros

• Free video editor
• Several formats are supported

Cons

• Can’t upload files via URL
• No desktop applications for Mac

Smallpdf

Just like PDFCandy, Smallpdf can also be used for free to edit your PDF files. Apart from its web-based application, it provides iOS and Android solutions as well.

• You can convert files from other formats to PDF and even export PDF to other formats like Excel, PPT, DOC, etc.
• If you want, you can also edit the PDF documents and optimize the file.
• Furthermore, it lets us protect our PDF files and sign them electronically.

Pros

• Seamless options to merge and split documents
• Extensive editing features

Cons

• Only a 14-day trial version is available

PDF-XChange Editor

If you are looking for a lightweight free pdf editor for mac to edit and protect your PDF files, then you can also try PDF-XChange Editor. While the features are not as extensive as other tools, it will meet your basic needs.

• The application has an inbuilt OCR reader that would scan the document and let you extract the textual content.
• There are also options to edit the existing texts, pictures, tables, etc. in the PDF file.
• You can directly export your PDF documents into other formats like Excel or Word.

Pros

• Lightweight and easy to use
• A digital signature feature is included

Cons

• Limited free features
• Some features will leave a watermark

Inkscape

Ideally, Inkscape is a designing application that lets us edit vectors, but you can also use it to edit PDF files. There are also a few add-ons features that would help you manage your PDF files.

• It has a resourceful text tool that can help you add and edit texts in a PDF file.
• Inkscape has an inbuilt OCR reader that would let you scan any PDF document easily.
• You can also set restrictions on your PDF files and even export them into different formats.

Pros

• Numerous editing and designing features
• LaTeX integration supported

Cons

• PDF features are not that extensive
• A bit complicated to use

Skim

Skim is an open-source freely available PDF reader for Mac that also has features to edit and optimize PDF documents. A lot of Mac users already prefer Skim as their default PDF application.

• You can use it to read PDF files, add bookmarks, comments, notes, and use other annotation features.
• Users can also create snapshots of PDF files by clipping any segment of it.
• It also lets us underline certain text and export PDF files into other formats.

Pros

• Integration with LaTeX and SyncTeX
• Freely available

Cons

• PDF editing features are limited

Best Online PDF Editor for Mac

Sejda PDF Editor

This is one of the most popular and resourceful online PDF editors that can be accessed on any platform. Although it offers a free trial version, you can pay $7.50 per month to use its premium services.

• Just go to the Sejda website, upload your PDF document, and access the online editor on any platform of your choice.
• It will let you edit the existing details on your PDF documents and you can also insert different elements in your file.
• Users can protect their PDF files with digital signatures, optimize them, and even convert them into different formats.

Pros

• It has an inbuilt OCR reader
• Users can import files from other formats and convert them to PDF

Cons

• Only a free trial version is available
• The free version only supports 3 actions per hour

PDFbuddy

PDFbuddy is a lightweight online PDF editor for Mac that will meet your basic requirements. It is mostly used by individuals who would like to edit PDF files without installing any application.

• PDFbuddy can be accessed on any browser and users simply need to load their PDF files to get started.
• You can edit the existing elements of the PDF file or add texts and pictures in the document as well.
• There is an embedded feature to encrypt the PDF files and protect them with digital signatures.

Pros

• Extremely user friendly
• Most of its features are free

Cons

• With the free version, you can only edit 3 PDFs in a month

Soda PDF Editor

Developed by Lulu Software, Soda PDF is one of the most popular online PDF editors and has been around for a while. To access most of its features, you are needed to pay $6.75 a month.

• You can create PDF forms and import documents from other formats. It can also export PDF into formats like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.
• It offers a seamless PDF editor to insert new elements to your files or edit the existing things (like texts or images).
• You can create or import digital signatures to protect your PDF files online.

Pros

• Features a sophisticated OCR feature
• Annotation options are also included

Cons

• Not available for free

PDFPro

Best App For Editing Pdf Mac Os

PDFPro is another trusted application that you can use to create and edit PDF documents on your Mac online. To access its premium versions, you can pay $7.99 a month.

• Using PDFPro, you can seamlessly edit your PDF files and even create PDF forms on the go.
• You can erase or highlight texts, add comments, delete anything, and do so much more.
• Other features include optimizing, splitting, merging, rotating, and converting PDF files.

Photo Editing App For Mac

Pros

• Security features to protect PDF files
• Easy to use

Cons

• You can only work on 3 PDF files for free in a month

PDFescape

If you use Mac, you can choose PDFescape free online PDF editor tool which can let you view, edit and annotate,PDF files. Additionally, it can also be used to fill out PDF forms, create new PDF forms, share PDF documents online and protect PDF documents. The PDFescape software works with a number of web browsers such as Chrome , Firefox 3+ ,Edge , IE 6+ , and more.

Pros:

• The online PDF editor is free to use

Cons:

• With limited features
• The web-based tool only support file within 10M

I hope that after reading this post, you would be able to pick the best PDF editor for Mac to suit your requirements. I have listed both free and paid tools for individuals and businesses alike in this post. Since most of them offer a free trial version, you can give them a go and be a judge of these tools on your own!

PDF is an acronym for Portable Document Format, which undoubtedly makes it easy to transmit and share with others. Relying on the ability to retain the original format and page layout of the features, PDF is commonly used in business contracts, product introductions, research reports and many other occasions. If you want to edit a PDF file when signing a PDF, filling out a PDF form, or modifying some data in a PDF file, then you need a good PDF editor to help you do that. What is the best PDF editor for Mac? This publication reviews the editing capability, markup and annotation ability, OCR feature, and design features of the major PDF editors, hope can help you to choose the best PDF editor for Mac, and edit PDF files easily.

Top Rated and Fastest PDF Editor for Mac: PDF Expert

PDF Expert, developed by Readdle, is a simple to use PDF editor for Mac with capability of editing PDF text, images, links, and outline in clicks. Macworld reviewed it as affordable PDF editing tool on Mac, it is the fastest and most intuitive PDF editor app. If you read PDF files frequently and just looking for a PDF editor to annotating, editing text/links, cropping, re-positioning of pre-existing images, PDF Expert will be a remarkably powerful and reliable PDF editor for Mac. And you’ll be amazed at its feature-editing and how easy it is to use!

Highlights Features:
• Works as a PDF reader with three modes for comfortable reading.
• Edit PDF text, images, and links efficiently and intelligently, will preserve the text font and size as original text.
• Annotate PDFs by highlight what’s important and take notes: draw, add text and shapes.
• Extract pages and combine PDFs: reorder, add and remove pages, merge documents into one PDF.
• Fill in forms and sign PDF.

Learn how to annotate and edit PDF document with PDF Expert quickly and easily from this video:

Where It Excels:
1. Good for a quick fix on text editing or image replacement/rearranging.
2. Good for quick markup and annotation.
3. Fill in and sign PDF forms, contract easily.
4. Works fast on multiple and huge PDF files with a tabbed interface.
5. Affordable, easy to use PDF Editor for Mac.
6. Works across Apple device: Mac, iPad, and iPhone.

Where It Falls Short:
1. Lacks support for optical character recognition (OCR) on scanned documents.

You can check the review of PDF Expert to learn more about its features and pros & cons.

Best Editing Apps For Mac

Price: $79.99 for 3 Macs, free trial available to download.

Powerful PDF Editor for Mac with OCR Ability: Smile PDFpen

Smile PDFpen is a clean installing PDF application does great work on PDF editing, annotating, OCR, etc. If you are interested in serious PDF editing, and OCR PDF, Smail PDFpen is highly recommended. It offers a completely integrated PDF toolbox that has a long track record with decent support and maintenance that will handle most any PDF task as well. PDFpen allows you to make changes to PDF text and correct typos, add text, images, signatures, fill out forms, redact or erase PDF text (even OCR text), merge or split PDF documents, and perform OCR on scanned document with high resolution and securely. A pro version is available with more powerful and options on PDF editing and exporting.

Highlights Features:
• Edit PDF text or correct typos with ease.
• Markup and annotate PDFs with highlight, circles, lines, or simple drawings.
• Transform paper document into searchable PDFs.
• Fill out interactive PDF forms and sign them.
• Export PDFs in DOCX format, and allows adjusting a range of image resolution.

Learn edit PDFs all away with PDFpen from this video:

Where It Excels:
1. Editing PDF and markup annotation fairly straightforward.
2. Incredibly easy to apply OCR to PDF document and make edits.
3. Quickly export PDF to Microsoft Word, Excel(pro version), PowerPoint(pro version), and PDF.
4. Fill out PDF forms and sign documents with ease.
5. Automate PDF manipulations with AppleScript.
6. Compatible with iCloud Drive.

Where It Falls Short:
1. May lost font style when editing PDFs.

You may be interested in reading PDFpen Review to learn more details of it.

Best App For Editing Pdf Documents

Price: $74.95 (Download the free trial) Or Get it via SetApp ($9.99/mo)

Best Mac App For Editing Pdfs

Best Professional and All-around PDF Editor for Mac: Adobe Acrobat Pro DC

PDF file format is created and introduced by Adobe since 1991, when discuss about editing PDF files, we can’t leave out this industry standard PDF editing program. Adobe Acrobat Pro DC is the most professional and powerful PDF editor to do any editing on PDF file. It’s a premium PDF editing software designed for those who want the most comprehensive features set including create PDF, edit PDF, convert PDF, process scanned PDF, or any others. It’s the perfect option for professional use and those who need the most powerful PDF editor. And if you have already subscribed to Adobe Creative Cloud, Acrobat DC is available for you to do any PDF editing tasks any time.

Highlights Features:
• Edit, replace or change PDF contents with ease.
• Converts and save scanned documents into editable PDF.
• Merge and create multiple documents, spreadsheets, webpages, and the like into a single PDF file.
• Create, Fill in, and Sign interactive PDF forms.
• Cloud-based storage and document access supported.

Learn how to use Adobe Acrobat Pro to edit PDF and more from this video:

Where It Excels:
1. User friendly and efficient interface with tab organized by function: Create & Edit, Review & Approve, Forms & Signatures, Protect & Standardize, and Customize.
2. Powerful PDF editing features: Add or edit text, change or replace text and images, markup and comments, fill in and sign.
3. OCR recognition for scanned PDF and images.
4. Numbers of export options including PDF, Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, HTML, RTFD, Text.
5. Keep PDF security and maximum compatibility.
6. Pretty cool print, share and track features, can print straight multiple pages on one sheet with ease.

Where It Falls Short:
1. A little complex for new users to navigate the rich features.
2. Expensive.
3. No undo function for OCR correction feature.

Price: $14.99/month for annual subscription, $24.99 monthly
Subscribe Adobe Acrobat Pro DC on Official page or get it from Amazon at one-time fee.

Top 4 PDF Element Pro

PDF Element is a PDF tool bundled with create, edit, markup and convert functions. It is a capable and stable PDF editor for Mac to edit entire PDF text, convert PDF into word or other formats, and create PDF forms with ease. With its built-in OCR technology, it can help you to edit and convert any types of PDF document (native or scanned) with high accuracy output. PDF Element is an easy-to-use and all-in-one PDF solution for those who want to edit and annotate PDFs, convert or create PDFs in clicks. Extensive editing tools such as adding text to PDF, adding image or link, watermarking or adding background to PDF, even OCR PDFs make it an excellent PDF editor for Mac.

Highlights Features:
• Edit and correct PDF text whether native or scanned PDF documents.
• Mark up PDFs by highlight text, add sticky notes, signature, or add simple drawings.
• Convert and export PDFs to multiple file formats including Excel, Word, Pages, and more.
• Create in-depth PDF forms or documents in mins.
• Transfer paper documents or scanned PDF into searchable PDF file.

Learn how to edit PDF with PDFelement on Mac from this video:

Where It Excels:
1. Offers easy way to edit PDF text, image, links, background, headers and footers, watermark and background.
2. Built-in OCR technology let it works on any kinds of PDF documents.
3. Capable to search PDF text for redact information.
4. Create PDF forms and fill in efficiently and intelligently.
5. Convert PDFs into searchable/editable PDF, Word, Excel with high accuracy.

Where It Falls Short:
1. Only paid version has OCR function and redaction feature.
2. A little slow to process big PDF files at times.

Price: $79/year

Thanks for Wondershare, we applied a coupon “SAFWSPDF” for readers to get PDFElement Pro at only $63.20 (20% off).

Top 5 Abbyy Reader

Abbyy Reader is an all-in-one PDF software built-in high quality OCR technology on the market, it provides professional, powerful, yet easy-to-use editing tools and conversion options for PDF files and scanned documents. It’s a good PDF editor can edit and comment PDF files by recognizing blocks of text/image/table content, and can transfer the scanned document and PDF file into MS Word, Excel, searchable PDF or other formats. Abbyy Reader is the best all-round OCR app, so if you are looking for a Mac PDF Editor can accurately recognize text in any kinds of PDF document (including scanned PDF or even image file), it is the best choice for you. Or else, we would recommend you get the more rounded Mac PDF editor mentioned above.

Highlights Features:
• Powerful OCR software with high accuracy text recognition and document conversion.
• Edit PDF text, annotate PDF, fill out forms and signature.
• Redact sections of PDF contents.
• Convert PDF (even scanned and image) into MS Word, Excel and other file documents.

Learn how to edit PDF documents with Abbyy Reader from this video:

Where It Excels:
1. Recognize blocks of text in PDF or scanned document tremendously accurate and fast with its superior OCR engine.
2. Support hundreds of different languages.
3. Simplified interface, easy to use.
4. Convert and export PDF or image to different types of documents.

Where It Falls Short:
1. Requires good computers, or else it is very slow and constantly freezes.
2. Price is fairly high for those who don’t have many documents to work with.
3. Requires high quality of scanned documents, or else it will make mistakes that need to be fixed manually.

Price:$119.99/one-time/user.

How About Those Free PDF Editors for Mac?

Preview – Software comes along with macOS system. It’s a good PDF tool for markup, signing documents, and simple PDF management, but if you want to edit PDF text or make more corrections, Preview can’t access and accomplish, so it’s not a “true” PDF editor.

Skim – More like a PDF reader and note-taker, it can let you add and edit notes on PDF documents, highlight text. It doesn’t support to change PDF text or images, so it’s not a really PDF editor too.

Free Online PDF Editing Tool

PDFEscape
PDFEscape is an online PDF editing tool, which will allow users to annotate and markup PDF files, but can’t exactly edit PDF text or images in existing files, it’s limited to handle with PDF file not exceed 10MB, and comes along with Ads, so it’s not a really free PDF editor for Mac users to edit PDF text or image. To use it requires a JavaScript enabled web browser.

SmallPDF
SmallPDF is a popular online PDF editing tool that allows users to do very basic editing on PDF, such as add text or image to PDF, add shape (only circle, square, arrow), or draw lines on PDF text. It’s limited usage and can do batch processing, also displays ads. If you want to remove the limitation and gain more functions, you’ll need to pay for it.

What to Look for in The Best PDF Editor for Mac

To choose the best PDF editor for Mac, we could follow some criteria that make the PDF editor stand out:
1. Friendly User Interface. Obviously, the program design should meet user habit, the best PDF editor should have a clean and friendly user interface, editing features are easy to understand and use.
2. Editing Features. The best PDF editor should not only can edit the text, but also can edit other elements including images, forms, links, shapes and signatures.
3. Markup and Annotation. Most users require annotation and markup when doing PDF editing, so it must be easy to add comments and highlights to PDF document using the best PDF editor.
4. Optical Character Recognition(OCR). It’s an optional feature that you may need. When you want to edit scanned PDF or image file, apply Optical Character Recognition(OCR) will let the scanned PDF or image editable and searchable, and then you can edit PDF files like in MS word.
5. Process Speed and Compatibility. The speed of load large PDF files, and quickly find where you want to edit and change, to implement editing immediately would improve your work efficiency. And the best PDF editor should be compatible well with your macOS system, and works smooth on all kinds of PDF file version.
6. Export Options. Optionally, you might need to export the PDF file into other format, and share & send to other application easily.

Conclusion

Above are the best PDF editors for Mac that you can choose to edit PDFs quickly. When doing edits on PDF, quality should be the most important concern, so choose the right one that you need based on the features. If you often work with PDF files and wish to edit PDF easily and effective, PDF Expert is a good choice. If you are looking for a PDF editor that comes OCR ability, then could pick PDFpen Pro, which offers powerful editing features and great output quality.