1. Free Pdf Editor For Mac
2. Best Mac Pdf Editor
3. Download Pdf Editor For Mac

Aug 28,2019 • Filed to: Choose Right Mac Software • Proven solutions

Wondering how to access a free Mac PDF editor, or how to choose the right PDF editor for Mac? Below, we'll cover 10 commonly used PDF editor for Mac, all of which are compatible with macOS 10.14 Mojave. By reading this list, you will be able to determine the most cost-effective Mac PDF editing software that also best meets your business needs.

Free PDF editor for mac is a real work, but when taking performance and security into consideration, they may disappoint you. If you need some of the additional features that come with the product and/or have a business operation that handles a lot of PDF documents, paid PDF Editor for Mac is the best choice.

• Free pdf editor mac free download - VideoPad Free Video Editor for Mac, Wondershare PDF Editor, Coolmuster PDF to Word Converter for Mac, and many more programs.
• PDF Buddy is the most powerful online PDF editor available: You can add text, images, signatures, and annotations, and highlight and white-out content. You can also store signature files and images such as logos for easy re-use.

Top 10 PDF Editor for Mac

1. PDFelement

PDFelement is a PDF solution integrate with a variety of convenient and practical features for editing, conversion, annotation, OCR, form processing and digital signatures.

This well-rounded PDF editing software is popular among users and has a step up above the competition due its excellent form field recognition and data extraction technology.

Unique Features:

• Fully compatible with macOS 10.14 Mojave.
• Powerful PDF editing and annotation tools that allow for a smooth editing experience.
• Robust PDF creation and conversion features.
• The ability to fill and sign PDF forms easily.

Pros:

Pros of this program include clear function classification, a complete set of PDF tools, OCR and batch processing, high compatibility with all operating systems, a simple user experience and interface, and the ability for document conversions.

Cons:

Because of its focus on simplicity, it has less advanced features than programs like Adobe Acrobat.

Supported Systems: Mac, Windows, iOS, Android

Other Benefits:

• A smooth and simple interface design
  The full functionalities can be enjoyed by both Windows and Mac users.
• Better experience with PDF forms
  The automatic form recognition feature enables you to create an editable form with just one click.
• PDF editing tools
  You can export data from paper or electronic forms into an editable Excel form.
• Intelligent and smooth editing features.
  A better PDF editing experience lets you keep the fonts and formatting of your original file while converting it.
• It can convert standard PDF file format to longer-lasting PDF / A format for purpose of a longer archiving period.

2. Acrobat for Mac

Acrobat is also a powerful tool. As the world's best desktop PDF solution, the brand new look of Acrobat will blow your mind. It also includes a mobile version that lets you fill in, sign and share PDFs on any device at any location. However, Adobe Acrobat XI has ended support, meaning you might need to turn to an Acrobat alternative if you are looking for dedicated support. Click here to discover the best Acrobat alternative options.

Unique Features:

• Fast document comparison.
• Supports operational procedures for review and approval.
• Automatic form field recognition.
• Create a PDF from Office formats quickly and easily.

Pros:

Stable functionalities, high efficiency, and high compatibility.

Cons:

It has a lot of advanced features that are complicated and difficult to use for beginners. Plus, the bloated features mean it comes at a higher cost.

Supported Systems: Windows, Mac, iOS

Price: $179.88 / Year

More Introduction:

• An attractive user interface that supports touch functionality
  Fully compatible with mobile devices and supports touch functionality, with a user-friendly interface.
• Work anytime, anywhere
  Acrobat has all the tools needed for converting, editing and signing a PDF anytime and anywhere. You can start a document at work, modify it during the transit ride home, and then send it for approval from the comfort of your living room.
• Edit any file any time
  You won't need to spend your valuable time re-creating new documents. Simply export or convert your file into an easily editable format.

3. PDF Expert

PDF Expert is one of Readdle's premium Apps. It has been the leading product of PDF processing software on iOS platform for quite some time. Since the launch of PDF Expert on the Mac platform in 2015, it has become the best application on Mac App Store in 2015 and has been recommended by Apple editors.

Unique Features:

• Fast speed for page organization and functionalities
• Fluent in adding annotations and editing
• Simple text and image editing functions

Pros:

Good reading experience, simple operation and easy to use. Plus it has a nice user interface.

Cons:

It has less features than other PDF editors, and the PDF compatibility could be improved.

Supported Systems: Mac, iOS

Price: $59.99

More Introduction:

• Professional reading experience
  Smooth scrolling and a quick search function. Choose your favorite layout and complete any task quickly and easily.
• Editing PDFs is seamless
  PDF Expert for Mac helps you format text and paragraphs easily. It will automatically detect fonts, and editing a PDF document is as easy as using any other program to edit a document.
• Fill in and sign PDF forms effortlessly
  Fill PDF forms easily, such as application forms, tax reports, shopping lists, you name it. You can sign a contract by using a legally valid personal e-signature in just a few clicks.
• Integration, sharing, and collaboration
  Add notes or comments to easily collaborate with colleagues. You can also use a password to protect your sensitive files and documents.
• Compatibility with iPhone, iPad, and more
  PDF Expert is compatible with all Apple platform products: Mac, iPad and iPhone. It allows you to transfer documents across these devices seamlessly. Your work can be done anytime and anywhere.

Get the best PDF Expert alternative now - PDFelement.

4. PDFpenPro

PDFpenPro is a professional program heavily influenced by Preview. It is fully compatible with macOS X for PDF documents. It keeps the original operation processing feature of Preview, which fits more user's operating habits and is more convenient for a beginner user. There are also functional enhancements. You can add signatures, text and images, as well as make changes, correct typos, and perform OCR on scanned documents. It allows you to fill and create fillable forms, as well as convert PDF to Word, Excel and PowerPoint formats.

Unique Features:

• Simple form field creation
• Intuitive annotation properties

Pros:

It meets basic PDF editing needs and the operating experience is similar to that of Preview.

Cons:

Not all languages are supported, such as Chinese. It also has weak text and page editing capabilities compared to other programs.

Unique Features: Mac, iOS

Price: $124.95

More Introduction:

• Generic PDF editing tools
  You can use PDFpenPro to add text and signatures, amend text, and use OCR for scanned documents.
• Make interactive PDF forms for Mac and Windows
  You may create an interactive form by using check boxes, text boxes, radio buttons, and interactive signature fields.
• Exports MS Office formats to PDF
  It allows you to export a PDF to Excel, Word, PowerPoint and save as a PDF/A format.
• Store your PDF in the cloud
  You can edit your PDF at any time, and can use the PDFpen on an iPad or iPhone to edit a PDF seamlessly over iCloud or Dropbox.

5. Preview

As a built-in PDF software on Mac, Preview allows for the limited ability to read and browse PDF formats, as well as make simple annotations. It can meet your primary requirement of reading and editing PDFs. But if you have more advanced PDF editing needs, Preview will not be suitable.

Pros:

Build-in system, more preview formats, and read files fluently.

Cons:

Poor compatibility, lack of professional functions and PDF content can only be edited in the most basic ways.

Supported Systems: Mac

Price: Free

More Introduction:

• Quick annotation
• You can quickly arrange pages by dragging and dropping thumbnails
• The camera is able to recognize handwritten signatures quickly.

Learn more about Preview here >>

6. Skim

Skim is a free Mac PDF editor. It functions like Preview, offering markup tools that help highlight important PDF content. You can also add and edit notes, crop PDF files, and more.

• View PDF files.
• Add and edit notes.
• Highlight text.
• Take snapshots of PDF files.
• Give presentations with built-in transitions.

7. PDF Nomad

PDF Nomad is unique editing software that provides a number of editing tools. The software supports the editing of images and texts in PDFs. It also allows you to arrange, split, and merge PDF pages in a document. Some of the tools in this software also make it easier for you to rotate, scale, and crop PDF files.

Pros:

• It can be used to edit all aspects of PDF files including images.
• It comes with an Optical Character Recognition (OCR) feature that makes editing scanned PDFs very easy.
• You can use it to annotate a PDF document.

Cons:

• The free version lacks many features and at $75 the pro version is somewhat expensive compared to others.

8. Master PDF Editor for Mac

Master PDF Editor is PDF editing software for Mac that comes with loads of features allowing you to convert PDF to numerous other file types and edit just about any aspect of your PDF document.

Pros:

• It can be used to edit both text and images.
• You can convert PDFs to other formats including Word and Excel.
• Works with Linux.

Cons:

• The complex interface makes it difficult to use for beginners.
• The free version has limited capabilities.

9. Scribus for Mac

Scribus is a free PDF editing software for Mac that can be used to open PDFs and even edit certain aspects of the PDF document. It is one of the easiest programs to use because the user interface is simple and clean. You can also use it to annotate PDF documents if you want to highlight and edit sections of the document you consider important.

Pros:

• It is very easy to use.
• It can be used to edit both text and images.

Cons:

• It can't be used to convert PDFs.

10. PDF Buddy

This is another online tool that can be very useful when you want to edit PDF documents. This PDF editing software for Mac comes with a lot of features that can be used to manipulate a PDF document in many ways. You can add text, add and remove images and even split and merge PDF files. It can also be used to add signatures to your PDF document.

Pros:

• It is free to use.
• It lets you make numerous edits to your PDF files.
• There is no limit to the size of PDF file you can work with.

Cons:

• It sometimes fails to download the file after editing.

There you have it - the 10 Best Free PDF Editor Tools for Mac. Now that you've had time to research the best PDF editor for Mac, don't hesitate to try out PDFelement now to see if it's right for you!

Free DownloadFree Download or Buy PDFelementBuy PDFelement right now!

When it comes to editing a PDF file on Mac, you have two choices — upload the PDF to an online conversion service, or use a Mac PDF editor app.

While online PDF conversion services have their own advantages and are usually free (though some may have certain restrictions), we assume you’ve already tried out. So, we are not going to talk much about them.

Instead, we want to show you the best PDF editor app for Macs. After all, you are a business person who handles PDF documents on a regular basis. Desktop software is more convenient to use, and more likely to improve your business productivity.

Here we round up some of the most powerful Mac PDF editors currently in the market. The recommendations below are for Mac users only, if you are on a PC, see our review of best PDF editor for Windows 10.

Online PDF Editor vs. Desktop PDF Editing App

There is no absolute answer as to which editor is better, but here’s our take:

If you are in a hurry, and you only have several non-confidential PDFs to edit, go for online PDF editing services like PDFescape. Simply open a web browser, upload your PDF file and start editing.

Note: we suggest you not to upload any private or confidential documents due to security concerns. Because your PDF files are going to be uploaded elsewhere in the cloud you can’t control or access.

If your documents are important, and you only have minor editing tasks such as: add signature, comment, merge/split pages, etc.; We recommend Preview — a free built-in app in macOS that allows you to edit images and PDF files. We’ll cover this app more below.

How about Adobe Acrobat for Mac? It’s great, but our main concern is its price — $300 direct purchase (or $15 per month if you go for subscription), it’s definitely on the pricer side. Plus, you can get almost all similar features from other Mac PDF editors we recommend below while paying much less.

Best PDF Editor for Mac: What to Look for?

The following factors are merely what we think you should consider in order to narrow down the list to come up with your favorite tools. They are, however, by no means the industry standards.

Security: all downloadable software must be free of virus and malware. Though Macs are widely considered to be more secure than Windows PCs, recent news reveals that macOS isn’t safe anymore due to crapware and malware threats. We make sure the PDF editor app we recommend are clean and safe.

PDF Editing Features: the Mac PDF editor you choose should be able to do basic editing tasks like annotation, add/delete pages, form filling, highlighting, and so on. Advanced editing features include: add a password, create links, export PDFs to other document formats, etc. Bottom line: the best Mac PDF editing software should offer more features than what Preview does.

Free Pdf Editor For Mac

OCR Support: this is important because if a PDF editor doesn’t support OCR (Optical Character Recognition), you can’t use it to handle scanned PDF files which are essentially images. OCR is able to extract all the content in a scanned PDF file and export objects into editable texts or graphs. The software that integrates OCR technology will save you lots of headaches when it comes to editing scanned PDF documents.

Ease of Use: this is the main factor that makes desktop software superior to most online PDF conversion tools. If you’ve used some online PDF editors, you probably feel the navigation and operation are not that smooth. You need a lot of back and forth to make the change to a desirable level. A great PDF editor app should make it hassle-free and enjoyable during the editing process.

macOS Compatibility: The software you choose should also be able to run on the latest macOS Catalina and be compatible with some older macOS versions that are widely used by Mac users. If it can’t, it would be a waste of your time to download and install it on your Mac on to find it doesn’t work. Besides a PDF editor app that keeps updating tends to be more trustworthy and reliable.

Help/Support: We value those developers that provide helpful tutorials and guides to facilitate the customer experience. Also, it’s ideal that users can reach out to them via email, phone, live chat, etc. for any inquiries or technical questions.

Best PDF Editor for Mac in 2019: Our Picks

1. Preview (Built-in App on Mac)

The Preview app built in your Mac lets you add text to PDFs, highlight it, sign documents, leave comments, and more. You can choose where in the document you’d like to post a note and move it later if you change your mind. Some of the more interesting features include novel ways to sign documents. If you have a trackpad, you can even sign documents with your finger. If you have a camera on your device, you can sign a piece of paper. Hold it up and snap a photo, thereby adding the signature to the document. Editing images with Preview is simple and intuitive, as is the ability to share and export your completed files.

2. Adobe Acrobat Pro for Mac

Adobe Acrobat Pro helps you create professional, polished documents that are easy to send and view. With features to protect your files, you’ll never have to worry about other people making modifications or copying sensitive information. With a built-in e-signature feature, you can send, track, manage, and store signed documents. Adobe Acrobat Pro is also known for its ability to convert different kinds of documents into PDFs including Word, Excel, and Paper materials. Calculations, checkboxes, signature fields, can all be converted. This software also includes tools to help you prepare for high-end print production.

3. PDF Expert

PDF Expert makes editing simple by automatically detecting the opacity, font, and size of the original text. You can modify the text, images, or links without difficulty. Some of the other notable features of this software include the ability to collaborate with clients and team members by adding notes and protecting information through passwords. Compatible with any Apple device, iPhone, iPad, and Mac, you can use PDF Expert to transfer files between devices seamlessly. Similar to other editors, you can also use PDF Expert to create applications, tax forms, and sign them with an electronic signature in a few clicks.

4. PDFpen

PDFpen allows you to draw, scribble, and highlight PDF text with underscoring and strikethrough. You can use editable text blocks to correct text, and move, copy, and resize images to your liking. The advanced version PDFpen Pro uses OCR technology to turn pictures of scanned text into words you can easily modify and proofread for errors. If your PDF requires more dramatic changes, you can use PDFpen to export to Word for easy sharing and editing. When it comes to signing your PDF with a secure and trusted signature, you have a few options. You can scribble your signature with a mouse or trackpad. You can also scan an image of your signed signature and drag and drop it into place. Lastly, this software gives you complete control over the way the pages of your PDF are formatted. You can delete pages, reorder them, or merge documents as you require.

5. PDFelement for Mac

Known for its intuitive interface, PDFelement offers simple navigation with professional-level results. Using bookmarks, you can quickly locate points of interest and link to them. The included OCR technology can turn paper documents into searchable, selectable, and editable PDFs in over 25 different languages. With paragraph and single-line editing tools, you can maintain the document style by reflowing text. PDFelement also supports form creation, password encryption, annotations, and permissions-based restrictions.

6. ABBYY FineReader for Mac

FineReader can read pages from a PDF on your hard disk or from a scanner, and with its OCR engine, it can then extract text, arrange tables, and preserve layout so you can make the necessary edits. FineReader’s text recognition accuracy is one of the highest in the industry, according to their internal testing, at a rate of 99.8%. Text sizes, font sizes, headers, footers, footnotes, tables of contents, and footnotes, all can be recreated through this software’s adaptive document recognition technology. You can create searchable PDFs, modify images with the image editor, and create ebooks for reading while on the go.

7. PhantomPDF Mac

PhantomPDF is ConnectedPDF Powered, meaning that it offers cloud-based services, such as the ability to grant and revoke document access, collaboration features, and tracking to see who has opened your document. With this editor, you can adjust text flow across multiple pages, columns, or paragraphs. Move text boxes, change their size, and toggle how the text is justified until it fits your requirements. You can create PDFs in virtually any file format, merge PDFs, or split them into different documents.

8. Able2Extract Professional (Mac)

As a cross-platform tool on Windows and Mac, Able2Extract Professional is a creator, converter, and editor, with multiple uses. You can convert data to and from editable Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, Publisher, PowerPoint, Open Office, Autocad, and all image formats. You can create secure PDFs, sign and edit PDFs. It comes with a wide range of formatting options, with prefixes and suffixes, numbering sequences, date-time stamps. Able2Extract also comes with a number of collaboration features that allow annotations and notes. You might consider this software if you want an editor that handles many different tasks in a simple, intuitive fashion.

9. Power PDF Standard for Mac

Power PDF Standard touts itself as a more efficient choice for Mac users than other standard “freemium” PDF editors available. This app has been designed to help maximize productivity when converting, editing, creating, or sharing documents across any platform. You can collaborate with powerful markup and commenting tools. You can send documents securely with features such as password security and text redaction. You can also compile and create PDF files from almost any file type. Power PDF Standard helps you control every aspect of your workflow.

10. PDF Studio for Mac

Best Mac Pdf Editor

PDF Studio for Mac was built to be a reliable alternative to Adobe Acrobat with all of the expected features offered at a lower price. As the application only occupies a small amount of space on your hard drive (300MB), you get all the features you need with no bloatware. Some of the features in the standard edition include precision measuring tools, secure documents, and the ability to fill in and save PDF forms. Create watermarks, headers, and footers, all supporting PDF 2.0 standards. The Professional Edition includes OCR text recognition, an interactive form designer, the ability to compare and optimize PDFs, and a way to split and merge documents.

Download Pdf Editor For Mac

Andreas is an Apple and Microsoft fanboy who works with his Mac and lives with a PC at home. While he is not reading technology journals, you’ll probably find him playing online games with friends or hiking in the wild.