What is the best free PDF Editor for Mac? - PDF Editor for Mac

Sure thing! Preview on Mac can handle basic PDF tasks for free. For more advanced editing, like changing text or converting files, Adobe Acrobat Reader DC's free version is user-friendly.

What's more, this article lists the top 6 PDF editors for Mac and discusses their features, pros and cons.

https://www.sysgeeker.com/blog/best-6-pdf-editors-for-mac.html

Most of the editors you can find online and in the App Store are not editors at all. The only one that is an actual editor in the link provided by Jessica_212 is Adobe Acrobat Pro. The rest only do simple, non-editing functions. Like dropping in your signature, adding annotation shapes like arrows and boxes. And in one app, being able to drop in an extra text box onto the file. Which is just another annotation feature.

Genuine editing is being able to place text, change existing text, add or remove images, change object colors, etc.

These are few and far between. The only ones I've ever found are Adobe Acrobat Pro and Master PDF Editor. Acrobat Pro is great, but very expensive since it's never ending subscription software. Keep paying, or it stops working. Master PDF Editor is one time cost perpetual software. You get one year of free updates from the time you purchase it. But, it keeps working past the one year mark. You don't have to upgrade if you don't want to.

There are some PDF editors that can satisfy your needs. Pick one based on your frequency.

Here are some free PDF editors that work:

Preview: A built-in app on Mac that can perform some basic editing operations on PDFs.

PDFgear

https://www.pdfgear.com/pdfgear-for-mac/

Sejda(online service)

https://www.sejda.com/pdf-editor

PDFescape(online service)

https://www.pdfescape.com/online-pdf-editor/

Here are some editors that require a payment to achieve those needs and they worth it:

Adobe Acrobat

https://www.adobe.com/acrobat.html

Foxit

https://www.foxit.com/

PDFExpert

https://pdfexpert.com/

You can choose a PDF editor that suits your needs. Hope this can help you!

Did you try the default Preview for PDF editing?

The Preview app on macOS offers a variety of features for editing PDFs. One of its primary functions is the ability to annotate PDFs. Users can add text, shapes, and highlight parts of the document. This is particularly useful for marking up documents for review or adding notes. The app also allows users to merge and reorder PDF pages, which is handy for compiling documents or rearranging them for better flow.

Another notable feature of Preview is the ability to fill out and sign PDF forms. Users can easily enter text into form fields, and the signature feature lets them create a digital signature using the trackpad, a saved image, or the Mac's camera. This makes it easy to fill out and sign documents electronically.

However, while Preview offers a range of features for basic editing and annotation, it may not be sufficient for more advanced PDF editing needs. For tasks like editing existing text within a PDF, more complex formatting, or advanced multimedia integration, users might need to look at specialized PDF editing software.

How does one access from the Pages document, the Preview app on MacOS? When I go to export my Pages document to a PDF, it is Adobe Acrobat Reader that pops up and where it is saved under. I need access to a PDF program as well, however on a minimal level. Mostly for documents and text based work, with little to no imagery work.

I just tried Cisdem's PDFMaster and was vastly underwhelmed. Virtually everything it does is nothing but annotations where you can drop shapes, text boxes and other objects on top of the PDF. This is not editing.

Moving pages around? You can do that in Preview. Redaction? It's nothing but another annotation. You drop a black box over something, but the actual content is still underneath. You can also do that in Preview.

The only true editing it does is text manipulation, and it's very clumsy.

In other words, not even close to Acrobat Pro, Master PDF Editor, Foxit PDF Editor, or PDF Expert.

Preview is good for reviewing PDF files, but not so much with editing (refer on the current issue encountered when saving edited PDF files thru preview:

Why did Preview lock my PDF after I edite… - Apple Community

The only "FREE" pdf editor for a MAC is Apple's preview as far as I know.

Acrobat Reader is free but it does not really edit - it is useful to fill in forms.

You have to pay a license fee or an annual subscription fee for most PDF editors.

[Edited by Moderator]

Some nice finds there that didn't exist just a couple of years ago. As you noted, the first three are very basic. And I can't think of anything clumsier than doing PDF editing online. But it's an option.

Never heard of Foxit PDF Editor before (and I checked out at least 20 editors - or claimed to be editors - when switching from Acrobat Pro and the full Adobe CC suite). Very nicely done app, but yikes!, $110 per year subscription. And subscriptions were, and still are my number one reason to disregard an app.

PDF Expert has definitely improved to an editor that actually edits. Before, all it did was annotations and exporting PDFs to a different format, like a Word document. But still, it's an $80 per year subscription. You can choose the lifetime $140 option, but that excludes all later upgrades and features. You get what you get at the time you purchase it and nothing more.

Though to be fair, Master PDF Editor is kind of the same. You get updates for year, and those end unless you pay for another year's worth. But like PDF Expert's lifetime option, at least what you last have keeps working.

I installed PDFgear on my Mac to edit text, annotate convert and cmpress PDF....It has a sleek interface, very easy to navigate and got pretty much all the necessary PDF-related functions that I need. It's currently cost-free and ad-free, which is a definite plus.

Cisdem PDFMaster is very similar to Adobe in terms of user experience. It is also a full-featured PDF software that covers functions such as PDF annotation, PDF editing, PDF conversion, PDF merging and splitting pages, PDF document protection, OCR image to text, etc. Cisdem PDFMaster also has a very useful feature, which is that you can use the tts function to listen to your PDF. You can also set rules to protect the document. It offer a 7 day freetrial for all it’s function, you just need to enter a email address. https://www.cisdem.com/pdfmaster.html