Need to edit or fill in a PDF and don't want to pay? Add signatures, combine pages, rotate pages, reduce file size, convert PDFs and more with these Free PDF editors.
PDFs can be a pain. As they were initially designed to be forms that were printed out and filled in by pen, they can feel somewhat anacronistic in the modern digital age. But, it’s not as hard to complete forms or annotate documents in this format, and you don’t even need expensive software to do it.
Here we look at a collection of PDF apps that are either completely free, or have a free trial version with a lot of the necessary functionality for a one-off PDF editing requirement.
Some of these apps do certain things better than others, so the best PDF editor for you will depend on what your particular needs. For example, if you want a PDF editor that can use OCR (optical character recognition) to read the text on a page you have scanned, and allow you to edit it, we have an option that can allow you to do that. If you need some more functionality than these free options offer take a look at our Best PDF Editor for Mac round-up.
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Alternatively, if you are looking for a PDF editor that’s simple to use and flexible enough to let you fill in a form without pulling out your hair, we have one below. We have even found a PDF tool that will let you import a PDF into Word (or Pages) and edit it there.
We have looked at the following features and abilities of the PDF Editors reviewed here:
Import: How faithful to the original PDF is the PDF editor? Does it maintain fonts and spacing? Can you open the PDF in Word, Excel etc?
Editing: Can you select text from the original PDF? Is the new text added in a separate text box? How easy is it to edit and delete content from the PDF? Can you move content around? Does the text you add maintain the style and formatting of the original PDF? Can you add hyperlinks or attach documents? Can you add images?
Collaboration: What markup tools are available? Can you highlight, underline, or strikethrough text? Can you use freehand drawing tools and an eraser. Can you add stamps? Can you track who reads and edits?
Signing: Can you add a signature? Is this signature scanned, imported, or typed? How many signatures can you save?
Saving: Can you resize the PDF? Can you stitch pages from multiple docs? Can you delete pages? Can you rotate pages?
Find & Replace: Can the PDF editor search the PDF? Can you find and replace words? Can you redact words?
OCR: Can the PDF editor read a scanned page – and can you edit that?
Watermark: Does it add a watermark? Can you add your own watermark?
Don’t forget that macOS comes with some PDF editing capabilities of its own in Preview, and you can read a bit more about how to work with it in tips for using Preview to edit a PDF on a Mac and How to make a PDF on Mac. We also cover How to scan documents and make PDFs on your iPhone or iPad.
There is a free PDF editor already available on your Mac and it’s pretty good. It’s got some limitations, but it’s likely to offer enough tools for you if you just need to fill in some responses to questions on a PDF.
You can use Preview to add text to PDFs, sometimes it recognizes where text should go, other times you need to add your own text boxes, in that case it can be a bit fiddly to get the text box to line up with the text on the page, but it’s not impossible. You can change the size, color and font you use.
You can also perform actions like strike-through – initially, we used the line shape, but then we discovered that it is possible to select strike-through from the menu (Tools > Annotate). You can also underline text the same way. These options are also available from the highlighter palette.
Under Annotate in the menu are options for adding a speech bubble. You can also add comments in the form of sticky notes.
Our spellings were checked as we typed – indicated by the usual squiggly line.
Adding a signature is simple, with three options for doing so: using a trackpad, iPhone or iPad, or by signing your name on a piece of paper and holding it up to the camera. You can save multiple signatures and add them to the document easily. We have a guide to adding a signature to a PDF here.
It’s easy to shuffle pages and add and delete pages from a Preview PDF. If you can’t already see the thumbnail view on the left click on the dropdown box above the A icon and choose Thumbnails.
Now that you can see the thumbnails it is easy to shuffle page order, delete a page, and you can even drag and drop another PDF into the thumbnail column to add it.
It is also easy to rotate pages (click on the page in the Thumbnail view and click on the rotate icon in the menu).
You can export your PDF as a JPEG, TIFF, but there are no options for exporting to other apps, such as Word or Pages.
One of the newest features of Preview is an OCR – optical character recognition. If you are running macOS Monterey or later and you open anything in Preview – be it a PDF or a photo – you will be able to select most forms of text and cut and paste it into a text document. We were able to select text, even if it was on a slant, and generally, the results were good.
Since macOS Sonoma macOS it’s been possible to auto-fill PDFs with your name, address, phone number and other data saved in your Contacts app.
As we said above, Preview offers enough features if all you need to do is enter a bit of text and sign a PDF. So if you are trying to fill in an application form or filling in a few yes or no checkboxes, it’s likely to be sufficient. Those wanting a little more flexibility may find that Preview might not have enough features… in which case we have some options below that might prove more tempting.
Also read our full guide to using Preview on the Mac.
Read our full Apple Preview review
Adobe Acrobat Reader is free for some basic use, but some of the features require moving to the Standard or Pro tiers that come with a monthly, annual or prepaid annual subscription. Standard costs from $12.99/£13.14 p/m. The Pro tier will set you back $19.99/£19.96 p/m. There’s a 7-day free trial available for these additional features. However, there are a lot of features that are available for free. You’ll find these in the Comment and Fill & Sign sections.
To add text to the PDF choose Fill & Sign. Here you will also find the options to add a tick or a cross, a circle, or a line. The signature option is here too, we’ll look at that in more detail below.
Comment options include the ability to add a speech bubble, highlight, underline, and strike-through words. In fact, you can strike-through and add a related comment. All your comments will appear in the sidebar on the right.
There are also tools here to draw and erase what you draw. A stamp tool with options like Approved, Revised, Confidential, Sign Here, and the option to import your own (these need to be in the PDF format, but it could be a way to add an image).
When adding a signature you have options to Type, Draw (using a mouse or trackpad), or Image. If you opt for the latter you could import a scan or photograph of your signature – you can import any image this way, but it will appear translucent, with the background appearing behind it as you can see from our illustration.
Acrobat Reader offers enough features to make it worth the download. It can be a tad annoying when it looks like you need to get a subscription to use features that it turns out can be performed without signing up, so beware of this before you spend.
Wondershare’s PDFelement app brings a streamlined interface and additional capabilities that make it a fine choice for those who want pro-level features at an affordable price, although there is, as with so many of these options, a free 7 day trial version.
With the latter, you can edit images and text, create PDFs and print them. If you register the demo then you’ll get access to almost the full range of features available on the paid version. One caveat here is that you’ll only be able to remove the PDF Element Pro watermark on the paid version and you’re limited to PDFs with a maximum of three pages.
With the full software, you can create new PDFs from scratch, convert Word, Excel or PowerPoint files, as well as quickly produce forms that can be used online, replete with dropdown menus.
Editing an existing PDF is straightforward, with tools for adding text or comments, annotating images and documents, plus the standard option of inserting a signature created on the trackpad. There are also OCR capabilities that make it easy to scan in documents and have them converted into usable PDFs in minutes.
PDFelement is a comprehensive package with an interface that’s simple and intuitive.
The full Pro license costs $89.99/£83.06 per year or $139.99/£129.20 for a perpetual license (the company adds on a Download Insurance Service, but you can remove this).
If you’d prefer a free version that you don’t have to pay for, PDF Reader is also from Wondershare, but this is an entirely free version of PDFelement that you can use on your iPad or iPhone to read, edit, annotate, convert and sign PDFs. You just need to register with Wondershare to use the app.
We’re mentioning it here because, while it’s not a Mac app, you might be happy to edit the PDF on your iPad or iPhone for the sake of getting a free option. Incidentally, there is a Windows version of PDF Reader.
Once the app was downloaded to our iPhone we were able to open PDFs that were stored in iCloud, edit text and add your own. You can add crosses and ticks (checks), draw on the PDF, strike through text, highlight text, and create and add a signature. Once your changes are made you can save.
Download Wondershare’s PDF Reader from the iOS App Store
Read our full Wondershare PDFelement review
PDF Expert for Mac from Readdle offers a seven-day full-featured free trial, which could make it ideal if you just need a solution now and don’t expect to be editing PDFs again for a while. If you do need it for longer than a week it costs $79.99/£72.99 a year on subscription, or $139.99/£139.99 if you choose the Lifetime plan.
We found PDF Expert did a good job of maintaining the fonts, style and formatting of the original PDF.
There are two options for editing that you can find in the menu at the top of the page: Annotate and Edit. Under Annotate you will find the tool to easily add text to the PDF. You can choose the font and color of the text here.
However, you will find the better editing tools under Edit. Here you have the option to actually edit the text already on the page, add images, add hyperlinks, and redact sensitive information (you can choose to black out names, or you can search for a specific word and delete every occurrence of that.)
We were able to select text and move it around the page. But as we found with all the PDF editors here, it wasn’t possible to drag and drop text between pages (to get around this we were able to cut and paste and still make a good-looking document).
Back to the Annotate tab. Here you will find options to highlight, underline, or strike-through text, as well as a pan tool that means you can draw freehand in any color, as well as change the line width and opacity. There’s also a crop tool here. In Annotate you can also add sticky notes and stamps (e.g. an Approval). You’ll see a column of existing annotations on the left so it’s easy to see what edits have been made and when. These annotations can be exported as HTML, text or markdown.
Adding a signature is also done via the Annotate tab. You can add more than one signature and these are added via the keyboard, trackpad, or an image. To add the signature to your PDF just drag and drop from the signature pane. You an also add a watermark yourself, perhaps your company logo, rather than having one added for you as is the case with some of the other trials looked at here.
Resizing a large PDF was easy thanks to a High/Low slider that indicated the size of the resulting file. There was also the option to merge files, combine multiple documents into one PDF, or individual pages from multiple documents.
We had one PDF that was scanned on our iPhone via the Notes app (we explain how to scan a document with an iPhone separately). Obviously such a document will only be recognized by the PDF editor if the editor has OCR abilities that are unlocked in the trial. PDFExpert couldn’t do this so we weren’t able to edit the text in the scanned document, although we were able to add hyperlinks to sections of that document. Obviously, we couldn’t search the scanned document, or edit the text there.
We were able to search normal PDFs though, and we were able to search for a word and redact every occurrence of it either by blacking it out, or deleting it.
We were able to export the PDF into Word, PowerPoint and Excel, as well as to Text and Image.
It’s a free seven-day trial, so if you need the software for longer than that and don’t want to pay up then you would have to look elsewhere. But if you don’t need something long term this trial offers everything you need.
