Aug 16, 2020. Wondershare PDF easy editor and reader for PDF files, for Mac users.editing and customising PDF files made easy with this free Mac reader.we can view PDF files in different modes.Text can be highlighted,strike through,underline text.we can add all kinds of shapes to markup files.Images can be cropped,insert watermark,merge or split PDF Files.

2020-10-27 10:56:49 • Filed to: Choose Right Mac Software • Proven solutions

Sep 17, 2019. Jun 04, 2020. Sep 04, 2020.

You are 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 Mac, all of which are compatible with macOS 10.15 Catalina. 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.

Top 10 PDF Editor 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 10.15 Catalina.
• Powerful PDF editing and annotation tools that allow for a smooth editing experience.
• It has robust PDF creation and conversion features.
• It allows you 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, 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. You can download a free trial version to test and purchase the full version after testing.

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.
• A 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 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.
• It supports operational procedures for review and approval.
• Automatic form field recognition.
• Create a PDF from Office formats quickly and easily.

Pros:

It has 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, and you need to pay in order to use the full version.

Supported Systems: Windows, Mac, iOS

Price: $179.88 / Year

Best Free Pdf Reader For Mac

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 producer of PDF processing software on the 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 the 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:

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

Cons:

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

Supported Systems: Mac, iOS

Price: $59.99

More Introduction: Best mac apps not in app store.

• Professional reading experience
  There are 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 the 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.

Best Free Pdf Reader For Mac Catalina

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.
• It 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 the 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 Download or Buy PDFelement right now!

Free Download or Buy PDFelement right now!

Buy PDFelement right now!

Buy PDFelement right now!

Get PDF editor with OCR

In a digitized era, where practically all business is done online, it’s hard to spend a day without encountering a PDF file. After all, it’s the most popular digital document format — interactive, free to use and, crucially, able to preserve original formatting (including fonts, images, layouts, and more).

Developed by Adobe in the 90s, PDF made it possible to present identical documents using different applications and devices. Originally a proprietary invention that was promoted with Adobe software, PDF became an open format in 2008, which meant free use for all, without any lingering ties to Adobe.

Get selected PDF editors in one pack

Download Setapp and try the best PDF editors for Mac. From OCR recognition to flexible PDF search, it’s all covered.

How To Choose The Best PDF Editor For Mac

Today, there are dozens of applications that can read, modify, and edit PDFs. All are different: free PDF editors, PDF modifiers, costly Mac PDF editors, and even a default PDF reader for Mac that comes with your operating system.

If you need to edit a PDF on Mac, it’s important to not go straight to Google looking for a “free PDF editor download.” In the last decade, lots of bad players have been putting all kinds of malware in those free PDF downloads, hoping for people to be enticed enough by the proposition. So you should know exactly which PDF editor app is best for your needs — luckily you have the perfect guide below.

Apple Preview PDF reader for Mac

If you’re looking for a free PDF editor for Mac, you should start with the one you already have — Preview — which is the default application for viewing any images and PDF files.

Although it can hardly be called a PDF editor app, Preview can perform most of the tasks most people need to do every day: looking through the documents, leaving comments, and signing contracts.

To configure Preview to your liking:

1. Launch the app from your Dock or Launchpad
2. Select View from the menu bar options
3. Set scroll, zoom, and toolbar to what you’d like to see

Then to actually use PDF modifier functions:

1. Choose Tools from the menu bar
2. Hover over Annotate
3. Select from shapes, signatures, notes (comments), and more

When you’re done editing the document, don’t forget to save it (⌘ + S) or export it to create a new file by going to File ➙ Export.

A hidden benefit of Preview that’s not often talked about is its natural integration into the macOS. The app can be easily used within the Apple ecosystem and is quite swift as well.

Adobe Acrobat Reader for Mac

One of the first and hence now widely considered standard solutions for viewing and editing PDF files is Adobe Acrobat Reader. By all accounts, it’s a solid and professional PDF editor for Mac.

There’s, however, one caveat — you can hardly call Adobe Acrobat the best free PDF editor for Mac because to get all of its features you need to pay, a lot. If you subscribe for the whole year, it comes down to $15 a month. Otherwise, it’s $25.

So if you download Adobe Reader for Mac from Adobe’s website, it will only give you a limited number of tools, which are very similar to Apple Preview: comment and sign. To get more you’d need to sign up for the Adobe Acrobat Pro free trial.

Anyway, in case you’re satisfied with Acrobat PDF editor’s limited functionality for the basic version, you can still work with all the PDFs you need:

1. Download and install Adobe Reader for Mac from adobe.com
2. Open the PDF file of your choice
3. To comment or sign the file, navigate to Tools in the top bar of the app
4. Choose the tool you want to use and then select a more specific one from the top bar once you’re in the document itself

If you try to choose the tool that’s not available in the free version of Acrobat Reader for Mac, the app will direct you to the website where you can subscribe to get access.

All in all, while the paid Adobe Acrobat Reader for Mac offers you a full toolkit of productivity, its free option is comparable to Apple Preview, with the latter being a bit more lightweight and fast due to its integration with macOS.

But what’s a truly powerful Mac PDF editor?

PDFpen full-featured OCR editor

While the paid version of Adobe Acrobat Reader for Mac is costly and convoluted, PDFpen offers much more in one straightforward package.

Install PDFpen, best PDF editor for Mac

Make any PDF file editable with PDFpen. With in-built OCR support, nothing is carved in stone if you have PDFpen installed on your Mac.

PDFpen lets you edit PDFs by adding text and images, fixing typos, filling out forms, and covering sensitive information. What’s more, the app features an OCR (optical character recognition) functionality, so you can scan printed documents directly into editable PDF files, and even export them to Microsoft Word later on.

Using PDFpen is as easy as Preview:

1. Open any PDF document
2. In the top bar, find the toggle which lets you switch between text and shapes. These are the tools you can use to enhance your documents. All of them can also be accessed from the Tools dropdown in the menu bar.

One of the most commonly used features with PDFs is highlighting, which is perfectly executed in PDFpen. Just select from the top bar and choose a color. The tool will then switch between a freehand highlighter when hovering over shapes and a structured one when it’s over some text.

Finally, PDFpen’s renowned OCR functionality doesn’t require you to have any specific AI knowledge — it just works:

1. In PDFpen, go File ➙ Open (or ⌘ + O) and select your image
2. Check all languages that apply
3. Turn the image into either an OCR Page or OCR document
4. Now you can edit your image freely and export it later

Bonus: Professional PDF Search

When you’re working with lots of PDFs everyday, some things are inevitably going to get lost. Especially, since lots of documents and reports are often dozens or even hundreds of pages long.

In this reality, you absolutely need a tool that will help you retain information at the tip of your fingers. Enter PDF Search. This app doesn’t just search your PDF files for exact matches — it uses the power of AI to check relevant terms, multiple combinations, and even scan PDF files in bulk.

The first time you open PDF Search, it will ask you to index the folder with all your PDFs, which may take some time but will also speed up all future searches. After indexing is complete, simply enter the number or text you’re looking for in the search field, press Return, and the results (including related ones) would instantly appear.

To recap, when you’re looking for the best free PDF editor for Mac, your options might seem infinite, but it really comes down to what exactly you need to edit. If it’s just viewing documents and making comments, Apple Preview can do the job just fine. But when you need some heavy-duty lifting, nothing beats PDFpen. In addition, PDF Search is recommended for anyone working with large number of PDFs on a daily basis.

Best of all, PDFpen and PDF Search are both available to you on a free 7-day trial from Setapp, a platform for over 150 indispensable Mac apps designed to take your productivity to the next level. All that’s left to do now is just read and edit!

Meantime, prepare for all the awesome things you can do with Setapp.

Sign Up