- Third-party PDF editors (best paid and free options) Preview and QuickLook are the best ways to edit a PDF on Mac using built-in tools. If you need other features, however, you’ll need to try a third-party PDF editor. Here are some of the best free and paid Apple PDF editors available from third-party providers.
- The online PDF editor offers numerous tools for editing PDFs, e. Insertion of forms, text and images or free drawing in the PDF. Easy usage PDF24 makes it as easy and fast as possible to edit PDF files.
- Open your PDF file with PDFelement. Select the 'Open' button on the Home window and select the PDF file you want to open, or drag and drop the PDF files into the home screen to open it. Edit PDF Text on Mac. After the file is open, click the 'Text' button in the toolbar to enable editing mode.
- PDF Toolkit+ is a Mac software quite similar to PDFill FREE PDF Tools for Windows. It costs 1.99 usd and includes numerous functions for editing PDF files. It allows you to merge multiple.
What do DOCs, RTFs, and ODTs all have in common? They are all some sort of word processing file format and it is very easy to create and modify them all. The purpose behind those file types is to serve word processing needs and word processing requires being able to edit. The downside of these word processing formats is you will often notice DOCs, for example, may look different depending on the computer you open them on (e.g. Windows vs Mac) and the program you open them with.
PDFs, on the other hand, will always look the same regardless of which computer and which program you use to view them with. This is because PDFs are intended for storage, transmission, and printing purposes — not word processing. This nature of PDFs makes it so they are significantly harder to edit but this is also why people often prefer to share documents in PDF format over the Internet as opposed to DOC — you know exactly how the other person will see the document you are sending them.
If you want to edit a PDF, you can shell out more than $100 for specialized programs. Or you can continue reading this article in which we will show you how to edit PDFs on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux for free (how to edit the contents of PDFs, such as text/tables/images — not how to rotate pages, delete pages, extract pages, etc.).
BEFORE WE BEGIN
As already mentioned, PDFs are not intended to serve as word processing documents; in other words, they were not created for the purpose of being edited. So editing a PDF is, essentially, going outside the scope of the file format. That is not to say editing a PDF is impossible; it is possible and, as you will see soon, it is in fact quite easy to edit a PDF. However, don’t expect editing PDFs to be as user-friendly as opening and editing a DOC file in Word.
Solution 1: Edit PDF Documents on Mac Using Preview 1 Adding Content to the PDF File. If you would like to use a free PDF editor for Mac, Preview will be your best option. The Preview tool is available by default on macOS. The tool is as extensive as other PDF editors with the exception that it is incapable of editing the pre-existing text.
Most notably, text in PDFs is edited using text boxes as opposed to a free-flowing text document, i.e you will find yourself using your mouse often to move between text lines while editing PDFs. Other inherent issues with editing PDFs is formatting may not always be 100% correct and some loss of data may occur when importing a PDF into a PDF editor. These issues are unavoidable, especially when you opt to use a free PDF editor. In other words, don’t expect to be able to perfectly edit PDFs!
If you plan on doing heavy duty editing of a PDF file, instead of editing the PDF directly, I highly recommend you convert the PDF to DOC/RTF format using UniPDF (a freeware PDF -> DOC/RTF/HTML/images converter) and then convert back to PDF after you done editing by using a free PDF printer. UniPDF isn’t perfect — converting PDF to DOC/RTF has its own inherent set of issues — but if you are able to successfully and accurately convert PDF to DOC/RTF with UniPDF, editing while be a whole lot more user-friendly than editing the PDF directly. If doing PDF -> DOC/RTF -> PDF doesn’t work for you, then you should take a look at directly editing PDFs… which is what this article will show you how to do.
That being said, let’s get to the meat of this article: how to edit PDFs for free in Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.
We will share with you how to edit PDFs for free in Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux using two free programs, LibreOffice and Inkscape. Both programs are freeware, open-source, work on Windows/Mac OS X/Linux, and have portable versions. So let’s begin.
HOW TO EDIT PDFS FOR FREE IN WINDOWS, MAC OS X, AND LINUX…
…WITH LIBREOFFICE
LibreOffice is a full-featured, open-source, and free office suite, an alternative to people who want office suite capabilities (word processing, presentations, spreadsheets, and more) but don’t want to pay for Microsoft Office. Part of the functionality of LibreOffice is the ability to open/import PDFs, edit their content (text, images, tables, etc.), and save/export as PDF.
There are two components of LibreOffice that can edit PDFs, LibreOffice Writer and LibreOffice Draw. Writer is the word processing component of LibreOffice (Microsoft Word alternative) and Draw is the diagramming and charting component. Both Writer and Draw can open/edit/save PDFs but Writer has absolute terrible accuracy when opening a PDF (formatting is typically always screwed up, badly), so you need to use Draw when editing PDFs with LibreOffice.
To edit PDFs with LibreOffice, do the following:
- After you download (and install, if using the installer version) LibreOffice, you need to open LibreOffice Draw.
- When LibreOffice Draw is open, go to ‘File’ -> ‘Open’, find the PDF file you want to edit, and double-click on it — this will open the PDF in Draw.
- Once the PDF is opened, you will see it load on your screen. The first page will be loaded with you being able to navigate to other pages from the sidebar on the left-hand side of the program window; you may have to zoom-in (you can zoom from the bottom-right corner). You can edit anything and everything that you see:
- Edit text by clicking the text to activate the textbox. You can add, remove, and modify text including adjusting text formatting (font size, font type, font style [bold, italics, etc.], text alignment, etc.). You can even move around text by clicking + dragging the associated textbox. The only thing I noticed missing is the ability to change font color.
- Edit text in tables, headers, footers, etc.
- Move around images, crop images, resize images, delete images, add more images, etc.
- And more
- When you are happy with your PDF, you can either save it as a LibreOffice format (e.g. ODF format) or save it as a PDF. If you want to save as PDF, you need to go to ‘File’ -> ‘Export as PDF…’ to open the ‘PDF Options’ window.
- At the ‘PDF Options’ window, if you just want to save your edited PDF like a normal, average PDF, simply click ‘Export’, name the PDF, select where to save it, and save it. However, LibreOffice allows you to watermark PDFs, add user/owner passwords, modify how links work, customize image compression, and more — so play around with the settings if you find the need to and when ready, click ‘Export’, name the PDF, select where to save it, and save it.
- Done!
Repeat this process whenever you have a PDF you want to edit.
As already mentioned, editing PDFs in a PDF editor is far from a perfect task. So don’t expect LibreOffice Draw to perfectly import PDFs all the time. However, LibreOffice Draw does a decent job and, when it does properly import PDFs, editing them is a breeze.
[NOTE: LibreOffice does not require Java to be installed. Most of LibreOffice works fine even without Java, although some functionlaity — mostly dealing with databases — won’t work without Java. Java, or lack of, has no effect on opening/editing/saving PDFs in LibreOffice Draw]
…WITH INKSCAPE
Whereas LibreOffice is a full-featured office suite, Inkscape is nothing of the like. Rather, Inkscape is a vector graphics editor that has the ability to open and edit PDFs and save as PDF.
To edit PDFs with Inkscape, do the following:
- Download (and install, if using the installer version) Inkscape and run it.
- With Inkscape open, go to ‘File’ -> ‘Open’ and open the PDF you want to edit.
- When you open the PDF you want to edit, you will be prompted with a ‘PDF Import Settings’ window. You can leave most of these settings at default (unless you find you are having issues importing PDFs, in which case modify the settings if needed); the one setting you want to pay attention to, however, is ‘Page settings’ at the top. You see Inkscape can only import/edit one PDF page at a time, so you need to pick which page you want from ‘Page settings’.
- Once you get past ‘PDF Import Settings’, the PDF will load on-screen (you may have to zoom-in using the zoom tool — fourth button down from the left sidebar). Like LibreOffice Draw, with Inkscape you can edit text/tables/images as you see fit.
- When ready to save the PDF, go to ‘File’ -> ‘Save’ (or ‘File’ -> ‘Save As’, in which case you will need to specify the PDF file name, save location, and select PDF format from the ‘Save as type’ drop-down) and you will be prompted with ‘Portable Document Format’ window at which you can click ‘OK’ unless you specifically know what you are doing.
- Done!
How To Edit Pdf For Free Mac
Repeat this process whenever you have a PDF you want to edit.
Similar to LibreOffice, editing PDFs in Inkscape is not a perfect task. Comparatively speaking, I’ve found Inkscape is better at keeping PDF format when importing but terrible at editing text while LibreOffice isn’t as good with formatting but makes it much easier to edit text.
CONCLUSION AND DOWNLOAD LINKS
At the risk of beating a dead horse, I want to re-emphasis that editing PDFs with free PDF editors is not going to be 100% perfect; you will, without a doubt, run into formatting and loss of data issues. This is why I suggest first trying the PDF -> DOC/RTF -> PDF route with UniPDF and free PDF printers. If that fails you, then give LibreOffice or Inkscape a try, with my suggestion being try LibreOffice Draw first since it makes editing text a lot easier.
You can grab LibreOffice (which includes LibreOffice Draw) and Inkscape from the links below. Take note both have portable versions but the portable versions must be “installed” after which they can be stored anywhere you want (on your computer, external drives, portable media, etc.).
LibreOffice
Price: Free
Version reviewed: 4.0.2.2
Supported OS: Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux
Download size: 97.5 MB (portable), 185 MB (installer)
VirusTotal malware scan results: Too large for VirusTotal
Is it portable? Yes (but must be “installed”)
Inkscape
How To Edit Pdf Files On Mac For Free
Price: Free
Version reviewed: 0.48.4
Supported OS: Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux
Download size: 37.5 MB (portable), 33.1 MB (installer)
VirusTotal malware scan results: Too large for VirusTotal
Is it portable? Yes (but must be “installed”)
It is Adobe that coined PDF, and there is no wonder that Adobe Acrobat is always considered as the first or best solution to edit a PDF on Mac. However, the price tag of Adobe Acrobat just makes us roll back, think about it, $14.99/month, that’s too much.
So, lots of PDF users are in search for a solution to edit PDF on mac without Adobe Acrobat, trying to find a way to do PDF editing with lower cost, or even without spending any cent. And, we are lucky enough to have options on editing PDF on mac without Adobe or free.
What Do I Mean “Edit PDF” on Mac Here?
First of all, I want to make my point fair clear here that, Edit PDF means editing the existing PDF text, image or others in the file, instead of inserting text by adding a text box over the existing PDF contents, instead of just drawing, highlighting or annotating the PDF, instead of reordering, merging, splitting the PDF pages, instead of adjusting the viewing options. And due to this, my solutions will be a little different from others.
How to Edit PDF on Mac Efficiently without Adobe?
While, it is totally understandable if you want to edit PDF on mac as efficiently as editing a Word file in MS Office Word and without Adobe Acrobat. It is possible, all we need to do is finding an Adobe PDF Editor alternative but with affordable price. Which one? Both Movavi PDF Editor and PDF Expert are recommended.
1. Movavi PDF Editor
I’ve never came across any PDF editor as affordable as Movavi PDF Editor, but enables users to edit every bit of a PDF file. Instead of adding text boxes to input the text, Movavi PDF Editor allows users to edit every sentence and every word in the PDF file, no matter Add, Delete or Modify. Equivalently, you can edit the image and link in the file, to add, delete, rotate, or resize. Charu nivedita books pdf free download. Even, its PDF Creator and PDF Converter helps to export multiple files as different formats.
Movavi PDF Editor Standout Features
(With US$23.95, You Can Get Movavi PDF Editor Lifetime License incl. VAT)
- Edit PDF texts: add, delete, modify
- Sign PDFs
- Convert blank page, Word, Exel, PowerPoint, ePub, HTML, TXT, DJVU, JPG, PNG and BMP to PDF
- Convert PDF to Word, ePub, HTML, TXT, JPG, PNG and BMP
How to Edit A PDF on Mac with Movavi PDF Editor?
- Grab a free copy of Movavi PDF Editor , it offers free trial, install the software and open it.
- Drag and drop the PDF file to this application.
- Click on Editbutton, choose to Edit Text or Image.
- Then click on the text or image that you want to edit or modify, edit as you always do in a MS Office Word file.
- Then head to File>Save.
2. PDF Expert
PDF Expert is a fast and beautiful PDF editor designed exclusively for mac users, you can read, annotate, edit, convert, bookmark, crop, fill, redact, compress, share, sign and merge PDF files very easily.
Regarding the Edit features, it can detect all the PDF text and directly edit the existing PDF text, insert, delete, change font style/size or do any other operations as you can do using Adobe. Even it allows you to edit images (replace, crop, etc.) and links in the PDF file.
PDF Expert Standout Features
- Edit PDF texts
- Edit image in PDF
- Add and edit links in PDF
- Fill out PDF forms
- Redact, annotate, protect, sign, crop, rotate, extract PDF
- Insert/Add/Delete PDF pages, add/remove page numbers
- Scan & OCR PDF files to recognize text from scanned PDF or image
- Export PDF as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Text, Image
- Export annotation summary
- Create PDF from Word, Image, etc.
How To Edit A PDF on Mac with PDF Expert?
- Grab a copy of PDF Expert from its web, install and open the application.
- Drag and drop your PDF files into the app.
- Then go to the Edit tab, choose Text.
- Choose a part for editing, click on your preferred part, the text will be selected in a blue-slashed box, it means you can edit the PDF file now.
- To edit image or link, click on these toolbars, then PDF Expert will detect and render the PDF for editing.
- Finally, go to File>Save.
How to Edit PDF on Mac Free without Adobe?
Best Free Mac Pdf Editor
If you believe that there are many genuinely PDF editors allowing you to edit PDF on mac for free, that’s not your fault, you are being misled on the Internet. There may be free PDF tools, but they are by no means PDF editor, they are just free PDF annotator, PDF reader or PDF pages manager that cannot edit the PDF text.
However, if you want to find a way to edit PDF on mac online, free, there is one but only one helps on this, it is Google Docs.
Google Docs is one part of Google Office Suite, enabling users to operate and edit PDF or other Google documents online. Editseq software, free download. It is more like Microsoft Office Word, if you are proficient in working with Word, you can tackle PDF files equally easily in Google Docs.
Follow These Steps to Edit PDF on Mac Free with Google Docs
- Login into Google Account, if not a registered user, register first.
- Then click on the Menu icon beside your Account image, go to Drive.
- Click + New to upload PDF file.
- Once the PDF is uploaded successfully and displayed in the right panel, right click on the PDF file, open with Google Docs.
- Go to the PDF part you want to edit, directly modify or insert, just as the way you do in MS Word, or you can utilize the toolbars to edit the file.
- Once the editing finishes, go to File>Download>PDF. The editing will be saved in the PDF file.
For PDF users even for most of our netizens, Google Docs is really the best invention these years, it keeps its promise to be free, but still powerful, and this is rarely seen in today’s interest-driven world. Yet, there are cases that you may be not recommended to use this tool to edit PDF on mac for free, especially your original PDF has a professionally designed layout and formatting, or filled with tables. Otherwise, it will be a mess to edit PDF in Google Docs, it cannot keep those layout, formatting, table or form fields when displaying in Google Docs, you can check following screenshot:
Consequently, if your PDF is mainly composted of texts and paragraphs, Google Docs deserves a try.
Any Other Solutions to Edit PDF on Mac “Free”?
As I made clearly as above, Google Docs is the only one free PDF editor available. If you still have doubts on this and believe in the presence of many other free PDF editors, like other bloggers told you so, we can now dive in to have a close look on this.
Preview Cannot Edit PDF on Mac
Mac Preview is the free utility to view, annotate, compress and manage PDF pages, but it is not capable of editing the PDF text.
It does support filling out PDF forms, but the original PDF should come with form fields and interactive elements:
Preview doesn’t allow editing the existing PDF text, or insert text to a sentence, you will have to add a text box into a blank area, or white out the existing PDF text, then input PDF text into an added text box.
Skim Cannot Edit PDF on Mac
On the topic of “free PDF editor software”, Skim is always included on the recommended list from a lot of bloggers. However, it is not. Skim is just a piece of free software to read and annotate PDFs, it cannot edit PDF text. As you can find in following screenshot, Skim offers a set of annotating tools instead of enabling users to edit existing PDF texts.
PDFEscape/PDF Buddy Cannot Edit PDF on Mac
Likewise, you will be recommended to use online, free PDF tools like PDFEscape or PDF Buddy to edit PDF on mac for free, however, they don’t support editing PDFs, you can view, annotate, draw, sign or manipulate the PDF pages, but to edit the PDF text or others, these online, free PDF tools won’t help, even you can not directly fill out a PDF form.
In PDFEscape, you can find the available features as following:
In PDF Buddy, you can find the available features as following: