Have you wondered often how to find the best PDF editors for Mac? When it comes to Mac systems, it is often a bit challenging to find apps that can work best for your Macbook.

So, here we are with the best & free PDF solution for Mac in our blog that can help you easily read and edit your PDFs, fill up PDF forms, and do countless other tasks effortlessly.

Create, convert, combine, split, and export text as well as pages to process and manage them better with the help of a PDF file editor.

11 Best Free PDF Editor Software For Mac in 2020:

So, let’s find out the 11 best PDF file editors for Mac computers in 2020.

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. This is not really a “Mac” app, but since PDFescape also works online, Mac users can go for it. It’s an online web editor that lets people create and edit PDF files. If you don’t mind uploading your file to the site, it’s possible to edit existing files too.

1. Adobe Acrobat

Adobe Acrobat is one of the most well-renowned PDF file editor software that offers the best desktop PDF solution including a mobile version to fill, sign, and share PDFs from any device.

It comes with an attractive UI with touch functionality. There is an option for trying the tool for free for 7-days before purchasing it.

You can edit files anytime anywhere with Acrobat. The tool does support lots of advanced features; however, it is slightly complex for beginners.

Key Features:

• Compares documents swiftly.
• Recognizes form fields automatically.
• Transform MS Office files effortlessly into PDF.
• Supports automatic formatting.
• Includes an in-built spellcheck.
• Add digital signatures with this tool.

Read More: How To Convert PDF To Excel (Online & Offline)

2. PDFelement

Another excellent PDF file editor software is PDFelement. With this program, you can easily edit and convert files in PDF format. Additionally, it also supports OCR, annotation, form processing, and digital signature features.

It is an amazing one-stop solution for Mac systems and gives a competitive edge to other software products in this category owing to its data extraction technology.

Key Features:

• Edit PDFs smoothly with superior annotation tools and editing features.
• Convert and create PDFs easily.
• Simple design and user interface.
• Supports OCR and batch processing tools.

3. Skim

Skim is a free Mac PDF editor that has an easy design. Read PDFs effortlessly in addition to editing PDFs and creating as well as converting texts. You can even improve the text of a PDF with the superb editing feature.

It offers a note-taking tool, text highlight feature, magnification tool, and a lot more. Let’s look at the prime features in detail below:

Key Features:

• Add bookmarks easily with this tool.
• Take screenshots of the PDF files for future reference.
• Supports Apple Remote Control.
• Extensively supports AppleScript.

4. Preview

When it comes to discussing the best Mac PDF editing software, then how can we leave behind Preview which is the in-built free application of Mac?

Mac Preview opens a plethora of possibilities to edit PDF files. Wondering what you can do with the Preview app?

Using this program you can merge PDfs, split it, zoom the PDFs as well as secure your PDFs. The best features of this app are mentioned below:

Key Features:

• Supports text highlighting feature.
• Easily export your PDF file to other formats.
• Add a digital signature to the PDFs with this app.
• Read a PDF quickly with this app.

5. PDF Buddy

Our next pick is PDF Buddy that is an online tool for editing PDFs. All you need to do is drag and drop a PDF file in the tool and begin editing the PDF. Sounds pretty simple, right?

It is indeed simple and absolutely safe to edit PDFs with this tool. You can utilize extensive features of this app to edit a PDF according to your choice. Here are some of the important features of this app:

Key Features:

• The tool comes with SSL(Secure Sockets Layer) and AES-256-bit encryption to protect the PDF files.
• You can edit upto 3 PDFs each month with this tool for free.
• This tool is accessible from everywhere.

Read More: How to Convert PDF into Word

6. Master PDF Editor For Mac

If you want to explore more PDF editor apps for macOS, then you can look forward to picking Master PDF Editor as it allows you to smartly convert PDF files to multiple file formats.

You can also edit any portion of your PDF file with the help of this tool; however, it has a slightly complex interface. Although a free version is available, yet it has a limited scope of functions and features.

Key Features:

• It is compatible with Linux based systems.
• It allows you to edit both texts and images in a PDF file.
• The tool is also enabled with OCR, scanning, and printing abilities.
• Comes with powerful annotation tools like Sticky Note, Strikethrough, Measuring tools, etc.

7. PDFescape

Did you know that PDFescape is compatible with all major web browsers, which is why we have included this tool in our list of best PDF editors for Mac computers?

This application is a free PDF editor for Mac that helps to create PDF forms and perform a myriad of actions with its compelling features. It’s a completely online tool and to get started you just need to hit the free online button on the web app.

Key Features:

• Read and edit PDFs.
• Various tools to add text, rotate a PDF view, zoom a file, etc.
• You can even password protect your PDF files.
• This app also lets you share PDFs easily.

8. Smallpdf

This is another online tool for editing PDFs. This cross-platform tool lets you add texts and fill forms. With a simplified interface, you can easily modify PDFs.

All you have to do is drag and drop your files or browse and select the file from your Macbook, Dropbox, or Google Drive to get started with the editing process. Here are some important features of this app:

Key Features:

• Does not require installation or registration.
• Convert a PDF into various file formats.
• With state-of-the-art SSL encryption, it secures your PDF.

9. PDFpenPro

PDFpenPro is another Mac PDF editor that can be used for professional purposes. Similar to the Preview app, this tool has a simple UI and is therefore great for beginners.

Key Features:

• Has intuitive annotation properties.
• Helps to convert PDFs to Word, Excel, Powerpoint formats.
• Enabled to perform OCR on scanned documents.

10. PDF Expert

Our next pick is PDF Expert that is undoubtedly another best PDF editor for Mac. It’s a fast, robust and beautiful PDF editor that has been recognized as the “App of the Year” in the Mac App Store.

With this app, you can enjoy advanced reading experience as it facilitates smooth scrolling function, fast search, and many interesting layouts. It comes with a state-of-the-art Search feature. Other interesting features include:

Key Features:

• Add annotations to documents.
• Merge files and split view with this app.
• Fill PDF files and include digital signatures.
• Reduce the size of the file too with this app.

Pdf Editor Scape

Read More: How To Remove Password From PDF

11. PDF Editor Mac

Edit PDF content easily with this application. This can be designated as a good Mac PDF editing software as it is completely compatible with the macOS. You can easily add text and images, rotate PDF files, erase unwanted content, and watermark PDF files with this tool.

Pdfescape Pdf Editor For Mac Windows 10

Key Features:

• Permanently save an edited PDF.
• Draw lines easily for annotation purposes.

How to Edit a PDF file?

Here is an overview of how to edit PDF files with the help of Adobe Acrobat tool:

• Open the file with the Acrobat DC tool.
• Then, click on the “Edit PDF” option that you can find in the right-hand side pane.
• After this, you can add or edit text, images, paragraphs, etc.
• Several additional tools available are “Link,” “Header and Footers,” “Watermark,” and “Background” for further editing purposes.
• Finally, rename your file and save it.

Wrapping Up

With this, we come to the concluding point of this article. Hopefully, you have found the best PDF editor for Mac from this article. Edit your PDFs easily now with an ideal tool.

Do share your thoughts by leaving a comment in the comments section below.

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 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 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?

1. Go to download and install PDF Expert;
2. Drag and drop your PDF files into the program;
3. Then go to the Edit tab, choose Text;
4. 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;
5. To edit image or link, click on these toolbars, then PDF Expert will detect and render the PDF for editing;
6. Finally, go to File>Save.

#2 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. Even, its PDF Creator and PDF Converter helps to export multiple files as different formats.

Movavi PDF Editor 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?

1. Download and install Movavi PDF Editor;
2. Drag and drop the PDF file to this application;
3. Click on Edit button, choose to Edit Text or Image;
4. 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;
5. Then go to File>Save.

How to Edit PDF on Mac Free without Adobe?

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. 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.

Steps to Edit PDF on Mac Free with Google Docs

1. Login into your Google Account, if no Google Account, register first;
2. Then click on the Menu icon beside your Account image, go to Drive;
3. Click “+ New” to upload PDF file;
4. Once the PDF is uploaded successfully and displayed in the right panel, right click on the PDF file, open with Google Docs;
5. 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;
6. 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:

Conclusion

To be frankly, PDF editors are not small in quantity, but you should start with Movavi or PDF Expert, they won’t disappoint you.