14 Best PDF Editors for Mac in 2023 [Free & Paid]

Productivity Boost

Jackson Kustec

jackson@macro.com

Published: Tue Aug 29 2023

Some of the best PDF editors for Mac are Macro, UPDF, Skim, Sejda, SmallPDF, PDFespace, LibreOffice Draw, Adobe Acrobat Pro, PDF Pro, Foxit, PDFFiler, PDFElement, PDF Expert, and PDF Master.

In this article, we will discuss their features and explore what these tools have to offer.

What are the Best Free PDF Editors for Mac?

If you want basic changes in your PDFs, free editors are more than enough to get them done. Whether you want to add text or redact text for confidentiality, most of the free PDF editors can get it done.

Let’s explore your free options when it comes to PDF editing ⬇️

#1. Macro

Macro is an all-in-one PDF editor that combines ease-of-use and built-in intelligence to allow you to draft smarter, faster.

It’s designed to be used by anyone from college students to Fortune 100 professionals.

Capabilities like interlinking, document comparison and error detection is where Macro stands out from the crowd. The tool allows you to navigate through your work as if you were on a browser, detect potential costly mistakes and consolidate all those versions of a document you and your teammates are working on.

Macro Features

All the editing functionalities you need from a PDF editing software. Plus… ⬇️
Navigate PDFs with automatic hyperlinks and multiple tabs . Use Macro’s editor to make changes to the text.
Use the merge feature to merge older and newer versions of PDFs if needed.
Compare multiple document versions and get a final version in seconds by consolidating everyone’s edits
Convert Word documents to PDFs after editing them and vice versa.
Comes with a legally binding redaction feature to redact any sensitive content in your document.
AI-powered error detection helps you avoid making costly mistakes when writing or finalizing a document.
Want to know the meaning of a specific term? Click on the hyperlinked text and get its definition without leaving Macro.

#2. UPDF

UPDF offers a cloud-based editor allowing Mac users to edit, annotate, and translate PDFs. Driven by AI, it's a powerful PDF editor for macOS 10.14.6 and later versions.

UPDF Features

Change PDF text by adding, editing, and removing content as desired. Customize text and font style with click-and-done editor.
UPDF lets you add, remove, crop, and extract images.
Use UPDF's link editing function to insert webpage links or interlink PDF pages for better navigability.
Add a watermark to your PDF to protect confidential information. UPDF has several watermark styles to choose from. Select the one you like and manage the watermark's size ratio, opacity, and other visual properties.
Use interactive slides to add, remove, or change the background color of the document.

#3. Skim

Skim is a low-fuss editor designed for scholars, teachers, and researchers, keeping academic and scientific papers in mind. No wonder its most outstanding feature is the ability to annotate documents.

Skim Features

Add or edit notes from the tool's sidebar without losing your PDF’s alignment, and export notes from as text.
Use one-swipe highlight mode to highlight important texts and take snapshots for future reference.
Skim through documents with built-in tools like a reading bar, magnification option, and table of contents.
Supports Apple script and Apple remote control and integrates with third-party tools like BibDesk.

#4. Sejda

Sejda is an easy-to-use editor with over 30+ tools to view, edit, sign, and protect PDFs.

👀 Note: You can access Sejda editor online or download Sejda Desktop app for Mac and edit PDFs offline.

Sejda Features

Use the built-in Text Tool to add new text or edit existing text. When editing text, change text format, font size, and color.
Add new links to PDFs and edit existing hyperlinks.
Leverage Whiteout , a feature offering an opaque white-rectangular box to cover unnecessary or confidential content.
Find and replace words with Sejda’s built-in Find and Replace feature.

#5. SmallPDF

SmallPDF is a free online editor trusted by over 6,000+ businesses worldwide, including top brands like Meta, Verizon, and Unilever.

❗Spoiler Alert: Although free, a major drawback of SmallPDF is that you cannot edit existing text on the free plan.

SmallPDF Features

Access 21+ PDF editing tools, such as compressor, scanner, converter, and merger.
Edit documents on the go, add text, images, and leverage annotation tools available on SmallPDF’s Mobile App.
Save edited PDFs to your Mac or upload them to the cloud via built-in Dropbox or G Suite integrations.
Use Organize mode to rearrange, merge, extract, or split PDFs.

#6. PDFescape

PDFescape is a free-forever editor for both Mac and Windows users. Although it has limited features, PDFescape helps you edit, convert, and re-purpose PDFs.

PDFescape Features

Insert new or edit existing text, add images, and rearrange elements.
Use pre-built tools like Sticky Note, Highlight, Strikeout, and more to annotate text.
Leverage its Free Hand feature to draw anywhere on the PDF. The tool has undo and redo buttons to recover anything that you deleted by mistake.
Has a Whiteout feature that hides confidential or unnecessary text and paragraphs.

#7. LibreOffice Draw

LibreOffice Draw is an open-source editor with a clean and professional-looking interface. Companies trust LibreOffice Draw to make last-minute changes to all kinds of PDFs.

LibreOffice Draw Features

Add text, page numbers, and insert content. Be it a table, image, chart, comment, or a video clip.
Comes with powerful style systems and structuring tools to make your content look attractive and well-organized.
Edit graphical objects, group them, crop them, and insert 3D images.
Integrate LibreOffice with extensions like Photo Album, VisionMgr, and MultiSave to increase the platform's editing capabilities.

What are the Best Paid PDF Editors for Mac?

When you want to edit your PDF comprehensively, and need features like editing existing PDF text, comparing PDFs, etc., paid PDF editors are worth considering.

#8. Adobe Acrobat Pro

Adobe Acrobat Pro can help you add text, place comments, highlight lines, and even draw on your PDF files. Acrobat Pro stores and shares files across the cloud, so you don't have to worry about backups.

Adobe Acrobat Features

Add text, sticky notes, highlights, drawings, and more in just a few clicks.
Helps you organize, reorder, delete pages, or replace images.
Sign documents, request signatures, and track responses in real time.
Comes with built-in OCR (Optical Character Recognition) to turn paper documents into editable PDFs.
Protect files with passwords and use the Redact feature to hide sensitive information when needed.

Pricing

Adobe Acrobat has two pricing options:

Acrobat Pro: $29.99 per month
Acrobat PDF Pack: $14.99 per month

👀 Note: You can get Adobe Creative Cloud at a lower price if you're a student or educator.

#9. PDF Pro

PDF Pro by Nitro offers a full suite of tools to edit PDFs on Mac. The platform doesn't have an online version, so you must download its app to use it.

PDF Pro Features

Has OCR (Optical Character Recognition) to turn hard-copy scans into editable PDF files.
Convert Word documents and PPTs into PDF files and vice versa.
Read, write, draw, highlight, and annotate files on macOS.
Built-in features to merge or split PDF files and add or delete pages.
Redact sensitive information and password-protect your PDFs.

Pricing

You can purchase Nitro PDF Pro for Mac with a one-time license fee of $179.99 per user. However, you can also opt-in for a monthly subscription pricing model by contacting their sales team.

#10. Foxit

Foxit offers powerful desktop PDF solutions for Mac users. Its flagship product, Foxit PDF Editor Suite Pro, is a must-have for editing and e-signing documents.

Recently, the cloud version of Foxit got an upgrade, and you can now integrate your account with ChatGPT. This integration helps summarize, re-write, or translate PDF inside the platform itself.

Foxit Features

Foxit's interface makes editing, re-structuring, and updating documents easy. You can change layouts, modify text size and font, and add multimedia to PDFs.
Use OCR to scan and compress PDF documents and turn them into searchable, editable, and copy-and-paste-able text.
Initiate shared reviews that allow teammates to provide feedback and collaborate in real-time.
Convert and share entire PDF or selective pages in Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and PNG formats.
Use Foxit’s AI-powered Smart Redact feature to hide all sensitive data within seconds.

Pricing

If you’re a team, Foxit has two plans to choose from:

PDF Editor Suite Pro: $18.55 per month
PDF Editor Suite: $15.05 per month

👀 Note: Apart from above mentioned plans, Foxit has various subscription plans for individuals and students that you can checkout on their website’s pricing page.

#11. PDFFiller

PDFFiller has an intuitive interface and comes with PDF tools that make it a competitive editing software for Mac. It's trusted by the likes of Meta, FedEx, and Tesla.

PDFFiller Features

Type and insert text anywhere and edit pre-written texts. With PDFFiller, it's easy to redo and undo, rotate, rearrange, or add pages to your document.
Use pre-built elements like circles, text boxes, highlights, blackouts, arrows, and more to annotate or highlight words or sentences.
Fill and sign PDF forms using cross out, check, and e-sign tools. Furthermore, create signatures with a built-in digital signature maker.
Use advanced search options to find and replace text.
Share files via shareable links and enable role-based access to control who can view or edit PDFs.

Pricing

PDFFiller offers a 30-day-risk free trial, after which you've three premium plans to choose from:

Basic: $8/month
Plus: $12/month
Premium: $15/month

#12. PDFelement

PDFelement by Wondershare is a dynamic solution offering desktop, cloud, and SDK editor versions.

It's a great PDF editing software for education, healthcare, and finance professionals.

PDFelement Features

Edit files by adding or removing text, including new paragraphs, and modifying fonts and colors.
Comes with a two-finger resizer to resize, rotate, add, and crop images.
Add a finishing touch to your document with clickable hyperlinks, headers, footers, and Bates numbers.
Built-in color picker to add a background color or change the existing background of PDFs.

Pricing

You can choose from three plans PDFelement offers:

Yearly Plan: $79.99
2-Year Plan: $109.99
Perpetual Plan: $129.99

#13. PDF Expert

With over 30 million users and an impressive rating of 4.7 on Apple Store, PDF Expert is one of the most used PDF editing software worldwide.

PDF Expert Features

Add, replace, and resize images and add brand logos or other visual elements to your PDFs.
Link to external websites or interlink PDF pages together. The platform also lets you merge and split PDFs.
To keep confidential information hidden, redact sensitive text like addresses and credit card numbers.
Rotate, add, reorder, and remove pages to keep your document clean. Furthermore, create outlines to navigate any lengthy PDF with ease.

Pricing

PDF Expert offers a reasonable 30-day risk-free trial, with an additional 30-day money-back guarantee with its paid plans.

Here's what you'd have to pay:

Yearly: $6.67 (billed monthly)
Lifetime: $139.99

#14. PDFMaster

PDFMaster by Cisdem offers a user-friendly interface with clear functionality, allowing anyone to become a PDF master without wasting hours honing your editing skills.

PDFMaster Features

Add new or modify existing texts, set font style, change font size, color, or alignment.
Upload custom images and move around, rotate, and resize them with easy-to-use two-finger resizer.
Make PDFs navigable by adding URLs, page numbers, and hyperlinks.
Bulk convert PDFs into other file formats like Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and images.
Communicate ideas or highlight important points with features like comments, annotations, and other markup tools.
Add a password to prevent printing, changing, copying, or unauthorized access to confidential PDFs.

Pricing

PDFMaster offers a license-per-Mac pricing model.

License for 1 Mac: $59.99 (yearly)
License for 2 Macs: $83.99 (one-time) (current deal price)
License for 5 Macs: $149.99 (current deal price)

Read and Edit Documents Faster with Macro

The tools mentioned above are capable of editing PDFs on a Mac. To decide which PDF editor software you should use depends on your feature requirements and budget.

Tools like Macro, Foxit, SmallPDF, etc., are free, whereas Acrobat Pro, PDF Pro, PDF Expert, etc., charge you to edit your document.

The best way to know which software would be ideal for your business is by checking out free tools first and then moving on to paid ones if you need specific functionalities.