Best 7 Mac PDF Tools: Comprehensive Readers & Editors

Top 7 PDF Reader/PDF Editor for Mac in 2022

Posted by Angel Dan on 9/22/2022 10:24:09 AM.

When reading PDF files on Mac, Preview is our first choice as it’s the default application in Mac OS for PDF files and it also has several pretty cool editing and markup features that help us edit PDFs on Mac. But are there any other powerful PDF reader or PDF editors for Mac that we can have a try? The answer is yes. In this article I list top 7 best pdf reader/PDF editor for Mac that we can’t miss.

Product Name	Mac	IOS	Windows	Android
Preview	Yes	No	No	No
Skim	Yes (10.6 or higher)	No	No	No
Foxit Reader	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Adobe Acrobat DC	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
PDFpenPro	Yes (10.7 or higher)	Yes	No	No
PDF Expert	Yes	Yes	No	No
Canva Online PDF Editor	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes

1. Preview

Apple’s built-in Preview application is phenomenal and often overlooked. Though it doesn’t have so many features compared to other tools in this list, but it can be used to highlight text, add various shapes and add in notes. In other words, it’s suitable for simple use.

Click here

Price: Free

Platform: iPad; iPhone; MacOS

Best features:

1. Add text and comments to PDF;

2. Highlight text;

3. Add notes;

4. Add signature;

5. Export a password-protected PDF;

6. Combine PDFs (combine two PDFs, or combine part of a PDF with another PDF);

7. Thumbnailes view, and edit (rotate, detele, or reorder pages).

Pros:

1. Pre-installed, free.

2. View and edit image files in addition to PDF files.

3. The ability to fill out forms is especially impressive.

4, With Preview (in Lion) you can sign a piece of paper and hold it up to the computer’s webcam, then it will turn it into a high-quality signature.

Cons:

1. Can’t sign with your trackpad.

2. Lacks professional features, can’t edit PDF content.

3, Poor PDF compatibility.

2. Skim

Skim is a PDF reader and note-taker for OS X. It was designed to help Mac users read scientific papers in PDF.

If your primary focus is annotation, this tool is your great choice.

Price: Free

Platform: Mac OS X 10.6 or higher

Best features:

1. Add and edit notes; export notes as text.

2. View all notes and highlights.

3. Convenience reading in full screen.

4. Support Applescript.

5. Magnification tool.

6. Previewing internal links.

3. Foxit Reader

Going being PDF viewing, Foxit Reader features ConnectedPDF, which is leading edge technology that powers cloud-based services for PDF files.

Price: Free

Platform: Windows; Mac; Linux (32 bit, 64 bit)

Best features:

1. Create, edit and share the same PDF with our team.

2. Allow users to leverage exiting forms and workflow with standard PDF (Acroforms) and XFA (XML Form Architecture) form filling.

3. Supports multiple security options.

4. Adobe Acrobat DC

Acrobat DC – Get the most complete PDF solution.

When talking about PDF editor for Mac, we must introduce Adobe Acrobat DC because it’s the most professional pdf editing tool. Wha’t more, it’s the best one that supports OCR (optical character recognition).

Price: $12.99 / month (Standard DC); $14.99 / month (Pro DC)

Platform: Windows, Mac, iPhone and iPad, Android

Pros:

1. Create PDFs with Office compatibility.

2. Quick document comparison function.

3. Form field automatic recognition.

5. High compatibility, high professionalism.

Cons:

1. Expensive, not so easy to use.

2. Some features hidden deep within the software.

3. Bloated features.

5. PDFpenPro

PDFpenPro -- Powerful PDF Editing On Your Mac.

It is developed by smile software. Performs more specialized processing on PDF based on Preview, which ensures better compatibility on Mac platform for PDF documents.

Price: $124.95

Platform: Mac, iPhone and iPad

Key features:

1. Draw, highlight, scribble, correct text.

2. Scan & OCR — preview text.

3. Redact personal information.

4. Auto-generate fillable form fields.

5, Convenient for user to use.

Pros:

It meets basic needs of PDF editing and the operating experience is close to Preview.

Cons:

Poor text editing.

6. PDF Expert

PDF Expert from Readdle is a powerful pdf editor and reader for Mac, which has been long time winning the top 1 paid app in the Mac App Store. Compared to another 2 paid shareware, its price is the lowest. It’s cost-effective than Adobe Acrobat DC.

Price: $79.99, 1 lifetime license for 3 Macs

Platform: Mac, iPhone and iPad

Best features:

1. With its beatiful design it’s easy to use, especially good for those students or professors.

2. Fast pdf search.

3. Easily edit text, images and links.

4. Automatically detect the font, size, and color of the original text.

5. PDF flattening.

7. Canva Online PDF Editor

Some people want to find a tool online because they just want to edit one or two pdf files for personal use, or don’t want to install a third-party software.

Canva PDF Editor is an additional feature of Canva online designing and publishing tools. The PDF editor feature was designed to help users to make PDF documents more visually appealing and engaging. that enables smooth collaboration. Alternately, just make that last-minute adjustment.

Price: Free

Platform: Mac Apps Apple Store; Desktop Internet Browser

Best features:

1. Add and edit texts, add notes.

2. Offers customizable fonts or other designing elements.

3. Can compress a file (lower quality).

4. Can convert the PDF into any other form of document like PNG file, JPEG, SVG, etc..

There are another 2 powerful online pdf editors that you can also get a trial.

Smallpdf -- This is a secure PDF editing software to edit PDFs online. Just drop PDF, then edit (add text, image, shape, or draw), and then click “Apply” and download your edited pdf. No installation or registration necessary.

pdfbuddy -- Fill out forms, add signatures, white out and highlight without breaking a sweat.

That’s all. If you had better suggestions when editing pdf on Mac, leave your comments below.

PS: After you downloaded your PDF to computer but then found you can’t edit them, it is likely that your PDF documents are password protected. In this situation you should remove password protection from PDF . If the PDF files are eBooks and can’t be edited, it’s because they are drm protected and you should remove DRM from PDF ebooks .

Angel Dan has covered software online marketing for more than 10 years. She joined Epubor since 2013, covering content writing, affiliate marketing, global brand expansion, video marketing, and business development.

SHARING IS GREAT!

SAVE PAGE AS PDF

1 Comments

Leila D Holmann

Re:2018 Top 7 PDF Reader/PDF Editor for Mac

08/7/2019 23:39:17

This list is missing PDF Studio. Thanks for adding it. Find listing on Mac App Store by searching “PDF Studio Editor Pro 2019”

Solve Lab

Best 7 Mac PDF Tools: Comprehensive Readers & Editors