By Eva Williams 2 days ago, Software Reviews
A free PDF editor can significantly streamline your collaboration with other users. For instance, if you’re working on a project with fellow employees and have to edit a document, quality PDF software will enable you to conveniently add and alter text and pictures, making it simpler to collaborate and make the necessary changes for all parties involved.
Besides, whenever you’re going through a long PDF, there’s a chance you can miss some important snippets. With a suitable PDF editor, you can highlight and comment on crucial parts of the document to ensure you can easily find them in the future.
Adobe Acrobat Pro DC is the optimal comprehensive free PDF editing software that enables you to edit, convert, annotate, and manage your PDF files. It’s suitable for handling all kinds of tasks, has a minimalistic and intuitive UI, and is pleasantly beginner-friendly.
To start using it, you have to get a dedicated subscription or purchase the Creative Cloud plan. Additionally, it’s possible to download Adobe Acrobat Pro DC for free by taking advantage of the 7-day free trial. If you’d like to leave comments on your PDFs and share them with other users, sign in to Adobe Document Cloud from your browser or employ the Acrobat desktop/mobile app.
PDFelement rightfully deserves the title of the best free PDF editor and a decent analog to the previously mentioned Adobe Acrobat. On the whole, the feature set of this software is quite extensive, and it compensates for the presence of watermarks, especially if you don’t mind them. PDFelement is compatible with Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android.
It enables users to edit, sign, annotate, convert PDF documents to other formats, and fill PDF forms. That is more than enough for both professional and amateur work with PDFs.
Representing one of the best free desktop PDF editors, this solution offers editing, reviewing, merging, and collaborative functionality. Additionally, it allows you to fill in, sign, and protect your PDFs. The Nitro Pro PDF reader is also known for its useful e-signature tool that can save you a ton of time. It enables you to easily sign and share PDFs without going through the hassle of printing them out, signing them, and scanning the result before forwarding it.
The available integration with Nitro Cloud allows you to convert, combine, review, and send PDF documents from your browser or smartphone without having to rely on just one device. This tool also offers drag-and-drop controls, which make the PDF editing workflow a lot faster and more intuitive.
The most prominent feature of this PDF editor is its OCR (Optical Character Recognition) technology. It allows you to conveniently convert printed pages into editable text without having to manually retype every single word. This can save hours of your time on a single document, and it’s an irreplaceable inclusion if you’re dealing with a lot of scanned documents daily.
Another noteworthy addition is the e-signature feature. This OCR software and free PDF editor lets you add, request, and monitor e-signatures at your convenience without resorting to third-party platforms.
PDFLiner is a fantastic cloud-based platform that is perfect for reading and editing PDFs as well as making and completing different forms. Best part is – you don’t have to install it on your PC or phone since it can be used from any browser on any device. You can start editing a PDF by simply dragging it onto the main workspace.
The biggest benefit to using this free PDF editing software is it only takes a couple of clicks to edit your document. Its other notable features include e-signatures, a highlighter tool, image editing support, customizable watermarks, and much more.
PDF Candy enables you to convert, split, combine, and rotate your documents with minimum effort. This PDF editor for Mac and Windows allows working with more than 10 different formats including Word, which makes it incredibly versatile. As a document converter, it offers fantastic speed and the ability to preserve original formatting.
Another reason why PDF Candy might be the best free PDF editor for Windows 10 is its OCR feature, which is rarely included in completely free tools. As such, you’ll be able to transform scanned documents into editable text, even if it was handwritten or not scanned properly.
PDF Eraser allows users to get rid of text, pictures, logos, and other unwanted elements from PDF documents. You can use this software to delete original parts of a PDF as well as add your own text or pictures.
Other than that, this free PDF editor for Windows 10 comes with an integrated page-cutting feature that lets you remove unwanted pages. Since many PDFs represent scanned physical documents, the developers of this software have supplied it with a Rotation feature that allows you to give the proper orientation to any PDF page in a matter of clicks.
SwifDoo is an excellent free PDF editor that makes working with PDFs simpler than ever. It has a pretty versatile toolset which allows you to create, merge, sign, convert, and compress PDF files with minimal effort. I like that it includes more than a dozen annotation tools for a more convenient workflow.
I also like how quick it is at opening and processing PDF files. Another advantage is that you don't have to worry about your data's privacy and safety with double password protection, permissions, as well as legally-binding signatures.
It was GoPDF that helped me out with a stable tool to work on editing PDFs efficiently. From text editing, insertion of images, and forms filling to document annotation—all tools were present within its user-friendly interface because of GoPDF.
The most outstanding feature of GoPDF is its user-friendliness. I could upload my PDF files safely and edit them without any complex procedures. Of course, directly editing text into the PDF document, followed by changing the fonts, colors, and sizes, definitely made things relatively easy in personalizing my HR documents according to needs. Images can be easily placed and aligned or resized per one's satisfaction.
The biggest advantage this option has over most free PDF editors, is that it can be installed on your device and used offline. This can be incredibly useful, particularly if you need to edit a document on the fly in a location with poor internet coverage.
PDFgear provides a vast selection of advanced features for editing PDFs. It lets you convert scanned and hand-written PDFs into readable documents, which are a lot easier to edit. This platform will also impress you with its respect for your privacy. You don’t have to create an account and any uploaded documents are deleted the moment you exit the software.
pdfFiller is a free PDF editor software that comes with all the features you need for both business and personal use. It lets you edit, convert, compress, and organize your documents within a single solution. Additionally, it allows users to import files from Google Drive, OneDrive, Box, or links in just a few clicks.
The range of included editing features is a pleasant surprise. This software lets you highlight and blackout text, create sticky notes, annotate your documents, and add different shapes. Additionally, pdfFiller comes with basic editing tools that allow you to alter the font size and color, add and rearrange pages, rotate text, and much more.
The most impressive aspect of this free PDF editing software is its cutting-edge OCR system. It excels at recognizing text from scanned or picture-based PDFs. Moreover, ABBYY FineReader is equipped with a large selection of languages and dictionaries, which is why it’s used by people from all around the globe.
This software is also pleasantly intuitive and has a clean UI that can be navigated even by users with zero technical skills. Additionally, ABBYY FineReader provides a variety of licensing packages, meaning you can find a suitable subscription plan regardless of whether you need this software for your personal or business needs.
PDFRun Handling documents has been a whole new experience for me with the editing tools by PDFRun. These I can use on my laptop and my phone since there is no installation required. They have been of very great use during the filling of forms, especially those needed for official procedures, like renewal of licenses or making applications.
The ease of using these platforms is essential. User interfaces of both are very intuitive; that is to say, you can quickly get accustomed to the platforms and find the instruments that you need. All the procedures can be carried out simply and very timely, whether it is the addition of texts to the fields merging PDFs, or conversion of files.
Sejda is a solid option to consider if you want to use the best PDF editor free. It comes with an extensive toolkit, as it lets users convert documents to PDF, merge multiple PDFs, split pages, and perform an array of other actions. It also allows you to tweak the font size and type as well as rotate text. The UI is clean and minimalistic, as all the features are divided into convenient tabs.
If you pit Adobe Acrobat Pro DC vs Sejda, you’ll notice that the latter has an impressive OCR feature. It enables you to extract text from scanned documents and make it editable. You can also use Seida to convert PDFs into other formats or compress them to ensure they take up less space.
Features. The best free PDF editor has to come with all the essential features that allow you to add text, rearrange pages, highlight important snippets, etc. Other than that, it’s also preferable to pick an option with OCR, form-filling, and e-signing functionality.
Collaboration features. Most tech-based businesses constantly have to deal with PDF documents, which is why the chosen PDF editor needs to enable you to share, annotate, and easily manage your files.
Convenience. A well-designed PDF editor needs to offer an intuitive and easy-to-navigate UI. Essential tools have to be conveniently accessible and you should be able to make any edits you want in just a couple of clicks. Another important inclusion is an auto-save feature that comes in handy on more than one occasion.
Converter. A comprehensive free PDF editor allows you to change the format whenever needed. The overview above covers some of the best PDF to Word converters as well as PDF to PowerPoint converters out there, so you can rely on them to handle this task as well.
Even though free software is usually trustworthy, you still need to remain vigilant. Only use software developed by established developers and check out user reviews. Make sure the editor deserves your trust before installing it on your device.
A free tool can offer nearly the same functionality as a paid PDF editor, but you usually have to make peace with one or two limitations. Premium software ordinarily comes with an expanded feature set, better client support, and more frequent updates. Account for your budget and needs before committing to a choice.
There’s a large selection of free PDF editors that you can use on your phone or tablet. The easiest way to find them is to search for one of the aforementioned options in the app store of your device.
The first thing you have to do is think about your needs and make sure the option you pick can cover all of them. Additionally, give preference to software that supports text editing, page splitting/deletion, image insertion, and password protection. Lastly, check if the PDF editor in question is available on your OS or device.
Yes, a lot of the PDF editors reviewed above allow you to add digital signatures as well as restrict access to your PDFs using passwords and encryption.
