Almost all of us, at some point of time, download PDFs from the web. Whether it is a college assignment or an invoice from the landlord, PDFs are being downloaded by us quite often. However, editing them on your computer can be a cumbersome task. Thankfully, you don’t need to worry about that anymore as we have a list of best free tools to edit PDFs on your computer.
Free pdf editing software – A pdf editor is a software that helps users to edit their existing pdf files. Compared to using a word processor to save the document in that format, editing a pdf file requires more attention than the word documents because the second step to edit any part of the file requires conversion from pdf to text format.
You consider yourself as a master of words? Do you want to be the one who will edit your document from beginning to end? This is not an easy thing especially if you are not familiar with the best free pdf editing tool. First, you will need the document that can be edited in Adobe Acrobat Reader . You can create that manually or download it from the internet. The first thing you should do is to export your Microsoft Word document as PDF. It is because Adobe Acrobat Reader is good at reading PDF files and cannot read Microsoft Word files.
Our reviews give you the information you need to choose and find the best PDF editing software. We list the good and bad points as our unbiased editors and writers review the tools, so you can make an informed decision.
How to Edit a PDF With Windows
Windows computers can’t extract images as easily as Mac computers can, so you might be more dependent on third-party software to edit PDFs with Windows.
Keep in mind Acrobat — as well as the online tools mentioned earlier — all work for Windows, so by now, you’ve already learned how to edit PDFs on a Windows operating system.
Want a free tool tailored specifically to Windows? May your thirst for exclusivity be quenched: You can also download PDF Viewer Plus, a program offered only in the Microsoft store. The app is free to download and works just as easily as PDF Expert does on Macs.
Inkscape
What We Like
- Can edit PDF text.
- Supports manipulating graphics.
- Includes lots of image-editing tools.
What We Don’t Like
- The number of graphics-editing tools can be overwhelming.
Inkscape is an extremely popular free image viewer and editor, but it also includes PDF editing functions that most dedicated PDF editors support only in their paid editions.
Inkscape is a very capable image editing program. If you’re not already familiar with programs like GIMP, Adobe Photoshop, and other image editors, however, it’s probably a bit advanced for you.
In the context of PDF editing, though, you should consider this software only if you want to delete or edit the images or text in the PDF. We suggest you use a different tool in this list to edit PDF forms or add shapes, and then plug that PDF into Inkscape if you need to actually edit the preexisting text.
You can install Inkscape on Windows, macOS, and Linux.
PDFescape Online PDF Editor
What We Like
- Works online through your web browser.
- Includes lots of tools.
- Lets you add your own text and images.
- Can delete and add PDF pages.
What We Don’t Like
- Can’t edit existing text, unless you pay.
- Limits the PDF size and page length.
- Documents stored in your account remain there only for 7 days.
PDFescape has quite a lot of features. It’s free as long as the document doesn’t exceed 100 pages or 10 MB.
You can’t truly change text or edit images for free using this editor, but you can add your own text, images, links, form fields, etc.
The text tool is very customizable so that you can pick your own size, font type, color, alignment, and apply effects such as bolding, underlining, and italics.
You also can draw on the PDF, add sticky notes, strikethrough text, put white space over anything you want to disappear, and insert lines, checkmarks, arrows, ovals, circles, rectangles, and comments.
PDFescape lets you delete individual pages from the PDF, rotate pages, crop out parts of a page, reorganize the order of the pages, and add more pages from other PDFs.
You can upload your own PDF file, paste the URL to an online PDF, and make your own PDF from scratch.
When finished editing, you can download the PDF to your computer without ever having to make a user account. You need one only if you want to save your progress online without downloading the PDF.
The online version works in all operating systems. There’s also an offline editor that runs on Windows, but it isn’t free.
Smallpdf Online PDF Editor
What We Like
- Is completely free.
- Lets you add more text to the PDF.
- Can put white space over areas you want to erase.
- Supports importing shapes.
- Can load and save PDFs from various sources.
What We Don’t Like
- Doesn’t let you edit existing text.
- Limited to two PDF edits per day.
One of the quickest ways to add images, text, shapes, or your signature to a PDF is with Smallpdf.
This website allows you to upload a PDF, make changes to it, and then save it back to your computer, all without needing to make a user account or pay for any anti-watermarking features.
You can open files from your computer or your Dropbox or Google Drive account.
Importing shapes is possible if you want a rectangle, square, circle, arrow, or line. You can change the object’s main color and line color, as well as the thickness of its edge.
Text size can be small, regular, medium, large, or extra large, but you can’t change the font type, just the color.
When finished editing the PDF, you can decide where you want it saved; to your device or your Dropbox account. You can also generate a share link that anyone can use to download the PDF. Something else you can do is run the document through Smallpdf’s PDF splitter tool if you want to extract the pages.
If you edit two PDFs within one day, you’ll have to wait until the next day to keep using the site, or upgrade/pay.
This site works with all operating systems that support a modern web browser.
Adobe Acrobat X
Adobe Acrobat X allows you to change content or images without leaving PDF file. Using this software, you can edit the PDF document in your office. You can also use this software to create, secure, and distribute PDF files. It helps you to optimize PDF documents for CD/DVD applications, and also allows you to print.
Feature:
- Simple and easy to make changes in the document.
- When you edit a PDF document, an existing paragraph adjusts automatically.
- Add or edit page content in PDF from anywhere.
- Automatically checks the spelling.
Pdflayer
Pdflayer gives developers access to high resolution HTML to PDF conversion through its automated API. This API creates customizable PDFs from a URL or raw HTML. Integration is fast and easy allowing you to add PDF conversion to your application within minutes.
Features:
- Generate customized PDFs directly from a URL or raw HTML
- PDFs are stored securely via CDNs providing quick access.
- Runs on a PDF engine based on real browsers.
- Automates PDF creation directly from your application.
- Free & premium options.
Icecream Apps PDF Editor
Icecream Apps PDF-Editor is an intuitive software that enables you to create and make changes in the PDF file. This application helps you to edit, manage pages, annotate, and more.
Features:
- Combine PDF pages.
- It allows you to move, rotate, and resize objects.
- This application allows you to set a password to protect PDF files.
- Offers built-in forms in PDF documents.
- Add notes in the PDF.
- You can search through the document before making changes in it.
Wondershare PDFelement
Wondershare PDFelement is an all-in-one PDF editor that allows you to easily create, edit, convert, sign, OCR PDF files on your Windows and Mac, iPhone, iPad, Android.
Features:
- PDF Editor: Edit PDF Like Word
- PDF Annotator: Comment/Annotate PDF
- PDF Converter: Transform any PDF to and from Word, Excel, PPT and other formats without losing fonts and formatting.
- OCR features, work with scanned pdf
- PDF pages Management: merge, split, compress, Flatten PDF, etc.
- Creat & Fill & Sign Forms
- Cloud Services & Wi-Fi Transfer
- Digital Signature
- Protect PDF: Add password and redact PDF
Advanced PDF Manager
Advanced PDF Manager is a multipurpose utility that makes handling and editing PDFs a breezy task. The Windows software comes equipped with a variety of tools to open, read, merge, split, rotate, protect, duplicate and do more. It even offers multiple viewing modes to enjoy an excellent PDF reading experience like never before. Moreover, using the PDF Management & Editing Program, you can quickly get any desired PDF printed in a couple of clicks. It’s considered to be one of the most effective utilities for both novice and experienced computer users.
Compatibility: Windows 11/10/8.1/8/7 (32 & 64 Bit)
Nitro Pro PDF:
There are many different softwares that help one in the task of editing PDF files or saving/transferring their work onto the PDF file format. On this list of the 10 Best free PDF Editing Software for Windows the next software to feature is Nitro Pro PDF. Apart from the default features that enable one to edit to their heart’s content, Nitro Pro offers its users safety and security of their documents. Documents created with this software are safe with digital audit trails, SSL AES encryption, and industry-standard cloud service facilities that meet PCI DSS, HIPAA, SSAE 16, and SOC requirements. While the majority number of companies cater to the tried and tested features for document editing, such features earn our kudos for out of the box thinking!
Compatibility: Windows 10, 8, and 7 (64 bit)
PDFelement:
The first name on our list for the 10 Best free PDF Editing Software for Windows is PDFelement. This software offers the users easy to use interface where in any text, image format can easily be edited. It offers features like simple editing, annotate, conversion of PDF to and from one format to another, signature application and PDF form filling among others. This helps the users access their MS Word files in a PDF format for editing. The latest version boasts of multi-tiled screen display and text extraction from non scanned PDF documents.
Compatibility: Windows 10/8/7/XP/Vista
Why Convert PDFs?
A PDF is a portable document format. People create PDFs so that they can send them to others who can open them on any hardware or operating system without needing the app that was used to create them. Wherever you open a PDF—in a web browser, in Adobe Acrobat, Adobe Reader, Acrobat DC, PDFescape, Sejda, or in another third party PDF reader—the layout should look the same.
You may need to annotate PDFs to edit text to amend a financial aid PDF form, add an e-signature to a real estate document, or redact information. Whatever the reason, our PDF writer is a simple and easy online tool that can be used to edit PDF files.
Conclusion
Despite the rise of ebooks and online reading, pdf is still the format of choice for many documents. Some of these are big files with lots of pages, others are short documents which you need to share with a lot of people at once. Be it a small business-related document, or a recipe for that fabulous dish you want to try making, pdfs are incredibly useful in both direct and indirect ways. A website cannot survive without at least one pdf on its backend!
The Internet is full of great tips about all sorts of things for improving the techniques people use and work they produce. A few years ago, many people were looking up free PDF editing tool. Truth be told, there are a lot of ranking factors that you need to know before publishing your content. The number one thing you want to do is focus on creating a fantastic piece of content, which means that it should be easy to read and understand as well as good looking. There are no shortcuts that can take the place of a good meaty post filled with useful tips and tricks, advice, or instruction.