You need to edit PDF files at some point, so let’s be honest. The thing you really want to know is if there’s a PDF editing app that can open your document, make the changes you need, and send it back out to you. You’ve just got too much going on and are too busy to learn about all the bells and whistles of all the different apps. Well, let me help by telling you that there’s a free tool that actually does everything you need.
A pdf file makes it easy to get your content across on a regular computer in a portable manner. They can easily be generated from word processing programs and even some web pages. However, they often require additional editing before you can use them how you want to. There are numerous programs that are great for editing your pdf files and this article will cover the best of the best.
Easy Pdf Editor is a free pdf editor, which allows you to open, view, and edit pdf files on your windows or mac. You can use it to add text, images or signatures to your pdf file, and also split your pdf file by page ranges and merge them together.
Pdf editing provides complex work for special pdf editors. PDFescape is crafted as the best and free pdf editor for all users. PDFescape can help you to deal with the problems like split, replace, change password, edit texts, convert to text, extract pages from pdf file and many other jobs related to edit pdf files.
Which Type of Free PDF Editor is Best for You?
Choosing a PDF editor is definitely not a job for the faint-hearted, and it’s because there are so many online and offline tools available for PDFs that it’s impossible to try them all. In general, HiPDF is one of the top recommendations for a free PDF editor online, but its sister product from Wondershare is an equally powerful contender in the desktop PDF editor category. If you want to narrow it down for a more robust user experience, then a free PDF editor for desktops is the category you want to pursue, and Wondershare PDFelement Pro is exactly what you’re looking for.
Power PDF/Power PDF Advanced 3
Runs on: Windows, macOS (Standard only)
Power PDF claims to be the most accurate PDF software in reproducing complex layouts from PDFs or scanned documents that contain columns, tables, and images. With the advanced version, you can export Microsoft Outlook and Lotus Notes emails and email folders as PDFs, with their attachments and links intact.
Qoppa PDF Studio/Qoppa PDF Studio Pro 2018
Runs on: Windows, macOS, Linux
Qoppa PDF Studio positions itself as an Adobe Acrobat alternative at the fraction of the cost. The Pro version has all the features of Adobe Acrobat Pro. In addition, Qoppa PDF Studio Pro can convert to HTML5/SVG. It also has an Annotation Tool Chest, which lets you save comments and annotations so you can use them again in other PDF documents.
Sejda PD
Runs on: Windows, macOS, Linux, web browser
This free pdf editor software can convert PDF text and images to grayscale. It can easily find and replace all occurrences of words in a PDF. And it offers forever free access to both the online and desktop editors, with limits on the number of tasks you can perform and file sizes. If you need more, you can get a weekly pass for a one-time fee.
Soda PDF Anywhere
Runs on: Windows (desktop), web browser
With Soda PDF Anywhere, you can work on the same document and seamlessly switch from the web to the desktop app (Windows only). Its side-by-side view lets you work on two documents on the same screen. In addition, the Premium version allows you to search and redact specific text within the document.
Word
Runs on: Windows, Web browser
Microsoft Word is a word processor, not a PDF editor. However, you can open PDF documents in Word, making it editable. Note that this applies only to the Windows and web versions of Word; this doesn’t work in Word for mac. You’ll also see the best results with PDFs that are mostly text-based.
Ashampoo® PDF Pro 2
Best for editing, converting, merging, and creating PDFs.
Ashampoo® PDF Pro 2 Pricing: It is available for $29.99. It is a one-time payment. For home use, it can be used on 3 systems but for commercial use, it requires one license per installation. Its free trial is available to download.
Ashampoo PDF Pro 2 is an all-in-one solution for managing and editing PDF documents. It has functionalities to create, edit, protect, convert, and merge the PDF. You can encrypt the document if required.
It has functionalities for splitting up the PDFs into smaller documents and you can give a custom number of pages. It supports Windows 10, 8, and 7 platforms.
Features:
- Ashampoo PDF Pro 2 has functionalities for comparing two PDFs side by side.
- Its snapshot function will let you capture the perfect screenshot of PDFs.
- It provides a new & simplified text formatting dialog.
- It contains the auto-repair feature.
- Its toolbar will show the recently used page operations.
Verdict: Ashampoo® PDF Pro 2 will help you to create the right size documents for any device. It provides backward compatibility by supporting PDF 1.4. With its new menu structure, it is easier to use.
Adobe Acrobat Pro DC
Best for: Adobe Acrobat Pro DC is the overall best solution for creating detailed PDFs and Forms.
Price: Adobe offers a free trial for Acrobat Pro DC. It offers two pricing plans for individuals, Acrobat Standard DC (For Windows only: $12.99 per month) and Acrobat Pro DC: (For Windows & Mac: $14.99 per month). For businesses, there are two plans Acrobat DC for teams ($16.14 per seat per month) and Acrobat DC for enterprise (Get a quote).
Adobe Acrobat Pro DC can be used on any device. It can convert PDFs to MS Office formats. Acrobat Pro DC can edit, create, export, organize and combine files on mobile devices. In a few simple and easy steps, you can share PDFs and gather comments.
Features:
- Adobe Acrobat Pro DC has functionalities for creating and editing PDFs.
- It has features for converting, sharing, and signing PDFs.
- Mobile App has functionalities to annotate, sign, and share PDFs.
Verdict: Adobe Acrobat Pro DC will let you digitally track the progress and automatically archive the signed document. As per reviews, it has a complex interface.
Foxit PhantomPDF
Best for its capability to edit PDFs everywhere.
Price: Foxit PhantomPDF offers two pricing plans, PhantomPDF Business 9 ($159) and PhantomPDF Standard 9 ($129). A free trial is available for 14 days.
PhantomPDF has powerful editor capabilities. You can change the page layout by rearranging text boxes, resizing textbooks, etc. It will allow you to add stamps, watermarks, headers, footers, bates numbers, etc. You can crop, delete, add, swap, flatten, and rotate PDF pages.
Features:
- PhantomPDF provides features and functionalities for organizing and manipulating your PDF.
- You can merge PDF documents together or split PDF apart.
- It supports dragging-and-dropping pages within a document or from one document to another.
- You can make use of popular storage sharing products.
Verdict: Foxit PhantomPDF is an RPA-Ready PDF editor. It can be integrated with leading Content Management Systems.
PDF-XChange Editor
What We Like
- Uses OCR to identify the text in the PDF.
- Can import a variety of shapes and images.
- Supports adding QR codes to the PDF.
- Offers a portable version.
- Frequent updates.
What We Don’t Like
- Many features require a license.
- Works with Windows only.
PDF-XChange Editor offers some great tools, but not all of them are free to use. If you use a non-free feature, the PDF will save with a watermark on every page.
If you stick to just the free features, however, you can still do some editing to the file and save it back to your computer.
You can load PDFs from your computer, a URL, SharePoint, Google Drive, and Dropbox. You can save the edited PDF back to your computer or to any of those cloud storage services.
There are lots of features, so it might seem overwhelming at first. All the options and tools are simple to understand, however, and they’re categorized into their own sections for easier management.
One nice feature is the ability to highlight all the form fields so that you can easily spot where you need to fill in. This is really helpful if you’re editing a PDF with lots of forms, such as an application.
Many of the features are free (like editing the text), but some are not. If you use a feature that’s not covered by the free version (you’re told which features are not free when you use them), the saved PDF file will have a watermark attached to the corner of every page.
Windows 11, 10, 8, and 7 users can install PDF-XChange Editor. You can download it in portable mode to use on a flash drive or as a regular installer.
AbleWord
Best for: AbleWord is the best free Word Processor.
Price: AbleWord is free software. Even for commercial use, it can be used free of cost.
AbleWord is a word processing application that has the capacity to read and write the most popular document formats like PDFs. It is rich in features platform. It is capable of reading and writing to various file formats like Microsoft Word, Adobe PDF, Rich Text, Plain Text, and HTML.
Features:
- AbleWord will allow you to format the image.
- It supports tables and headers & footers.
- It provides functionalities like spell check and print preview.
Verdict: AbleWord is popular as a PDF editing tool. Mostly, it is used for converting PDF to Word. It provides various Microsoft Word features.
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.
Which factors should you consider while selecting top PDF editor software?
You should consider the following factors while selecting a PDF editor software:
- Easy to use
- Scan and OCR(Optical Character Recognition) features
- Functionalities for PDF operations like Create, Edit, Share, Print, etc.
- Collaboration for multiple users
- Security
- Mobile-friendliness
- Support and customer care service
Conclusion
The word editing can bring different meaning according to the people who use it. For most of the consumers, editing may mean correcting grammar and spelling mistakes, which is not much. It is true that some word editing applications may also be used as a standard text editor. But as far as using an app to edit texts, most people only need to use apps that can help tidy up their writing by making it more organized and professional . Even though such practices can be done with free text editing applications, there are still many other features desired by users.
The word editing can bring different meaning according to the people who use it. For most of the consumers, editing may mean correcting grammar and spelling mistakes, which is not much. It is true that some word editing applications may also be used as a standard text editor. But as far as using an app to edit texts, most people only need to use apps that can help tidy up their writing by making it more organized and professional . Even though such practices can be done with free text editing applications, there are still many other features desired by users.