You can rapidly modify a Portable Document Format (PDF) file without spending a dime with the top free PDF editors. A free PDF editor should be more than adequate to create PDFs and do basic adjustments on them, albeit it won’t have all the complex features that a professional PDF editor offers.
The top free PDF editors offer robust document creation and modification capabilities. It competes with premium programs but come at a fraction of the cost. There are no ongoing subscriptions or one-time fees. merely PDF software that is free.
Best Free PDF Editors in 2023
- PDFescape
- Adobe Acrobat PDF Editor
- Apple Preview
- Smallpdf
- PDF Candy
PDFescape
A good choice for online PDF editing is PDFescape. PDFescape may be all you need to edit and annotate PDF files. Because it is easy to use and accessible to everyone with a web browser.
A 50-page PDF file or a 10MB PDF file were the previous limits for PDFescape. The 10MB file size restriction still applies, however you can now edit files up to 100 pages without paying a fee.
Additionally, you may add lines, checkmarks, arrows, ovals, circles, rectangles, comments, sticky notes, strikethrough text, white space over anything you want to be invisible, and more to the PDF.
With PDFescape, you may rotate pages, clip out specific areas of pages, rearrange the sequence of the pages, and add more pages from other PDFs.
You can create a PDF from scratch, upload a PDF file, or paste the URL of an online PDF.
Adobe Acrobat PDF Editor
The Adobe Acrobat PDF editor is without a doubt the industry standard for PDF editing and is largely regarded as the best PDF editing software for Windows 10. Despite this, it is thought to be pricey.
It’s crucial to keep in mind that PDF editing is needed by both people and small enterprises, thus the cost is quite important. However, Adobe is still a fantastic PDF editor with world-class capabilities that aid users in converting, editing, and annotating among other tasks.
Acrobat Pro DC is available for free trial from Adobe. Acrobat Standard DC ($12.99/month for Windows only) and Acrobat Pro DC ($24.99/month) are its two pricing tiers available to people. (Monthly fee for Windows & Mac: $14.99). Acrobat DC for teams ($16.14 per seat per month) and Acrobat DC for enterprises are the two options available for businesses.
Apple Preview: Best Free PDF Ever
Some of the options on this list are only available for Windows; this one is only available for Mac. The built-in PDF viewer for MacOS is called Apple Preview. However, click the markup button next to the search field.
You’ll notice a new toolbar with choices to enhance your PDFs with text, graphics, signatures, and more. It lacks some of the more extensive document management and editing functions, such as OCR, but it comes with your Mac and costs nothing extra.
However, Preview goes one better: you can partially modify PDF files. Although you can rotate, reorder, and even delete pages, text editing is not available.
If the original PDFs allow you to copy their pages, you have the option of copying and pasting pages into new documents to create custom PDFs.
Smallpdf
Another well-known online platform for PDF solutions is Smallpdf. It provides a wide range of PDF utilities, including a free PDF editor, file compression, file conversion, etc., however the free version is restricted from using many crucial features.
An online platform called Smallpdf offers a number of features. It can convert PDF to Word, Excel, PPT, JPG, and other formats. You can use it to sign the PDF file. Smallpdf offers tools for dividing, rotating, merging, and compressing PDF files.
It is a straightforward tool with simple editing features. In addition to editing, this software allows you to convert PDF files between Excel, Word, and other file types.
When you need to access a PDF tool on a computer other than your own and you’re in a strange place, it’s a terrific service to use.
The capabilities of the Pro plan, which costs $108 a year for one user, are significantly more extensive than those of the free version, which is limited to the web and has few editing options.
PDF Candy
One free PDF editor that has many features you would usually have to pay for is PDF Candy. We’re talking about OCR capability, file conversion options, and scanning. While the extensive toolkit of the paid version is accessible in the free version, you are only allowed to do one PDF assignment every hour. You must pay $6 per month for limitless access.
You will receive a list of additional tools you can use for various jobs once you have completed a task on a document. After you’ve finished editing, you may either download the document as-is or upload a fresh one to continue working on.
After you’ve finished making modifications, PDF Candy maintains all of your documents in a queue so you can download them all at once.
It’s as if each function, such as text editing, page reorganization, and image extraction from PDFs, were its own smartphone app. Your hourly task limits are lifted under the premium plan, and a lifetime license costs $99 in addition to that.
