There are plenty of ways to view and edit PDFs on a Mac, but Apple's built-in Preview application is phenomenal and often overlooked. While Lion didn't wow the crowd with most of its features, it brought some amazing additions to Apple's PDF viewer/editor that puts it over the top and makes it our choice for the best.
Note: There are a few ways you could define a PDF viewer/editor, as features can range from simple form-filling to complete PDF manipulation. For this post we're concentrating on the features the average person would use, meaning viewing, form completion, annotation, and so on.
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UPDATE: Wondershare is claiming we named their Product, PDF Editor, our top choice. We did not, and they are using a false award that claims our approval. Please do not buy their products as they are a dishonest company. We've left the original text (stricken out) about PDF Editor in the alternatives section so you can see how little of a recommendation we made.
Best PDF Editors for Mac, iPad and iPhone to Manipulate PDF Files on Your Apple Device. Whether you want to edit, annotate or convert PDFs, these finest PDF editors can excel in making your task amazingly easy. PDF editing is a very needed feature but not every app out there provides that functionality. Haihaisoft PDF Reader is a super-lightweight reader for those who don’t want any bells or whistles. In a sense, it’s the complete opposite of Acrobat Reader. It doesn’t try to make your life easy, and it doesn’t even have a Preferences panel. There are a variety of readers you can read PDF file on your Mac, but everyone has an opinion as to which one is the best PDF reader for Mac. Mac users are lucky as Apple has provided its Preview as a PDF reader, though its function is limited. Adobe Acrobat Pro — Adobe actually created the PDF file format back in 1991, so you might think that Adobe Acrobat Pro would be the hands-down favorite for the best PDF editor for Mac. While it’s true that Adobe Acrobat Pro is an extremely powerful PDF editor, it’s also incredibly expensive.
Preview
Platform: Mac OS X
Price: Free
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Price: Free
Download Page
Features
- View and edit images in addition to PDF files
- Annotate, highlight, and mark up PDFs in several ways
- Digitally fill out forms
- Sign PDF documents with your webcam (read on for more info)
- Super-fast performance
- Super-fast search
- Insert new pages into PDFs
- View and edit PDF metadata
- Add and edit hyperlinks in a PDF file
Where It Excels
Preview is fast. Mac OS X isn't exactly known for its speed and efficiency, so Preview's ability to blow through PDF documents is pretty impressive. But among its many handy highlighting and annotating features, which are all solid, its ability to fill out forms is especially impressive. This may seem like a mundane thing, but when you get to the signature line it is hard to eschew at least a little reverence. Preview (in Lion) has a feature where you can sign a piece of paper, hold it up to your computer's webcam, and it'll turn it into a high-quality signature you can place in a form. It can also save multiple signatures so you don't have to continuously repeat this process. Preview is solid all-around, but it's those sorts of features that make it amazing.
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Where It Falls Short
As incredible as Preview's webcam signature feature is, it seems kind of strange that there is no ability to sign with your trackpad as well. After all, Apple Stores let you sign for purchases with your finger on an iPod touch. Additionally, Preview wasn't exactly perfect prior to Lion and Lion isn't exactly perfect on its own. It's hard to justify upgrading to OS X 10.7 if Preview is the only draw. If you're sticking with Snow Leopard, your version of Preview isn't bad but it's certainly not the best PDF editor/viewer you can find. Apple fixed a lot of quirks in Lion, which make it a pleasure to use, but if you're not running Lion you're pretty much out of luck.
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The Competition
PDFPen costs $60 but is pretty great. If you need more features than Preview can provide, it'll get the job done. PDFPen makes page rearrangement, editing, multi-document assembly, and more very easy. While it's on the expensive side, consider it a cheaper alternative to Adobe Acrobat ($200). We've never loved Acrobat and it likely provides more features than you're going to need.
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Skim is a great choice if your primary focus is annotation as that's what it was design to do. It has an impressively long list of features to make annotation easy.
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Got any other favorite PDF editor/viewer apps for Mac that you love? Share 'em in the comments.
Lifehacker's App Directory is a new and growing directory of recommendations for the best applications and tools in a number of given categories.
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Getting a good PDF viewer is easier than ever. Modern web browsers like Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and Microsoft Edge can all read PDFs out of the box, so you may not even need one. But if you want a separate PDF viewer, perhaps for the advanced PDF features some documents require, we have some options.
Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, or Microsoft Edge: Your Browser Handles the Basics
Best Free Pdf Readers
Modern web browsers come with integrated PDF readers. You don’t even need to install a separate PDF viewer anymore. Browser PDF readers work well, offering a speedy experience without additional load times and clutter. And, since your browser updates its integrated PDF reader automatically, it’s always up-to-date with the latest security fixes.
Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and Microsoft Edge all come with integrated PDF readers. When you find a PDF on the web, click it and it will open directly in your web browser. PDFs are treated just like other web pages. When you’re done, you can just hit the back button and keep browsing.
You can make PDF files on your hard drive open in your preferred web browser, too. For example, let’s say you want to open PDF files in Chrome. Just locate a .PDF file on your computer, right-click it, and select Open With > Choose Another App.
Select Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, or Microsoft Edge in the list, check the “Always use this app to open .pdf files” option, and click “OK”. The browser you chose will become your default PDF reader and will be used when you double-click a PDF file.
If you don’t see your preferred browser here, scroll down in the list, select More Apps > Look For Another App on This PC, and point Windows at the browser’s .exe file in your Program Files folder.
Sumatra PDF: A Speedy, Lightweight PDF Viewer Outside Your Browser
If you do want a separate PDF reading program, we recommend Sumatra PDF. Sumatra is an open-source PDF viewer that also has support for other types of documents, including ePub and Mobi eBooks, XPS documents, and CBZ and CBR comic books.
Sumatra PDF is small, lightweight, and fast. It works entirely outside your browser, so PDFs will open in a separate window. It’s even available as a portable application, so you can take it with you and use it on any PC, even if you can’t install software on that PC.
There’s no real advantage to using this application over your web browser unless you just like having a separate application. It should work just as well as your browser, with no big additional features. But, if you’d rather see PDFs in a separate window, Sumatra PDF is your best bet.
Adobe Acrobat Reader DC: Slower, But Supports Advanced PDF Features
We recommend you stick with your web browser or a lightweight PDF reader like Sumatra PDF most of the time. Most PDF documents you’ll come across are not complicated, and they work very well—and very quickly—in these simplified PDF readers.
But, every now and then, you may come across a PDF document that needs additional features. For example, we’ve seen official government PDFs that include complex, scripted fillable forms that don’t work in the average PDF viewer. PDF documents can also contain 3D models and other rich media objects, and those just won’t work in your browser or Sumatra.
If you come across a PDF that doesn’t work properly in your typical PDF reader, we recommend Adobe’s official Adobe Acrobat Reader DC application. It’s unnecessarily heavy compared to lightweight PDF alternatives, but it will be able to handle all the obscure PDF features you’re likely to encounter. If you find yourself needing to open PDFs that require advanced features regularly, you should probably just stick with Adobe Acrobat Reader DC as your main PDF viewer, as much as it pains us to say.
Adobe Acrobat Reader has historically had regular security holes, likely due to all the additional features it needs to support. Modern versions of Adobe Acrobat Reader DC are automatically kept up-to-date with the latest security patches. Don’t worry about enabling automatic updates—automatic updates are enabled by default, and you can’t normally disable them.
Warning: The latest versions of Adobe Acrobat reader automatically prompt you to install a Chrome extension that reports information about your web browsing to Adobe. When you’re prompted to install an Adobe Acrobat extension in Chrome, click “Remove from Chrome”. There’s no good reason to activate this extension.
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