When you open an existing PDF file in PDFpenPro, the application automatically detects whether the document you're working with is a scanned image or already contains selectable text. The application's OCR tools are rock-solid. Additionally, you can create PDFs from scratch, create or edit forms, and create tables of contents for your PDF documents. With full PDF-document editing, you can make changes to text and replace images in PDF documents. PDFpenPro is a standout for Mac users thanks to its solid features, not the least of which is an excellent OCR engine. (That version, PDFpen, is available for iOS devices as well as Macs.) It's also available in a less expensive version with fewer editing options. PDFpenPro is a macOS-only PDF editor that's been available for many years. Each of these apps have their strong points but ultimately there are too many quirks for these programs to rank them on our list of the best PDF editors. In addition to these recommendations, we also tested PDF Expert, PDFelement Pro and Sejda PDF Desktop Pro. So too is PDFescape (for files up to 100 pages) and since this browser-based tool works with everything from Chrome to Firefox, it’s the best PDF annotation tool you can use for free on all of your devices. Preview is also easy to use and completely free. If you just want to annotate documents and have a Mac, then you don’t need to look further than Apple’s Preview app which is built-in and ships with macOS. PDF Candy also took the top spot on our list of the best free PDF editors. Its text-editing tools are a bit limited but this PDF editor excels at converting and creating files. We like Acrobat Pro’s OCR capabilities, including how easy it is to edit scanned text.įor those who prefer free software, PDF Candy is worth a try. Well this is all great if you’ve got a Mac, what if you don’t? Windows users (or Mac users looking for an alternative) should turn to Adobe Acrobat Pro DC which also boasts an impressive tool set. The app also allows you to create PDFs, forms and tables of contents if you need other creation tools on top of editing and annotation capabilities. If you need to edit documents on Mac, the best PDF editor is SmileOnMyMac’s PDFpenPro 11 thanks to its long list of features and outstanding capabilities in optical character recognition (OCR).

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