Without paying for a subscription, the top free PDF editors make altering PDF files much more accessible. We’ve picked together five of the best free Adob PDF editors right here, so you can edit text and images in PDF files without having to convert them to another format or buy expensive dedicated software.
Opening a PDF in Microsoft Word or Apple Pages isn’t enough to edit it; you’ll need to use a separate tool to make the changes you want. PDF files are an excellent way to communicate information, whether for work, education, or personal usage. The beauty of Pdf files is that their data remains unchanged regardless of the program you use to access them or what platform you’re using best free Adobe PDF editors to view them on. This makes Pdfs suitable for storing sensitive data that could be misinterpreted if somebody has altered the document’s design or layout.
One issue is that there aren’t many free PDF editors available. This is since Adobe, the original originator of the Pdf file format, still holds some underlying technologies. Because Adobe charges software developers a fee to work with PDFs, most apps can only save documents in that format and cannot modify them.
While there are connected services for iOS and macOS, such as Markup, a dedicated app for editing PDF documents is ideal for commenting and modifying your documents all in one spot.
It can be challenging to determine which PDF editor is the best to use. That’s why, as you’ll see below, we’ve compiled a comprehensive collection of the top free PDF editors.
Table of Contents
1. PDF-XChange Editor
Tracker Software’s PDF-XChange Editor is a free PDF editing application for Windows systems. The design is a little more complicated than the Smallpdf editing suite’s, but it provides quick access to several useful features, such as a stamp tool for designating files as ‘Expired’ or ‘Approved.’
PDF-XChange Editor comes with built-in Optical Character Recognition, which is the critical reason most users use it. This means that even if the original PDF file is a copy, PDF-XChange will recognize and alter the content. Adobe PDF editors PDF-XChange Editor also allows you to restructure text and convert it to fonts that aren’t already installed on your machine.
You can also use this service to combine or split single PDF files, just like Smallpdf. The only drawback to this powerful editor is that if you don’t upgrade to the Paid version, a little ‘Created with PDF-XChange Editor’ mark will appear at the bottom of any PDF files you export unless you upgrade to the Pro version.
2. Smallpdf
You get a simple UI with Smallpdf’s Edit PDF tool, allowing users to add text and image material to your PDF files. This platform also allows you to add comments and annotations to information already contained in your PDFs and simple e-signing.
The Smallpdf system also includes several other PDF editing tools. Along with the editor, you can convert PDFs to easier-to-edit formats like Word and Powerpoint, and you can conserve space by merging multiple PDF files into a single file.
Smallpdf’s best feature is that it is a cloud-based platform. To put it another way, you can view it from any supported device by going to the Smallpdf site and dragging and dropping a PDF file into your browser.
Don’t be fooled by the offers to start a “free trial”; you only need to do so if you wish to use the Smallpdf Desktop software for offline editing.
3. PDFescape
You may edit PDFs online or by a desktop application with PDFescape. The desktop program is more capable than the mobile app since it can edit pre-existing PDF files and scan paper documents. Only the web version of PDFescape is available for free.
Regardless, PDFescape online has several handy PDF editing features, like writing freehand notes and a utility for inserting clickable URL links to the documents. With the in-browser edition of PDFescape, you’ll also find that adding, rotating, and annotating pages is a breeze.
The one major drawback of this free PDF editor is that it does not allow you to upload files larger than 10MB. However, unless you’re writing a book-length manuscript, a standard A4-size PDF document only takes up approximately 100KB of data, so this shouldn’t be an issue.
4. Sejda
PDF files are a convenient way to keep professional or financial data. Thus their contents are frequently sensitive. Since all uploaded files are erased from its server after five hours, Sejda is an online free PDF editor you can trust with crucial documents.
Sejda is an attractive choice if you want a free PDF editor with a user-friendly design and security. The single navigation bar in Sejda makes it simple to discover all of the editing options needed to add text, links, photos, and annotations to Pdf files.
When you’ve completed editing a document in Sejda, simply click the ‘Apply Changes’ option and save the document to your Google Drive account, Dropbox network, or locally.
Although Sejda has some restrictions, they aren’t severe enough to cause issues for casual users. You can only complete three jobs every hour and upload 50MB or 200 pages of data to the Sejda platform.
5. PDFSam Basic
Frequently, all you need to do is divide a PDF into multiple files, merge many pages together, or adjust the page orientation. If you’re dealing with scanned paper documents, this is frequently the case. If this sounds like you, PDFsam Basic is the tool you need. It’s a small desktop program that’s well worth holding around for just such occasions.
Unlike most of the other tools on this l, it won’t enable you to edit the content of PDFsist, but it makes splitting and merging them a breeze. Simply select the page range, and you’re ready to go. You won’t have to be concerned about watermarks, and you won’t have to leave your files to an unknown party.
You’ll be prompted if you want to run a trial of PDFsam Enhanced during installation, but you can reject by unchecking the option provided if you’re not interested Best free Adobe PDF editors.
Which free PDF editor is the most suitable for you?
Consider which parts of your Pdf document you need to update before downloading and using one of the free PDF editors. You’ll only need a basic editor that enables text insertion if you’re only trying to fill out a form digitally best free Adobe PDF editors.
However, if you need to make significant changes to the content of a PDF, you’ll need a more sophisticated PDF editor that can alter text and images already in the file. It may be preferable to utilize a PDF to Word converter application in some circumstances, particularly if you wish to update practically all of the content of your file Adobe PDF editors.