10 Best PDF Editors for Mac of 2026

PDF Expert comes from Readdle, the company behind Spark and Scanner Pro, and it is designed only for Apple devices. On the Mac it edits PDF text, images and links, redacts content, merges and reorders pages and converts files to Word, Excel, PowerPoint and JPG. Forms are a strength: Readdle says it fills checklists with formulas and calculations as well as tax and insurance forms. OCR makes scans searchable, and an AI Enhance tool removes shadows and distortions from scanned pages. Paid plans add PDF Copilot, an AI assistant for asking questions about documents, plus translation. Readdle sells a yearly plan that covers iPhone, iPad and Mac, or a lifetime license for the Mac version only, with a 30-day money back guarantee on both. It needs macOS Monterey or later. The main limits are the lack of a Windows app and the note that lifetime buyers may pay extra for future features. Its USD price check is pending because the pricing page shows local currency from our location.

UPDF is a newer editor that runs on Mac, Windows, iPhone, iPad and Android, and a single UPDF Pro license can be used on 4 devices across those platforms. UPDF Pro edits text, images, links, watermarks, headers and footers, converts PDFs to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, HTML and other formats, and runs OCR on scans. It also fills, creates and edits interactive forms, redacts and password-protects files, organizes pages, compares two versions and processes files in batches. Pro includes basic eSignature requests: 20 a year on the yearly plan or 50 in total on the lifetime plan. Yearly buyers get 10 GB of UPDF Cloud and lifetime buyers 2 GB. The free download works but adds trial watermarks, limits conversions to 2 files a day and OCR to 5 uses. The AI Assistant is a separate subscription that renews at US$69.00 a year after a 7-day trial. On our check date the pricing page offered UPDF Pro Lifetime for US$84.99 in a promotion, against a list price of US$139.99.

PDFelement is Wondershare's PDF editor, and the Mac version runs on macOS 11 or later with companion apps for iPad and iPhone. Wondershare says it edits, converts, recognizes text in scans, annotates and signs PDFs, and its feature menu adds forms, batch processing, data extraction, smart redaction, password protection and legally binding e-signatures. The current release is PDFelement 13, which leans on AI: users can chat with PDFs, summarize and translate them, and choose models such as GPT-4o, DeepSeek and Gemini. The Mac store page listed a single-platform Yearly Plan at US$67.99 and a cross-platform plan at US$76.99 on our check date, which makes it the cheapest verified paid editor in this list. AI use beyond a free trial of 1,000 uses renews at $3.99 a month. Prices on the store page are promotional and change often, so check the cart total before buying.

Adobe Acrobat Pro is the editor most PDF workflows were built around, and Adobe lists more than 70 tools in it. It edits text and images and adjusts formatting automatically, so fixing a typo or swapping a photo does not break the layout. OCR turns scanned pages into searchable, editable PDFs, and files convert to and from Word, PowerPoint and Excel. Acrobat Pro creates, fills, signs and sends forms, requests e-signatures from other people with status tracking and reminders, compares two versions of a document, and permanently redacts sensitive data. Passwords and permissions control who can open or change a file. Adobe sells Acrobat Standard, Acrobat Pro and the higher Acrobat Studio tier, and AI Assistant is an extra add-on. Plans are subscriptions with annual and monthly options; Adobe's pricing page blocked our checker, so the USD price is pending. For Mac users who only edit occasionally, the cost and depth can be more than they need.

Foxit PDF Editor is a long-running alternative to Acrobat, and one subscription includes Windows, macOS and web apps. It edits text, images and pages, merges and splits files, compares versions, converts to and from Word, Excel and PowerPoint, and runs OCR on scans. Forms tools cover creating, filling, signing and sending, and security includes password protection. Both subscriptions include Foxit's document management system with check-in, check-out and version history, plus 300 free AI credits a month. Foxit PDF Editor costs $129.99 per user per year and PDF Editor+ costs $159.99, adding iOS and Android apps, AI Smart Redact and Foxit eSign with 150 envelopes a year. Monthly billing starts at $10.99, and a perpetual Foxit PDF Editor 14 license costs $209.99 per user. A 14-day trial needs no card. The interface follows an Office-style layout that suits business users more than people looking for a minimal Mac app.

Nitro PDF Pro for Mac is the macOS edition of Nitro's PDF software, which the company describes as a PDF editor, reader, OCR and signing tool. It edits and annotates documents, scans paper and runs OCR so the text can be edited, and password-protects and encrypts sensitive files. Form tools create, fill, sign and share interactive forms, and other features include export to PDF/A for long-term archiving, combining several documents into one and compressing files for faster sharing. Nitro also sells Nitro Sign for e-signatures and Nitro Smart Redact for AI-based redaction, which makes the Mac app a natural fit for companies already on Nitro. Buyers can start a 14-day free trial without a credit card or buy through the Mac App Store. Nitro's pricing page showed euros from our location, so the USD price check is pending; confirm the US price before you buy.

PDFgear is a free PDF editor with apps for Mac, Windows, iPhone, iPad and Android, plus online tools, and it does not require signing up. The company describes the Mac app as a completely free, lightweight PDF toolkit. It edits text, images, shapes, links and fillable form fields, which goes past what Preview's guide lists. Markup tools cover highlights, underlines, strikethrough, notes, stamps, shapes and text boxes. Conversions run between PDF, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, JPG and TXT, with a batch mode for many files, and OCR extracts text from scans in more than 30 languages. An AI chat feature summarizes documents and answers questions about them. For people who want to fix text or convert files without a subscription it is the obvious next step after Preview. Businesses should note that PDFgear documents fewer security and redaction tools than paid editors, and offers no paid support plan.

Xodo PDF Studio is a desktop PDF editor for macOS, Windows and Linux that works fully offline. Xodo says it edits, annotates, creates forms, secures and manages PDFs, and the pricing page lists more than 60 professional tools in the desktop plan, including OCR, conversion, encryption, signing and batch tools for repetitive tasks. That offline focus suits Mac users who handle sensitive files and do not want documents passing through a cloud service. Pricing is flexible: the desktop plan costs $9.99 a month billed $119.88 a year, monthly billing is $19.99, and a one-time perpetual license costs $240 per user, with volume discounts for teams. A free demo watermarks saved files, and the full trial requires a credit card. The trade-off is design: it is built for professionals moving between operating systems, so it feels less like a native Mac app than PDF Expert or UPDF.

Power PDF for Mac is the macOS edition of Tungsten Automation's Power PDF, a product line the company says is trusted by over 2 million users. It is sold for a one-time $129, which Tungsten positions directly against Acrobat subscriptions. The Mac app creates PDFs from almost any file type, converts PDFs to Word, Excel and images with the layout preserved, and edits and annotates with highlights, comments and markups. Pages can be combined, split and reorganized, forms can be filled and signed on screen, and scanned paper forms can be turned into interactive forms with fields, check boxes and signature fields. Security tools cover passwords, permissions, redaction and removal of private metadata, and users can apply digital signatures. Tungsten says it runs on Mac OS 10.15 through 26 (Tahoe). Advanced e-signature features need Tungsten SignDoc, and the Mac page does not list OCR or batch processing, which full Acrobat alternatives include.

Preview is the viewer that comes with macOS, and for many people it is the PDF editor they already have. Apple's Preview guide covers filling out and signing PDF forms, and newer releases add AutoFill so personal details can be entered with a click. Markup tools highlight, underline and strike out text and add notes and speech bubbles. Preview can also combine PDFs, add, delete or move pages, crop and rotate, password-protect a document, reduce file size and export to other formats. That covers most household paperwork. Where it stops is editing: the guide lists no tool for changing the original text or images in a PDF, and it does not cover OCR, redaction or building fillable forms. When you need any of those, PDFgear is a free next step, and PDF Expert or UPDF add a full toolset. We include Preview as a baseline so you can judge what you are paying for.