Articles

Browse Articles » Software » 5 PDF Reading and Editing Software Apps for Mac

5 PDF Reading and Editing Software Apps for Mac

by Jack Botam seo expert

After a long silence, I’m writing a PDF article again!

We’re all mostly aware that PDF was created so that users cannot change the appearance of the content regardless of the language, font, device display, or operating system. This file type, based on a language called PostScript, completely encapsulates the source content as well as attributes so they can’t be easily modified.

It is due to these unparalleled characteristics of PDF that companies, universities and even government organizations use PDF over other file formats, in order to streamline their document workflows, be more efficient and use less paper. As PDFs appear more frequently in daily learning, business, and governance, an array of PDF software applications have also been introduced. Here, I will introduce you to 5 PDF editors developed for the Mac platform. I hope it will help everyone choose the ideal PDF software for them.

High energy ahead! !

① Adobe Acrobat

The most interconnected and most amazing Acrobat — Adobe Acrobat

Adobe Acrobat is the world's best desktop PDF solution, where users can fill in, sign and share PDFs on any device.

● Main interface

The left, center and right columns intuitively display the navigation area, display area and tool area, which is convenient for users to quickly process PDFs.

● Document editing

In the editing interface, you can quickly edit text objects and images. For scanned documents, OCR will be automatically performed to recognize the scanned documents as editable documents.

At the same time, you can set the background, watermark, and header and footer settings for the documents.

● Annotation

Acrobat provides a powerful annotation function and introduces a review mechanism at the same time, but the attribute setting operation is more complicated and the feature is hidden deep inside the menu (select the added annotation → right-click → select attribute setting.)

● Page organization

With the page organization feature, you can adjust the order of document pages, and it supports the addition and deletion of pages as well.

● Form preparation

Acrobat provides a variety of form fields. You can quickly create interactive forms, and it has powerful form property settings.

● Special features

Quick document comparison function.

Review and approve executed operations.

Automatic recognition of form fields.

Quickly create PDFs from Office formats.

● Advantage

Complete functions, stable product, high compatibility, high processing efficiency and high professionalism.

Disadvantage

Low usability rating, deep-hidden functions, high software cost, and bloated functions.

②PDFelement

Safe and powerful. A simple and easy to use PDF solution to boost your productivity — PDFelement

PDFelement, the blockbuster product from Wondershare Technology, specializes in PDF tasks and has a wide range of practical and user-friendly functions. It integrates PDF conversions, editing tools, annotation utilities, form processing, OCR, and signatures. It is an all-round PDF editor. It enjoys the love and admiration of countless European and American users. With above-par data extraction and form field recognition technology, PDFelement has raced past a large number of competitors, occupying the commanding heights of the industry.

● Welcome screen

The simple welcome screen provides users with a ready-to-use operation menu, which is both intuitive and convenient.

● Page view

PDFelement offers several browsing tools, and the user-friendly menus can facilitate users to quickly find the features they need.

● PDF editing

PDFelement allows users to directly edit text, image, and other content, and the paragraph and line mode editing schemes retain the document’s original layout to a high degree when editing.

Check it out and learn how edit PDF like Word here>>

● Organization PDF pages

The features provided by the page organization function allows the user to quickly add and delete pages, and uses page frames to set page sizes.

● Markup tools

PDFelement offers users robust annotation functions that can meet the markup requirements of any organization and any department.

● PDF security

PDFelement offers redaction and password-based encryption functions (passwords can be set for document opening or to allow/disallow permissions), which greatly enhances document security and content privacy for sensitive material.

● Conversion to and from PDF

PDFelement supports several conversion formats such as Mac Pages, Microsoft Office, ePub, HTML, images, and others, and supports the conversion of PDF into pictures, which is convenient for social media sharing.

● Form creation

PDFelement provides form field creation and attribute modification features. It also supports form field recognition and a batch process for form data extraction, which greatly improves data processing efficiency.

● Special features

Data extraction from forms as a batch process.

Batch extraction of custom selections.

Powerful PDF conversion functionality.

Accurate OCR to recognize text in scanned documents.

Check out more features on PDFelement here>>

● Advantage

Clear feature classification, complete PDF tools, support for OCR on scanned documents, batch processes, wide OS platform support, easy to operate, and powerful document conversion feature.

● Disadvantage

Delays rendering large documents, UI can be optimized further, Needs improvement as a PDF reader.

③ PDF Expert

Fast, lightweight and easy to use — PDF Expert

Readdle’s PDF Expert is a boutique app. On iOS, it is the top PDF editor and has been that way for a while. It was the Mac App Store’s best app in 2015 - the year it was launched for the Mac platform. It has been a favorite of the content editors at Apple for a long time.

● Recent list

The recent list in PDF Expert shows the seriousness of the developers and perfectly showcases the overall value of the software.

● Annotation

The annotation function offers impressive markup tools and the ability to customize your comments, which is a step up from the usual run of annotation tools.

● Organizing pages

The smooth page organizing feature provides simple page deletion and addition operations.

● Document editing

PDF Expert provides simple text and image editing functions, while providing a convenient text redaction function.

● Special feature

Fast page organization function.

Smooth comment adding and editing functions.

Simple text and image editing functions.

Flattening of PDFs.

● Advantage

Good reading experience, simple operation, and good UI effect.

● Disadvantage

Few features, lack of professional appeal, PDF compatibility to be improved.

④ PDFpenPro

Powerful PDF Editing On Your Mac — PDFpenPro

PDFpenPro processes PDF smoothly and in a professional manner along the lines of the Mac Preview app. This not only gives you a native PDF experience on the Mac platform but also captures the Preview experience for a more engaging and interactive feel. This is very close to what users are comfortable with so it’s easy for them to get started with this tool. You’ll also find some advanced features: you can add signatures, text and images, make changes and correct typos, and use text recognition for documents that have been scanned; it also supports filling and creating forms, and exporting PDF content to MS Office formats like PPT, XLSX, and DOCX.

● Main page

Since the Preview style is maintained on this application, users don’t have to worry about a steep learning curve..

● Markups

The simple review tools satisfy basic PDF markup needs.

● Create forms

PDFpenPro provides a basic feature to create form fields, which makes the process of creating forms quite simple.

● Special features

Easy creation of form fields.

Intuitive annotation attribute settings.

● Advantage

Essential PDF editing, functionally similar to Preview on Mac.

● Disadvantage

Does not support Chinese, weak text editing and page organizing functions.

⑤ Preview

Default Mac PDF viewer. — Preview

As the file preview software that comes with the Mac platform, the Preview app is not just limited to viewing and reading PDFs; it can also perform simple annotation operations and other basic functions. It is satisfactory for basic PDF reading and markups, but professional PDF tasks are beyond its reach. If you need a professional PDF editor, this app might not be suitable for you.

● Interface

Being a system-integrated software, Preview maintains the consistent design style of the macOS operating system.

Uniform style and clear presentation.

The interface is simple and the operation is convenient.

● PDF reading and viewing

Preview offers a nice PDF reading interface that is not restricted to viewing.

● Annotation

A simple annotation function is provided in the program, which can help with day-to-day markup tasks.

● Capture signature with camera

In the Preview app, the signature capture feature that uses the camera can be regarded as one of the key points. The precise identification technology will definitely surprise you.

● Special features

Quick annotation annotation function.

Quick thumbnail creation function using drag-drop action.

The camera quickly recognizes handwritten signatures (we strongly recommend trying it.)

● Advantage

The system comes with many preview formats for smooth reading.

● Disadvantage

Not suitable for all PDF versions, no pro features, and lack of PDF editing function.

Horizontal Comparison

The above sections have introduced 5 popular PDF processing software apps for the Mac platform. Next, we will make a horizontal comparison of the same five products for everyone so that you can more intuitively choose the PDF software you need.

Platform comparison

Price comparison

Summary

As you can see, the current software market offers several types of PDF processing applications and different scenarios need different functions. Some operations may not directly solve your problem. When appropriate, you need to combine functions or coordinate different applications to get the job done. If you found any of our descriptions to be inaccurate, please let us know. We welcome all feedback.