Learn more at Adobe Best Adobe Alternative: PDF Architect 8 PDF Forge Overall, if there’s something you need to do to a PDF (and if you want to look right and stay secure), Adobe Acrobat is your best choice. Adobe also handles simultaneous live collaboration for editing and annotating, stamps with messages, and comment exporting to Microsoft Word.
Get real-time status updates when collecting legally binding signatures, and get certificate signatures.
The software can handle more advanced tasks, like adding watermarks, bookmarks, and headers redacting or removing hidden sensitive information and adding audio and video. The software lets you compare two versions to spot differences, convert a PDF into several other formats, turn scanned documents into editable and searchable PDFs, and even edit on the fly on your smartphone.
The software is available for Windows and macOS systems, as iOS and Android apps, and as a Google Drive add-on.Īdobe makes it easy to create, edit, and sign PDFs (and track their activity) with its modern, intuitive interface.
Adobe Acrobat Pro DC ($14.99/month) proves why it remains the industry standard for PDF management. Since Adobe invented PDFs over 25 years ago, it stands to reason that it should also offer the best option for editing them. These programs should support secure document signing as well.īest Overall PDF Editor: Adobe Acrobat Pro DC Adobe In addition to simple password protection, some programs let you set access permissions, work with redaction tools, and even apply watermarks.
What to Look for in PDF Editing Software? Today, you can open and read PDFs through your browser, or by using a dedicated PDF reader or word processor, but you’ll need separate software if you want to edit or annotate one. The file format was created in the early 1990s by Adobe co-founder John Warnock, and was designed with two ends: to provide a standardized document type that could be read on any hardware or operating system, and to create a document type whose layout wouldn’t be changed as it was viewed across these differing systems and hardware.
PDF is short for Portable Document Format.
What is a PDF? What to Look for in PDF Editing Software? Best Overall PDF Editor: Adobe Acrobat Pro DC Best Adobe Alternative: PDF Architect 8 Best Free PDF Editor: Xodo Best for Teams and Enterprise: iSkySoft PDF Editor Best for Annotation: PDFescape What is a PDF?