Looking for the best PDF editor? After years testing and reviewing all the top PDF editing software, Adobe Acrobat remains my top recommendation for most personal and professional users.
However, it's not the only option out there - and my team and I have rounded up all the best PDF editor choices, from free tools to the best PDF editor for Windows, Android, Mac devices. What I'm chiefly looking for from the top apps is an intuitive interface and plenty of core features, such as data redaction tools, eSignature software, and everything you need to create, manage, and share files securely.
For more choices, I've also rounded up my picks for the best free PDF editors, best free PDF readers, and even the best Adobe Acrobat alternatives for desktop and mobile devices.
Best PDF editor overall
It’s been around a long time, but in our experience, Adobe Acrobat is still the best PDF editor out there.
There are three Acrobat products from Adobe, with Reader, a basic PDF viewer, and the fully-featured Acrobat Pro designed for businesses. In our experience, Reader lacks most features needed to edit PDF documents, while as good as it is, Pro is overkill for most general users.
But for us, Adobe Acrobat Standard hits the sweet spot. A comprehensive toolkit offers up a wealth of document management features, from file creation to extensive collaboration options. Filetype conversion, merging, electronic signatures, form-filling - just about every essential function you’ll need to administer PDF files, wrapped inside a clean and well-designed interface that’s easy to use. Instead of forcing you to work a certain way, Acrobat is flexible, customizable, fitting into your workflow, rather than the other way around.
If you’re a more casual user, the subscription may not offer the best value for money - and there are a few tools in the Pro version that we feel really should be part of Acrobat Standard. But overall, this is an outstanding PDF editor for most everyday users.
Read our full Adobe Acrobat Standard (2024) review .
Best PDF editor for mobile
pdfFiller is an online PDF service which you can also access via a desktop app (for Mac and Windows) or through your iPhone or Android device. This is a subscription service which doesn’t offer a free tier, although you do get a free 30-day trial when you choose one of the three subscriptions available: ‘Basic’, ‘Plus’ and ‘Premium’. As you’d expect, the more you pay, the more features you’ll have available. For instance, ‘Basic’ lets you use the desktop app, but you must choose at least ‘Plus’ to get access to the iOS and Android apps.
Princes range from $8 a month on a yearly contract for ‘Basic’, to $40 on a month by month basis for ‘Premium’.
The interface is easy to use, and most tools are all available once you open a PDF you wish to work on, making it a breeze to perform simple to complex alterations to a document without having to keep opening tools and closing others as you have to do for some of its competition. It’s a great service, if a little pricey.
Read our full pdfFiller review.
Best PDF editor for data security
As its name suggests, Foxit PDF Editor allows you to work with, manipulate, and edit PDF documents. It comes in two flavours: PDF Editor, and PDF Editor+, which you need to subscribe to either yearly or monthly. The cheapest will cost you $110 a year or $11 monthly, whereas Editor+ will set you back $140 or $14 respectively. If you run a business, need to work with PDFs on your mobile device, track signatures and redact information, then you need to go for the latter.
Either version has a very powerful suite of editing tools, and the text editing feature is the best we’ve yet come across from services of this nature. Most of the competition allows you to edit text from a PDF on a line by line basis. Some expand that to working on an entire paragraph at a time. Foxit goes further, and lets you link up paragraphs, allowing the text to flow through them as you write - just like a word processor. It has many other features in its arsenal and if you’re looking for a professional-level PDF editor, it’s definitely worth checking out Foxit’s free 14 day trial.
Read our full Foxit PDF Editor review .
Best PDF editor for business
Nitro PDF Pro is a very good PDF editing app on both Mac and Windows. This used to be one of those stalwart apps which offered you to pay only once and have it for as long as you need. Now don’t fear: that option is still there and is still a one-off $180 (which isn’t the cheapest PDF editor out there). However, you can now also subscribe to it for $11.24 per user, per month. This ends up being roughly $135 for the year for each person.
Nitro PDF Pro works very well and is in fact very easy to use. The layout is clear, with your tools at the top and a customisable sidebar on the left. You’re able to annotate PDFs, and even alter their existing content (watch you don’t mess up the original formatting - which is sadly too easy to do). It also comes with simple conversion tools, a good OCR engine, and offers pretty much everything you need when working with PDF files.
Read our full Nitro PDF Pro review.
Best subscription-free PDF editor
EaseUS PDF is a PC-only PDF editing tool which boasts many powerful features. There’s a free option available, but it has severely limited functionality. Still, it’s a good way to check out the wares. To unlock all features you have two subscription options, one where you pay monthly ($20), the other, yearly ($50). You also have the ability to purchase a lifetime license for only $80 - which includes any future updates as well. A great deal if you plan on using this software on an ongoing basis.
The redesigned interface is friendlier and easier to understand and use, while the tools on offer are as powerful as they’ve always been. The best part, as far as editing PDFs is concerned, is how easy you can select entire paragraphs and alter them. Moving an object around, resizing it or even deleting it altogether is just as easy. EaseUS PDF is a powerful piece of software that is worth checking out if you’re looking for a good and versatile PDF editor.
Read our full EaseUS PDF editor review.
Best PDF editor for signatures
DocHub is worth your consideration if you’re looking for a PDF editor with an emphasis on getting documents signed. Because that’s what this intuitive and easy-to-use document management system really excels at.
A limited free plan is available, while the pro plan is priced at $10 per user per month, letting you sign and send unlimited documents. After testing out the software, we came away feeling it was “When we went hands-on with the software, we described it as “a true gem, delivering comprehensive functionality without burdening users with unnecessary expenses.”
All the baseline features are present and correct, including a fully loaded page manager, letting you rearrange, label, rotate, add, and delete pages. The field creation, too, has plenty of options, including the ability to add text boxes, time-stamps, and legally binding signatures. And we found the sharing and collaboration tools were plentiful, ideal for creating PDFs and making sure they get signed by those you send them to.
It’s not as feature-rich as advanced PDF editors like Acrobat. But for making sure documents get signed, it’s ideal.
Read our full DocHub review.
Best PDF editor online
Soda PDF is the best PDF editor if you want full control of your files directly in your browser (there is an app, too, if you prefer).
During our review, we found the interface to be clean and very well designed, making it easy to browse through and edit a PDF. We had no trouble at all in adding more information to a document and altering the existing data. Everything worked just as it should, and seamlessly in the browser. There’s even good translation tools available, which tests showed to be accurate, and a very capable HTML to PDF function.
Better still, you can start a free trial right away without giving over any details. If you do decide to buy, the full range of tools unlocks via tiered subscription plans: Standard, Pro and Business. The more you pay, the more tools are at your disposal. Standard will be enough for casual use, but personally, I think Pro will be the best pick for most small teams, as it includes OCR and eSignature tools, which are absolutely vital in the office.
Read our full Soda PDF review.
Best PDF editor: Also tested
Our 'honorable mentions' may not be the absolute best PDF editors we've tested, but we enjoyed our time with each app, and they all bring something new to document management.
WinZip PDF Pro is Windows-only software designed to help you read, edit and otherwise manipulate PDF documents. This is a subscription-only service which will cost you $90 / £78 per year, although you can download a free trial, and also have a 30-day money-back guarantee.
We found the interface to be clean, simple and well designed. All the major categories can be accessed via large icons at the top, with the rest of the interface devoted to a list of previously opened files or the document you’re currently working on.
The tools work very well, too, letting you leave comments or otherwise annotate a PDF, or even edit its original content, although the formatting might change when you do so. It felt a little antiquated that we had to edit the text in a separate window, and only after clicking ‘Apply’ could we see the results on the page. As a general rule, WinZip PDF Pro is easy to use and understand, despite the occasional glitch and old-style way of performing some actions.
Read our full WinZip PDF Pro review.
