Best PDF editor: The top PDF editing software we've ever tested

Features & performance ★★★★★

Adobe Acrobat Standard is a desktop app which gets installed on your computer, but as with all Adobe products, the entire installation process (including maintenance and upgrades) can be performed through their Creative Cloud app.

The interface itself is clean and easy to navigate, with a sidebar on the left to access all your files, a Tools tab to see at a glance all available features, and includes a sidebar to the right that contains the app’s most often used features.

Once you’re editing a document, you can perform multiple functions: you’re able to reorder and delete pages, annotate or even edit the existing text and images, and more, all thanks to the app’s handy right sidebar, coupled with additional tools in the toolbar at the top.

Acrobat Standard works incredibly well, and feels very intuitive, allowing you to do the work you need without it getting too much in the way.

Price & value ★★★★☆

As this is an Adobe product, it will come as no surprise that you can only use ‘Standard’ through a subscription. Frustratingly though, its bigger siblings, Acrobat Pro and Acrobat Studio, come with a 14-day free trial, but Acrobat Standard doesn’t. It is of course possible to grab the free trial for the more powerful apps and only use the tools available for Standard (you’ll find the interface is virtually identical), although you’ll have to remember to cancel your trial before you’re charged.

If you were to purchase Acrobat Standard on its own, it would cost you $13 per month on an annual, billed monthly plan - sign up for 12 months and pay monthly, like you would a phone contract. However, Adobe has a wide number of plans available, and if you already subscribe to their Creative Cloud Pro one, you’ll find Acrobat Pro is included in the bundle (and at $70 a month on an annual plan that’s a good thing too).

▶ Read our full Adobe Acrobat Standard review

Plan comparison

Features & performance ★★★★★

Foxit PDF Editor is both an online service and a dedicated app for Windows and Mac devices. You can can access all this from a single subscription.

The interface is simple and streamlined, with a menu-bar at the top of the interface. Here, you'll find core tools such as ‘Edit’, ‘Convert’, ‘Protect’ and ‘Share’. Click on any of them to reveal a row of icons beneath that menu, offering you the tools you need to perform the action you selected.

It's worth noting here that if you want to edit, sign, and convert PDF files on a mobile device, that's only available on Foxit PDF Editor +.

But Foxit PDF Editor pretty much covers most, if not all, the functions you’d need to make alterations to a PDF on desktop and in your browser. There’s even a built-in spellchecker and conversion tools. The ability to edit a PDF’s existing content feels the most advanced we’ve yet experienced: being able to link the various text boxes together so text can flow through them in sequence, is something we’d want all other such services to implement.

Price & value ★★★★☆

Foxit’s PDF software is only available through a subscription, with an annual contract billed monthly or paying for a year's access upfront.

The PDF Editor costs $11 a month or $130 a year (equivalent of $10.83 per month). Foxit PDF Editor+ is $14 a month or $160 a year (which works out to $13.33 per month), which puts the top end option on the high side, compared to its competitors. However, the upgraded version does have a 14-day free trial.

But you might not necessarily need Editor+. The standard PDF editor offers a slew of tools, from creating PDF documents, to editing them, converting them, and filling in forms. You’re even able to scan documents into an editable format through OCR, something Acrobat Locks behind the Pro and Studio plans. Editor+ adds, amongst others, the ability to sign and track documents, and being able to edit PDFs on your mobile device.

▶ Read our full Foxit PDF Editor

Plan comparison

Features & performance ★★★★★

There's a lot to like about this PDF editor - and it's one of those tools with a clean interface that lets you get on with the job. Open a PDF, and the software will take you straight to its ‘Read’ mode, but you’ll find other categories at the top of the interface, such as ‘Comment’, ‘Edit’, ‘Protect’, and ‘Convert’.

Should you need to make changes to content already present in an existing PDF, ‘Edit’ is the section you need. A bounding box appears on the zone you clicked on, enabling you to move it around, resize it, or delete it entirely. You can also rewrite the text contained within, one paragraph at a time. It’s all very clear and simple.

When it comes to converting between formats, EaseUS PDF Editor allows you to convert the PDF format to numerous others, such as Microsoft’s office suite, plain text, HMTL, and even into an image, or the other way round, turning an image into a PDF.

Actually, once you’ve done the latter, EaseUS’s OCR capabilities come into play. Select the language, the output format (it doesn’t have to be PDF), and EaseUS PDF Editor will get to work. The results were pretty decent.

Other tools are included too, such as being able to split a PDF’s pages into multiple files, or merge documents into one. You can even crop a document, should for instance, its borders were too wide, or you’d like to remove an unneeded sidebar. Essentially, pretty much everything you’d like to do to a PDF document, you can do with EaseUS PDF Editor.

Price & value ★★★★★

There are two types of PDF editor from EaseUS - a free version and the Pro version. And there are several subscription options on that Pro plan.

You have two subscription options: around $19.50 on a month-by-month basis which is one of the most expensive on this list, or $50 for the whole year (which is just over $4 a month). Compared to rivals in the space, choosing a yearly contract is an incredibly affordable option.

But if you’re looking for even better value for money, and are planning on editing PDFs for the foreseeable future, then the ‘Lifetime Upgrade’ could be very attractive: a one-off upfront fee of $80, which unusually includes free upgrades for life. What’s not to like?

▶ Read our full EaseUS PDF Editor review

Plan comparison

Features & performance ★★★★☆

pdfFiller’s interface feels a busy. But everything you need to get started is right there in front of you. Access your own documents, the service’s templates, and communications with your contacts from the sidebar on the left, or check the various tools over on the right.

You’re able to import your contacts directly from Google, or just add them manually. In addition to being able to upload your documents from your computer, you’re also able to connect directly to online storage solutions such as Dropbox, Google Drive, Box, and OneDrive.

All the tools you’re after are here: re-ordering and deleting pages is done via the sidebar from which you can see thumbnails of all your documents’ pages (you can also duplicate or rotate your pages, or add additional ones too).

Editing a page is done thanks to a toolbar at the top from which you can annotate, fill in a form, or even alter a document’s existing content. The service is very well designed, and any work you perform on a file feels almost effortless.

Price & value ★★★★☆

As is standard for online services, pdfFiller is only available via a subscription. You’re offered three options: ‘Basic’, ‘Plus’ and ‘Premium’, and the higher up you go, the more tools get unlocked. For instance, ‘Plus’ allows you to password protect files, while ‘Premium’ offers custom branding.

Prices on a month-by-month basis are quite high, being $20, $30, and $40 respectively, but should you opt for an annual contract, your monthly bill would drop to $8, $12 and $15. The service also comes with a very generous 180 day money back guarantee.

But how can one try out its features, I hear you ask. Well, you can either activate the free 30-day trial, or simply scroll down the main page to find a dozen tools ready for you to immediately try out with any PDF you’d care to upload.

▶ Read our full pdfFiller review

Plan comparison

Features & performance ★★★☆☆

When it comes to simply creating PDFs that looks great, Canva remains one of the top options. Along the left-hand side-bar, you'll find a wealth of elements that can be dragged onto a blank canvas and filled with colors, text, and media. For laying out eBooks, brochures, and flyers for your business, this is an excellent tool.

We'd recommend opting for the Pro subscription if you're working on branded content for your business though. This plan includes the absolutely essential brand kit, which is a hub for stowing the likes of brand colors and logos that keep your PDF documents uniformly designed.

Where it's going to fall down for some users is the on-going management of PDF documents. If the focus is on making eye-catching PDFs quickly, Canva is perfect. For core features like optical character recognition, capturing and collecting eSignatures, and redacting sensitive data, it's not suitable. You could slap a black box over sensitive data, but metadata isn't removed and it's not fully featured in the same way as others we've reviewed.

As chiefly a design platform, that's where the focus is. If that's what you're looking for from a PDF editor, though, we can't recommend Canva enough.

Price & value ★★★★★

Canva delivers exceptional value for money - and has done since we started using it years ago - since the main offering is completely free. And this isn't an especially hobbled version of free, either. There are a raft of design components that an be had without paying anything, and no watermarks either.

There are three subscription plans from Canva - Pro, Business, and Enterprise, but Pro will be the one most suitable for those who need a PDF editor. It costs $15 a month or $120 a year, and bundles in additional stock imagery, templates, and brand kits for maintaining uniformity throughout any documents you create.

▶ Read our full Canva PDF Editor review

Plan comparison