The fastest way to edit PDFs on Mac without Adobe

Photo by TRG on Unsplash

Don’t get me wrong, I think Adobe is a great tool, and a subscription can be a valuable option if you’re a pro and need solid editing capabilities across a wide range of documents.

However, having it just for basic PDF edits? It’s never made sense to me.

Lately, I’ve been editing a variety of documents for work, like client briefs that need to remain confidential. I wanted to try a different approach to amending them so that everything stayed safe and secure while causing the least amount of fiddling about!

This is my method, and I’ll share it with you.

Make a list of what your PDF editing requirements are first

When you need to edit PDFs, what are your requirements?

If I think about it carefully, I reckon these are my main priorities:

• Filling in forms
• Adding annotations
• Highlighting text
• Merging multiple files
• Converting to Word or Google Docs for huge edits

If I can find a tool that covers all of these, I won’t need Adobe. So, that made me wonder what I could try and achieve with Mac’s built-in tools…

Is Mac’s native Preview good enough for PDFs?

The short answer is: ‘yes, to a point…’

To make short, speedy edits:

1. Open the PDF in Preview
2. Click the Markup icon (pencil in a circle)
3. This shows the toolbar
4. Use the text, shape, and signature tools to annotate or fill out forms as required.

But beware: You can’t directly edit existing text; you can add new text boxes, highlight, sign, and rearrange or delete pages using the sidebar.

But what if I need a bigger hitter? Here’s what I do first…

Pro tip: To find great tools and apps that can help with anything from editing photos to streamlining my workflow, I’ll always turn to the **ChatGPT Productivity Assistant. **It’ll solve almost any problem for me. Apart from ‘who ate all the potato chips…?’ (that was me…)

I’ve tried a tool that makes PDF editing a cinch

One of the recommendations I picked up is **Nitro PDF Pro** if I need to make more complex edits.

It has built-in OCR, which helps, and its security is second to none, with the ability to sign documents and use its redaction feature. Handy for personal/legal use outside of work, or if I need to sign an NDA for client safety purposes.

I can even encrypt documents and ensure that only the people who need to see them can, without first authorizing with a digital ID.

But don’t just take my word for it: The ace folks over at **TechRadar *have this to say: “Nitro PDF Pro is a good PDF editing software package that allows you to make changes to documents, annotate them, and perform numerous alterations on them. It also comes with good OCR and conversion tools. And it’s delightfully easy to use.”*

Using this app saves time and reduces the need for me to open Adobe for simple tasks.

Here’s another PDF tool to try

If you’d like a fast, free, but limited option, then **PDF Gear** is a great second option to try. You don’t need to sign up, and it has one or two decent AI features.

It’s ideal for occasional users who don’t want a financial commitment or need to edit PDFs frequently.

The last word on PDF editing without Adobe

I really don’t think you need anything other than Preview for basic edits and Nitro PDF for more substantial ones. Preview will work well for occasional users who don’t work with PDFs often.

Nitro PDF has the edge, simply because of its strong security and the ability to create protected documents that can only be viewed by those who need to.

There’s no real learning curve with it either. I remember the first time I opened it; I was up and running within minutes.

Become a PDF pro on your own terms

You lucky people, I’ve got loads of other articles on PDFs and how to make the most of them with your Mac. Why not click through before you go?

• Turn screenshots into PDFs
• Editing PDFs on Mac