How to Edit a PDF on Mac without Adobe Acrobat [In 4 Ways]

Adobe Acrobat is a professional PDF creator and editor, but the subscription fee makes it inaccessible to many users, especially students.

There are various PDF editors advertising you can edit a PDF for free, but most of them are not truly free of charge, only allowing for a few days of free trial before purchasing a membership.

This article offers a list of PDF editing tools that allow you to revise your PDF documents on a Mac at no cost.

Use a Free PDF Editor – Full-featured PDF Editing Tool

PDFgear is a completely free PDF editing option that enables you to effectively view, edit, sign, and annotate PDF files. It supports editing existing text in PDF without any compromise to format and adding or deleting text in PDF files in the way you were in Microsoft Word.

Additionally, PDFgear allows you to streamline your PDF workflow with the free AI-powered PDF editor, which provides a seamless way to summarize PDFs, proofread grammar errors in PDFs, as well as translate PDFs into any language.

Step 1. Install the Free PDF Editor

Search for PDFgear on the App Store app on your Mac, download, install, and launch the application.

Step 2. Edit a PDF with PDFgear

Drag and drop a PDF file to PDFgear to open the document. Then you are free to modify your PDF. Some of the following actions you can perform, but not limited to these functions:

• Edit PDF text free: Edit the existing text in PDF or add new text to your file by clicking Edit Text in the main toolbar.
• Add images to a PDF: Hit the Image icon to insert a picture into a PDF file, and use your mouse to drag the image to adjust to a desired size.
• Use the Markup tool: The Markup tools allow you to highlight PDFs and customize the highlighter color for text within the PDF. You can also use the Underline and Strikethrough to make more changes to your file.
• Add shapes to PDF: Draw on a PDF by inserting different shapes, such as rectangles, ovals, lines, and ink.
• Comment your PDF: PDFgear, as one of the best PDF annotators, allows you to add comments with different fonts and colors to your PDF document.

Step 3. Save the Modified PDF File

Once you complete the process of editing the PDF on your Mac, navigate to File, and select Save or Save As to store the updated PDF document.

Use Preview – Limited Editing Options

Another way to edit a PDF on a Mac without Adobe Acrobat is to use the pre-installed Preview app, which serves as an image and PDF editor in the Mac ecosystem.

This native app allows you to edit your PDF directly without requiring any additional third-party software, while the editing functions available are somewhat limited.

Step 1. Open a PDF File with Preview

Select a PDF you want to edit, and open it with Preview.

Step 2. Edit PDF with Preview

Preview only supports basic PDF editing by using the Markup tools, including adding new text to a PDF, digitally signing a PDF, strikethroughing the lines, adding arrows to a PDF, etc.

Step 3. Navigate to File and Save the PDF File

Use Google Drive – Google Account Needed

Google Drive is a cloud-based file storage platform that enables you to create or edit a Google Docs file with ease. It supports opening a PDF file within Google Docs, allowing you to edit the text in PDF free from obstacles.

However, as it is primarily a Docs editor, editing a PDF containing images or forms may not be as straightforward.

Step 1. Upload a PDF File to Your Google Drive

Step 2. Open PDF with Google Docs

Step 3. Edit PDF in Google Docs

The PDF file will be automatically converted to a Word file when you open it with Google Docs. Then you can edit the text in PDF just like you would in Microsoft Word.

Step 4. Download the Document in PDF Format

Access the File menu, select Download, and click PDF Document (.pdf) to save the Docs as a PDF file.

Use Free Online PDF Editor – Internet Dependency

Utilizing a free online PDF editor is another easy way to edit a PDF on a Mac. PDFgear offers a series of online features that allow you to work with PDFs without email registration or watermarks.

Step 1. Upload a PDF File

Check out the PDFgear online PDF editor. You can click Upload PDF files or simply drag and drop a PDF to import it online.

Step 2. Edit a PDF Online

After uploading a PDF file online, click the Add or Edit Annotations icon or Add and Form Fields icon in the upper right corner to start modifying your PDF file.

Step 3. Download the Modified PDF

Save the updated PDF by clicking the Download File icon at the upper right corner.

FAQs About How to Edit a PDF on Mac for Free

How can I edit a PDF on Mac for free?

The free PDF editor PDFgear offers all PDF solutions for free, and you can utilize it to make any changes to your PDF.

Can I edit a PDF file in Pages?

No. Pages is a word processing and page layout application on macOS. It does not support opening and editing files in PDF format so far.

How do I make a PDF file editable on a Mac?

You can edit a PDF directly with PDFgear for Mac. Alternatively, you may utilize the PDFgear PDF conversion feature to change PDF to Word, so you can edit the Word file in any Word-processor application.

How to edit a PDF file with Microsoft Word on Mac?

Yes, Microsoft Word enables you to open and edit PDFs in Word files. Go to File > Open > Select Browse to open a PDF file. After you edit, save it as PDF in the Save as dropdown list and select OK to save the PDF file.

The Quick Wrap-up

To put it succinctly, there are several free PDF editing tools available to modify PDFs on Mac without Adobe Acrobat. We recommend PDFgear software, as it is completely free and allows you to edit PDFs and handle all PDF-related tasks without requiring an email sign-up.