How to Edit a PDF with Adobe Reader [The Complete Guide]

Adobe Acrobat, the PDF software that comes with the invention of portable document files PDF, has become a must-have for office workers for the flourishing of the latter. And just like other Adobe products, affordability is not an upside of Adobe Acrobat Pro DC. For users who rather not fork out for their PDF journey, the minimalist version of Adobe Acrobat Reader, which is free of cost, has become their optimal choice.

In this post, you’ll learn how to edit a PDF with Adobe Reader, and how to edit a PDF with an Adobe Reader alternative. Step-by-step tutorials are offered for you to easily follow.

To edit PDF documents in a more professional manner, make sure to check the 12 Best PDF Editors for Windows [Online or Software].

How to Edit a PDF with Adobe Reader: Fast Check

Adobe Reader, the free version of Adobe Acrobat, unfortunately, doesn’t have native support for PDF editing. However, lucky for you to have entered this page, now you can use the free online Adobe Reader alternative to edit your PDF documents!

How to Edit a PDF with Adobe Reader

Can you edit a PDF with Adobe Reader? Unfortunately, the PDF editing feature is not available in Adobe Reader, which is merely a free PDF reader program for reading and viewing PDF documents. So no, you can’t edit a PDF with Adobe Reader, Adobe Reader Touch, or Adobe Reader XI.

For PDF editing and other professional features, you need the upgraded Adobe Acrobat Pro DC, which requires a paid subscription.

Adobe Reader lacks basic PDF editing functionalities, which include:

• Edit text and images in PDF documents
• Recognize and extract text from PDF with OCR
• Extract and save one page of a PDF document
• Add annotations, comments, and highlights to PDF
• Merge multiple PDF documents into one
• Split a PDF document into multiple files

In that case, many Adobe users have to opt for an alternative program or go with open-source options.

How to Edit a PDF with Adobe Reader Alternative: Step by Step

So, how to edit a PDF without Adobe Reader, and how to edit a PDF without Adobe Acrobat? I understand the whole point of these is to find a free option for editing PDF documents for your business, and PDFgear is just the right option.

PDFgear is a free and all-in-one PDF reader as well as editor tool that works online, it allows you to edit, merge, split, and annotate PDF documents in an intuitive interface. PDFgear is the best alternative to Adobe Acrobat Reader for its incredible performance. Since PDFgear is cloud-based, users can easily access it using a web browser application on Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, etc.

In terms of PDF editing, PDFgear has ample impressive features including text highlighting, PDF page extractions, PDF page rearranging, text removal, etc.

Step 1. Go to Adobe Reader Alternative

On your computer, laptop, or mobile phone, open a web browser application and go to the PDFgear PDF Editor online tool, then hit the Choose files button to import the PDF.

Step 2. Edit PDF in Adobe Reader Alternative

The uploaded PDF will then be loaded into the PDF editor screen. You can use the corresponding buttons from the upper-right side to edit the PDF:

• Highlight, strikethrough, and underline text
• Add signatures and form fields to PDF
• Add dynamic and standard stamps to PDF
• Adjust PDF borders, font, and opacity
• Add comments and annotations, and draw on the PDF

Step 3. Download Edited PDF

When you’ve done editing your PDF, you can go to the upper-right side to download the edited PDF or use Print to PDF to save it as a flattened PDF copy.

Bonus: Since PDFgear also works with scanned PDF documents, you can also edit scanned PDF documents using PDFgear. And for scans that are generated using high DPIs, the PDFgear online PDF compressor can be extremely helpful in resizing your documents to 300kb and lower.

How to Edit a PDF without Adobe: More Solutions

Of course, there’re tons of other workable solutions to editing PDFs without Adobe Reader and without Adobe Acrobat Pro DC. And the choice of method can also depend on your use case of yours. The following are some commonly seen examples for you to get a clue.

• If you want to quickly annotate or markup PDF, then online PDF editors like PDFgear are recommended
• If you’re running a Mac computer or MacBook, the inbuilt PDF reader application Preview offers basic PDF editing like free drawing
• If you’re using an iPhone or Android mobile phone, go with a free PDF editor app such as iLovePDF
• To edit text-based information and data, editing PDF in Microsoft Word sounds like a good plan

See, in regard to editing PDF in Adobe Reader, you don’t really need an Adobe Acrobat！

Frequently Asked Questions on Editing PDF with Adobe Reader

Why can’t I edit a PDF in Adobe Reader?

If you find that you can’t edit a PDF in Adobe Reader, the reason is simply that Adobe Reader doesn’t have the support for PDF editing. To edit a PDF file for free, you are recommended to edit a PDF with Adobe Reader alternative PDFgear.

Why can’t I edit my PDF in Adobe Acrobat DC?

In other cases, you’re using Adobe Acrobat Pro DC and you still can’t edit your PDF, that’s because the PDF is restricted from PDF editing or protected with a password. To resolve the issue, you need to unlock the PDF. And our guide on how to unlock PDFs without a password may be of help.

How to edit a pdf without Adobe?

To edit a PDF document without Adobe Acrobat or Adobe Reader, you need an Adobe Acrobat alternative like PDFgear. PDFgear is a free online PDF editor that allows you to add annotations, markups, form fields, signatures, etc. to PDF documents with ease.

Have a Try

As you can see from the above information, the free Adobe Reader doesn’t offer a PDF document editing feature, but there are numerous alternative ways for you to conduct the job. For me personally, the PDFgear online PDF editor tool prevails with its convenience and ease of use. But if you find any other introduced methods helpful with your case, feel free to have a try!