How to edit a PDF on Mac

Quick answer: Open the PDF in Preview and click the Markup button to highlight, add text boxes or sign. To change the existing text, open the PDF in PDFBirdie, choose the Edit Text tool, click the line and type.

What you can do in Preview

Open the PDF in Preview, then click the Markup button (the pen tip) to show the Markup toolbar.

Highlight, underline or strike out text

Select the text, then click the highlight button. Click the small arrow next to it to switch to underline or strikethrough.

Add a text box

Click the Text button in the Markup toolbar. A box appears. Type in it, then drag it where you want it. Use the A button to change the font and size.

This adds new text on top of the page. It doesn't change the text that's already there.

Sign a PDF

Click the Sign button. You can sign with your trackpad, hold a signature on paper up to your camera, or use your iPhone. Click the signature to place it, then drag to move or resize it.

Rotate, reorder and delete pages

Choose View > Thumbnails. Then:

• Drag thumbnails to put pages in a new order.
• Select a page and press Delete to remove it.
• Select a page and choose Tools > Rotate Left or Rotate Right.

Fill in a form

Click into a field and type. If the form has no fields, add text boxes instead.

What Preview can't do

Preview can't change the text that's already in a PDF. You can cover it with a white box and type over it, but the old words are still in the file underneath. Anyone can copy them out, and they show up in search.

Preview also can't swap or remove an image that's part of the page, or add and change the fields in a fillable form.

For those jobs, use a PDF editor.

How to edit text in a PDF on Mac

PDFBirdie edits existing text for free. The old words are taken out of the page, and your new words go in their place in the same font, so the text stays real. You can still search for it and copy it.

1. Download PDFBirdie from the Mac App Store. It's free.
2. Open your PDF in PDFBirdie.
3. In the toolbar's markup tools, choose Edit Text.
4. Click the line you want to change.
5. Type your changes. You can also pick a different font or color.
6. Save.

PDFBirdie edits one line at a time, which keeps the rest of the page exactly where it was. For a long rewrite, edit each line, or delete the text and add a new text box.

Edit text in a scanned PDF

A scanned PDF is a picture of a page, so there's no text to edit yet. In PDFBirdie, choose Tools > Recognize Text first. That makes the words searchable and selectable, right on your Mac.

How to edit images in a PDF

With the Edit Text tool still chosen, click an image on the page. Then Control-click it and choose Replace Image to swap in a new picture, or delete it. This changes the image in the page itself, so nothing is hidden underneath.

How to edit pages

PDFBirdie's page tools are free too. Open the pages sidebar to:

• Drag pages into a new order
• Rotate, duplicate or delete pages
• Insert blank pages, or pages from another file
• Crop white margins, or resize every page to Letter or A4 (in Tools > Pages)
• Add page numbers, headers, footers or a watermark (in Tools > Watermark, Header and Footer)

How to fill in and edit forms

PDFBirdie fills in any PDF form. It can also save your details to fill in forms faster next time, and save your signature so you can place it with one click.

To make a form fillable, or change one, choose Tools > Edit Form Fields. You can add text fields, checkboxes and more, then move and set them up.

Before you send an edited PDF

Two quick checks are worth doing on any PDF you've edited:

• Check the metadata. PDFs often carry the author's name and the app that made them. PDFBirdie removes those every time you save. Remove PDF metadata
• Make sure removed text is really gone. If you hid something with a white or black box, the words are still in the file. Use a real redaction tool. Redact PDFs

Questions

Can I edit a PDF on Mac for free? Yes. Preview can add markup, signatures and page changes. PDFBirdie can change the existing text and images, also for free, with no watermark and no time limit.

Will PDFBirdie add a watermark? No. The free version never adds a watermark.

Do I need to upload my PDF? No. PDFBirdie works offline and can't connect to the internet, so your file stays on your Mac. See how to check

Can I edit a PDF that's locked with a password? If the PDF needs a password to open, you'll need that password. If it opens but limits changes, PDFBirdie lets you know and you can enter the permissions password to make changes.

How do I see what changed between two versions? PDFBirdie can compare two versions and show every word added, removed or changed. Compare two PDFs