There are many different ways to view and edit PDF files on a Mac. There are some expensive PDF editing software like Adobe Acrobat that are great, but all of it’s features are not needed to edit PDFs on a Mac. Apple has a built-in Preview application that is free and should be considered as one of the best PDF editors for a Mac.

The reason for this, is because Preview has added several new features that make things easier when editing a PDF. In the past it was only able to provide a limited way to edit PDF files, and even couldn’t edit the original text on PDF.

Instead of searching for an effective way to edit PDF on Mac or Windows. We have created a quick guide on how to view and edit PDF files on a Mac OS X.

We have outlined three methods to open and edit PDF using Preview. The first one is by basically viewing the video below. It will take you through, step-by-step and show you how you can go about editing a pdf file. If you prefer written instructions then refer to the two methods listed below.



Navigating and Viewing PDFs

On an Apple computer, when a PDF file is opened, by default the files will open in Preview. The first page of the file will open and giving navigation options through the document by scrolling down or by dragging the document’s scroll bar.

Edit PDF in Preview

Using Preview, it’s possible to add notes, highlight or copy texts in a PDF file. The following is how to edit PDF with Preview.

 Second Method To Edit PDF File On A Mac Using The Preview Program

1. Drag and drop the PDF file to the Preview program dock, and then the PDF file will be open with Preview.
2. Copy the text from the PDF in Preview.
3. Then go to “Navigate” in the upper toolbar, and select the Text.
4. Press Command + C to copy the texts.
5. Annotate and markup PDF in Preview. Click Annotate on top of the toolbar. This will allow you to edit the PDF file.
6. Fill out the PDF in Preview. When you open a PDF form with Preview, you can click the Text button and click the field to input the information to PDF directly.    

Third Method To Edit PDF File On A Mac Using The Preview Program

If you double click on any pdf file in OSX it will open in an application called preview. You can read the pdf and scroll around etc.
Go up to the View menu and select the menu item called ‘Show Annotations Toolbar. This will give you a toolbar along the bottom of your preview window to help you edit the pdf file.


After you select  the ‘View: Show Annotations Toolbar’ menu you will see a toolbar across the bottom of the preview window that looks like this:

These buttons will allow you to edit the pdf file. The left three buttons make an arrow, a circle or a rectangle. The fourth button along allows you to add text to the pdf.
If you click on the text box button – the 4th button across,  you can then go up to your document and add in a text box like this:

If you click on the text button you can add a text box to the pdf document like this.

This is a very easy way to fill in pdf files that are forms.
If you highlight the newly added text you can change the font by pressing Apple-T and the font window will appear. You can’t delete  what’s already in a document, but you can draw a rectangle over it to hide it and type something new over the top.

You can cover over existing text using a rectangle with a white border like this.

You’ll notice you can’t change the rectangle color from being black, but you can put a very fat white border around it so it looks like a white rectangle!

If you want to totally change the images and text on an existing pdf file you will need an application like Adobe Illustrator that can actually edit the content of pdf files, but if you only want to make small changes, the built in preview app will do the job!

Adding and Rearranging Pages

Another great thing that can be done in Preview is the ability to add or rearrange a page within the PDF file. This feature is helpful when there are multiple PDFs that need to be combined into a single file.

To combine the multiple PDF files into a single PDF, first open one of the files. Select on the “View” menu, select “Thumbnails”, and drag the other PDF file from the Finder into the Thumbnail pane to where the file should appear.

Other Software to Edit PDF Files

PDFPen makes page rearrangement, editing and multi-document assembly easy. PDFPen costs $60 but is worth the price. If you need more features than Preview can provide.

Skim is a great choice if your primary focus is annotation as that’s what it was design to do. It has an impressively long list of features to make annotation easy.