How to edit PDFs on Mac: Try my most used solutions

As a corporate paralegal (and blogger by hobby), I often find myself with oodles of PDFs (legal documents) on my Mac. PDFs are a great format for legal paperwork because they are secure and easy to share. But it may be a pain to edit it! 

One evening, I struggled to edit PDFs, which often required advanced tools. I spent the entire upcoming weekend creating notes on how to edit a PDF on Mac. 

No more struggle. I’m putting everything in this guide, which will surely help you if you ever find yourself stuck editing PDFs on Mac. It’s for everyone: personal, professional, enterprise-level use.

But before we dive into the details, let me show quickly the solution I gathered in this article:

I want to	What to do
Edit PDFs on Mac	Use Preview for basic and Nitro PDF Pro for advanced editing features.
Extract text from PDF	Use TextSniper to extract text from any visuals.
Compress large PDFs	Use PDF Squeezer to compress large PDFs without losing quality.
Merge and rearrange pages	Use Preview’s thumbnail sidebar or Nitro PDF Pro for easier page management.
Search PDFs for specific terms	Use PDF Search to quickly locate terms in PDFs, powered by AI for quick results.

How to edit PDFs on a Mac with ease

True, Mac’s built-in Preview, a free PDF editor app for Mac, does what most regular users need. It can open most PDFs, allow you to add and highlight text, add and remove pages, and more. But if you need advanced editing options, Preview may not be sufficient. Fortunately, there are a number of apps that take your PDF editing to the next level.

I have tested and reviewed many apps, and I think Nitro PDF Pro ticks the boxes for most users. It provides all the features catering to basic, advanced, and enterprise users. You can add page numbers, resize, copy, create fillable forms, turn OCR (optical character recognition) scans into editable PDFs, add secure passwords, and redact sensitive information — the list of features is endless.

Even with so many tools and features, Nitro PDF Pro is easy to use, thanks to a clean and intuitive user interface. 

To edit a PDF, simply open it in Nitro PDF Pro and start doing whatever you need with your document. When you’re done, click File on the menu bar and choose Save. That’s it! 

Add comments and annotations to a PDF

If you want to annotate your PDF in the Preview app, simply follow the instructions:

1. Open PDF in Preview.
2. Click Tools in the menu bar > Annotate.
3. Choose one of the options and use it in your PDF. Alternatively, use these tool form the toolbar above your file.

But what if you want to reply to comments or track comments by the author? Or you may find audio notes more convenient than other forms. Then, you should give Nitro PDF Pro a try. If you click on Tools from the menu bar, you'll find dozens of cool annotation tools: 

Fill and sign PDF forms (E-sign)

That’s another common thing (especially in my case) for which we need a PDF editor. I’ve tried Preview and a couple of other apps. 

First, let me show you how to fill out and sign a form in Preview:

1. Open PDF form in Preview.
2. If not already visible, click the double arrow on the top right > Form Filling.
3. Click the signature button > Create Signature. Choose either with a trackpad or use a camera to capture it from your docs.
4. Draw your signature > Done.
5. Once finished, drag the signature to the sign-in field.

But in my personal experience, the Preview app may be good for static forms but not for interactive forms. Here, I’d like to suggest Nitro PDF Pro, which supports complex interactive forms. The app gives you better control over form data validation and signature placement.

Redact sensitive information from PDFs

I work with PDFs containing highly sensitive information about my clients, so redaction is crucial. For the uninitiated, redacting lets you remove sensitive information from a PDF before sharing it to prevent unauthorized access or inadvertent disclosure. The rest of the document can be viewed and printed normally.

To redact sensitive information from PDFs in the Preview app, follow these steps:

1. Open the PDF in Preview.
2. Go to Tools in the menu bar > Redact. 
3. Drag the cursor over the text you want to redact > Save your PDF.

The redacted area will appear as a black bar with an X pattern.

Compress and share a PDF

Sending large PDFs through email can be a pain because of those annoying size limits. Instead of following step-by-step instructions to compress PDFs and try to keep their quality at the highest level, I reply with one-click solutions. That’s when I discovered PDF Squeezer. With this app, you can easily compress PDFs without quality loss, no matter the size and resolution of graphics within the files. 

To compress a PDF, simply drag and drop the file into the app window and click Save. That’s it!

You can customize settings like image compression level, reduce or preserve color complexity, remove images, etc. And if the PDF is password-protected, don’t worry. The information, including the password, will stay intact.

Capture text from PDF

Mac’s Preview app lets you extract and capture text from a PDF. Simply open the PDF in Preview, select the text, copy it, and paste it anywhere. But what if you want to pull text from graphics in the PDF, or the text cannot be copied?

In this way, I use TextSniper. The app uses advanced OCR technology to extract text from literally anything — images, docs, YouTube videos, online PPTs, QR/bar codes and turns it into editable text. 

Here’s how the app works:

1. Install and open TextSniper.
2. Click the app’s menu bar icon > Capture Text.
3. Select a text to capture. It’ll automatically be saved to your clipboard. 
4. Paste it in your doc, note, or wherever you need to.

Edit and mark up PDFs with Preview

The Preview app is great for basic PDF editing. 

To edit and mark up your PDF:

1. Open a PDF in Preview.
2. Click the double arrow > Markup
3. Choose one of the editing options in the toolbar.

How to type on a PDF, add text, and notes

With the Preview app, you can add text and notes to your PDFs quickly and easily.

To do so: 

1. Open the PDF in Preview.
2. In the markup toolbar, click the text icon (the A in the square) to start adding text and the note icon to start adding notes. 

Highlight text in a PDF

To get the highlight feature, simply click the pencil icon. If you want to change the color of your highlight, simply click the pencil’s drop-down menu and choose your preferred color:

Combine multiple PDFs

Macs give you two default options to merge PDFs: using Finder and Preview.

To merge PDF files in Finder:

1. Select the PDFs to merge. 
2. Right-click on the files > Quick Actions.
3. Click Create PDF.

To rearrange the pages of the new PDF, double-click on it in Finder to open it in Preview. Click View > Thumbnails. Drag and rearrange pages in the sidebar.

To merge PDF files in Preview:

1. Open the first PDF in Preview.
2. Click View in the menu bar > Thumbnails. 
3. Select a page from the sidebar. 
4. Click Edit > Insert > Page from File. 
5. Choose the second PDF file and click Open.
6. Drag and rearrange the pages of both PDFs at the sidebar.
7. Click File > Export.

Adding shapes and drawings

You can quickly add shapes and drawings in Preview. To do this:

1.  Open PDF in Preview.
2. Go to Tools > Annotate. You will see a number of shapes (Rectangle, Oval, Arrow, Star, Polygon, and Line) to add to the PDF. 

Rotate, delete, rearrange pages, and renumber pages inside a PDF

Use the tools of the Preview app to convert PDF pages and as well as quickly delete, rotate, and rearrange pages using thumbnails.

To do this:

1. Open your PDF in Preview.
2. In the sidebar, select the page(s).
3. Click Tools in the menu bar > Rotate Left or Rotate Right.
4. To delete pages, select the page(s) in the sidebar > Right-click and choose Delete.
5. To rearrange pages, drag and drop pages in the sidebar to reorder them.

Note that you can’t renumber pages directly in Preview. You'll need to export and manually adjust page numbers if necessary.

Split PDF files

For those who don’t work with PDFs regularly, Preview is a good option for a one-time PDF split. Here’s how to separate pages in a PDF with Preview:

1. Open the PDF with Preview. 
2. Click View > Thumbnails. You’ll see thumbnails of each page on the left.
3. Hold the Command and click the thumbnail for each page you want to include.
4. Drag all selected thumbnails to the desktop.

How to edit PDF on Mac [Answered]

So, with Mac’s native Preview app, you can do all the basic editing work, making it ideal for personal use. But suppose you’re a professional who often works with complex PDFs containing different interactive elements like forms and graphics, and you need more flexibility and advanced functionality. In that case, it’s better to consider third-party apps. 

Nitro PDF Pro is an all-around tool for all your PDF editing needs. Use the PDF Sqeeuzer to compress large PDFs into smaller sizes for easy and fast sharing while preserving the original quality. TextSniper is there to capture text not just from PDFs but also from graphics, docs, and videos. I truly like PDF Pals and PDF Search apps that let you find anything within your PDFs quickly — no need to re-read documents from top to bottom.

Best of all, all these apps are available at Setapp — a curated collection of powerful apps for Macs and iOS devices. Try these apps, with dozens of others, to explore how they can ramp up your workflow and productivity, making your life easier. Oh no, don’t worry! Pay a very affordable monthly subscription to try 250+ Setapp apps!