First of all, can you even edit a PDF? This file format is a solid one and originally it is not supposed to be changed. Nonetheless, you can do that with a reliable PDF Editor although this seems to be a tricky task. If you have the right PDF programs at hand, there shouldn’t be any difficulties with editing a PDF file. The problem is that finding a decent service that corresponds to your needs might be more complicated than it first seems.
Some PDF editors are great for documents containing text, others would be quite helpful when it comes to working with graphic elements of PDF files. We’ve tested quite a few PDF editors for Windows to help you find the PDF editing software that fully satisfies your demands.
1. Icecream PDF Editor – best PDF editor for Windows 10
Icecream PDF Editor is free-to-download and very easy to use. This software has multiple tools to edit PDF files: you can correct mistakes and edit existing text in your file, add new text, make it bigger or smaller, change its font, color, opacity, and much more. If you need to add graphics to your document, feel free to do so – simply click the image icon and upload a picture you need to your input file. Draw lines and arrows of color and size of your choice, add rectangles and circles, and this all is only about PDF editing. If you wonder how to annotate a PDF then Icecream PDF Editor will provide you with even more options.
Stamps, sticky notes, highlights, strikeout and underlining, and anything you might think of when it comes to commenting upon a PDF without actually changing its content – you can make propositions to share your ideas about how you think a document might be edited, get it approved, and edit it inside the doc afterwards.
Besides that, in Manage Pages mode of this PDF editor, you can combine PDF files by adding a page or another PDF file seeing the thumbnails of each, delete unneeded pages, rotate them, merge PDF files, or extract PDF pages creating a separate file on your PC which is very convenient when working with contracts, portfolio, business plans, or other important documents. You can also fill in forms in PDFs.
Last but not least, documents are secure with Icecream PDF Editor. If you want to make sure your files wouldn’t be accessed by anyone without your permission you can password-protect your PDFs.
Licensing: Shareware, Lifetime license $49.95
Our Rating: 10 / 10
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2. Foxit PhantomPDF – full-featured PDF editor for Windows and other OSs
Foxit PhantomPDF is a great PDF editing software with an OCR system available, so whether you are working with a PDF file that was scanned or with files that were previously converted to PDF, you can still edit the text like you would with any other text editor. Not only can this PDF editor change the existing content including text, but also annotate your PDF, add links, graphic elements, images, audio and video, add text markup, highlight areas, work with comments, add stamps and forms, rotate pages, and much more.
All these features are easily accessible from the intuitive menu. With this PDF editing software, you can open several files at a time and they will be kept in separate tabs, which is very convenient when working on multiple documents. To download this PDF redactor, though, you are required to insert your email, first and last name, company and phone number, which is slightly inconvenient.
Licensing: Shareware, Lifetime license $199.95
Our Rating: 9 / 10
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3. Nitro PDF Pro – PDF editor with built-in PDF converter and form creator
Nitro PDF Pro is a PDF editing software with a whole suite for quality work with PDF files. If you wish to edit PDF as a text, you can turn on the OCR feature to proceed with bringing edits to a PDF document just like to any other text file. Paragraphs of the text can be moved around the list with the drag and drop mechanism. With this PDF editor, you can add images, insert blank pages, insert elements from a file, clipboard or scanner, and delete, crop and rotate pages of a document. Extraction, splitting and replacing pages are also supported. In addition to that, you can add watermarks, page numbers, headers and footers, notes, stamps, links, and drawings with this PDF redactor.
Here’s how to annotate a PDF – adding comments and attaching files is also supported by Nitro PDF Pro. In this PDF editor users can add forms, sign their documents, secure them with a password and even upload them to a cloud storage. All these multiple advanced editing features might confuse someone who just wondered how to edit PDF without Adobe and needs to crop a document or add some text. By and large, this app is amazing but a bit excessive if you need basic PDF editor.
Nitro Pro 10 has a 14-days trial period. You would need to enter your name, surname, and e-mail to install this PDF editor, and you are ready to go. You can activate the PRO version immediately once you installed Nitro but who wouldn’t like to enjoy good things for free first? Nitro Pro 10 allows you to edit PDF on Mac, too.
Licensing: Shareware, $179.99 (Windows)/$129.99 (Mac)
Our Rating: 9 / 10
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4. LibreOffice Draw – completely free PDF editor
LibreOffice Draw is an open source PDF editor from a LibreOffice open source software package. This PDF editor can edit text from a document exactly like in LibreOffice Writer, so there are actually plenty of useful features you can work with. Graphic elements like arrows, stars and rectangles can be added to your PDF. You can add diagrams and tables, change the layout of a page, and add macros, video, audio, objects and frames.
This PDF editor can ease up your work with text documents in PDF format considerably. It perfectly opens PDFs protected with a password. The interface is pretty outdated yet comfortable to work with.
Licensing: Freeware
Our Rating: 8 / 10
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5. Inkscape – well-known PDF editor
Inkscape is a famous and one of the best free PDF editing software that is open-source and offers plenty of features to edit PDF files. The interface is a bit overloaded with buttons, as it’s not only a free PDF editor but generally a vector graphic software. Compared to other PDF redactors like AbleWord or LibreOffice Draw, working with text in Inkscape is rather complicated.
You can delete text and type on PDF easily, but entering new text turns out to be difficult – you need to manually select the font and the size so that the new text fits into an old one. Editing a PDF with graphics is much easier – there are plenty of elements to be added to the PDF. Inkscape PDF editor lets you work with layers, paths, filters, and plenty of extended settings for advanced work with files.
Licensing: Freeware
Our Rating: 8 / 10
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6. Expert PDF Editor – user-friendly PDF editing software
Expert PDF Editor might be considered the best PDF editor for Windows 10 with a user-friendly interface that is quite easy to navigate. This PDF redactor supports the OCR system with multiple languages (compared to the vast majority of PDF editing softwares that only support English). It also secures files with passwords and opens most of the password-protected files. If your PDF document has a password, you can highlight the text and type on it; if it doesn’t, you can fully edit your content.
As for the graphics, you can add sticky notes, random lines by means of pencil, add stamps, ellipses, rectangles and images, sign, add watermarks and page numbers, and add forms while editing a PDF. You can crop, rotate and adjust your documents in size with this PDF editor. Adding a password to secure a PDF file is available. Several files can be opened and kept in separate tabs. If you need an easy yet full-featured PDF editing software then Expert PDF Editor is a good choice for you.
Licensing: Shareware, Lifetime license starts at $39.99
Our Rating: 8 / 10
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7. Adobe Acrobat DC PDF – PDF editor from the PDF format creator
Acrobat DC is a product made by Adobe, so if you are used to using its apps this might be a great option to edit PDF files. This PDF redactor has all the basic features, such as adding an image to your PDF, drawing lines and arrows, deleting pages from a file, and much more. Not only can you upload your PDFs to edit, but also scanned documents which is pretty important for working with business files and contracts. You can also type on docs if you don’t want to literally edit a PDF.
The interface of PDF editor looks pretty outdated which is unusual to Adobe. If wonder how to edit PDF without Adobe there are some other options but with Acrobat DC, you indeed have all tools at hand. But then again, the fact is, they are randomly placed which most probably confuses a new user. Of course, you’ll be able to edit your PDFs the way you need but it might take more time and effort than you expected.
There’s a real disadvantage in this PDF editor, though: Adobe’s so-called free trial starts with a commitment to monthly or annual payments. You can’t try editing a PDF with this app before entering your credit card data.
Licensing: Shareware, $179.88/year license cost
Our Rating: 8 / 10
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8. AbleWord – basic PDF editor for Windows
AbleWord is a really awesome PDF editing software if the documents you are working with were previously converted to PDF from a text format. Basically, you can open such a file in AbleWord, automatically make PDF editable, and work with it just like in Microsoft Word you are most probably used to. Edit text, add tables, highlight, work with font, change the alignments of text – you’re able to do everything with this compact PDF editor.
We tried a scanned document but it was recognized as an image and didn’t make PDF editable in this case, so we wouldn’t recommend this app for those who need to work with scanned PDFs. This PDF editor doesn’t open password protected files, either.
Licensing: Freeware
Our Rating: 7 / 10
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Finding a PDF editor out of a great variety of PDF programs that suits all your needs, offers just the proper amount of features with a modern and easy-to-use interface yet being a secure software to use is quite a task. We reviewed offline apps because we know that you need your documents and contracts not to be uploaded elsewhere or handed to the third parties which sometimes happens with online PDF editors. Besides that, it doesn’t matter how fast your internet currently works if you use an offline PDF editing software – it still is going to work just as fast as it possibly can. We hope that our list of top 8 PDF redactors of 2022 helped you find your best PDF editing software to use.
Useful articles,Adobe is great! But recently we found another PDF editing tool — PDFelement, it’s the most cost-effective program you may have. Just type “PDFelement” in google search and you will get it.
With thanks! Valuable information!