Whats the best free PDF converter?

The best free PDF editors allow you to quickly make changes to a Portable Document Format (PDF) file without spending a thing. While you won’t get all of the sophisticated features that come with a paid PDF editor, a free PDF editor should be more than enough to create PDFs and make simple edits to them.

The best free PDF editors provide basic editing and document-creation abilities but sometimes, they toss in a few surprising extras. Many free PDF editors allow you to annotate PDFs and some can even recognize scanned text - all at no extra cost.

At Tom’s Guide, we’ve tried and used half-a-dozen free PDF editors and compared them to their paid counterparts. These are the best free PDF editors you can get today if all you’re looking to do is to make a few simple edits to a PDF file.

The best free PDF editors you can use

1. PDF Candy

Best free PDF editor

Specifications

Developer: Icecream Apps

Compatibility: Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Opera, Safari

Category: OCR, PDF editing, file conversion

Upgrade from free version: None

Reasons to buy

+

OCR feature

Reasons to avoid

-

Limited text-editing features

PDF Candy may be one of the more compelling free PDF editors, mostly because it offers an OCR option not available in other free PDF editors. 

While you can't edit the OCR'd text directly within PDF Candy's web-based PDF editor, you can upload a PDF file and have PDF Candy extract text and create a text document, RTF file, or Word document in both .doc and .docx formats.

PDF Candy's tool set is formidable. You can use 44 tools to create or convert PDF files. Additionally, you'll find tools for rearranging pages within a document, adding watermarks, protecting PDF files with passcodes, editing metadata within a PDF file, splitting or adding pages to documents, and extracting images. 

All these tasks are as simple as selecting the tool, uploading a document and allowing PDF Candy to work its magic.

When you finish one task on a document, you'll get a list of other tools you can use for different tasks. Once your changes are complete, you can download the edited document or upload a new document to work on. PDF Candy keeps all of your documents in a queue so you can download them all at once after you've finished making changes to them.

While the actual text-editing tools in PDF Candy are as limited as on every other free PDF-editing app, everything else PDF Candy has to offer puts it head and shoulders above the other free options.

2. PDFescape

Ample annotation tools for free

Specifications

Developer: Red Software

Compatibility: Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Opera, Safari

Category: PDF annotation

Upgrade from free version: $36 (premium), $72 (ultimate) per year

Reasons to buy

+

Web-based annotation tools are easy to understand and use

Reasons to avoid

-

Very limited fonts

PDFescape is an excellent option for online PDF editing. Simple to use and available to anyone with a web browser, PDFescape may be all you need to edit and annotate PDF files.

Previously, PDFescape had a limit of either a 10MB or 50-page PDF file. That 10MB file-size limit remains in place, but you can now edit files of up to 100 pages for free.

PDFescape offers ample annotation tools. You can use the app to fill out forms, create form fields, insert text and web links, highlight text, add sticky notes, redact or strike out text, crop and rotate images, add or remove pages and even lock and encrypt PDF documents.

You'll have to contend with severely limited font options, however. PDFescape offers five fonts, one of which is a generic "signature" font that looks nothing like your own signature. But otherwise, you'll find a lot more tools in PDFescape than you will in the typical, bare-bones free PDF editor.

3. Apple Preview

A free option for Mac users

Specifications

Developer: Apple

Compatibility: macOS

Category: : PDF annotation; image editing

Upgrade from free version: None

Reasons to buy

+

Included with every Mac

Reasons to avoid

-

Not available for other platforms

Apple's Preview application is built into every version of macOS, including macOS BIg Sur. Not only is it capable of working with PDF files, but it also offers a number of other image-editing features. It is the multitool of the image-editing universe, capable of opening virtually any image file you may encounter.

The bulk of Preview's markup capabilities aren't obvious when you first open the app, although you'll find a few basic tools for rotating pages and highlighting text on the basic toolbar. 

Preview's full set of markup tools appears when you click a small markup button that looks like a pencil tip located next to the search tool in the Preview toolbar.

Those markup tools include text-selection options; drawing tools you can use to add freehand drawings to a document; a text tool for adding additional text to a document; a tool that adds shapes and notes; and a signature tool that you can use to capture your signature using your Mac's camera, a tablet or your trackpad.

Preview is a solid option for basic PDF editing, and if you own a Mac, accessing Preview's powers is as simple as launching the app.

4. FormSwift

A great source for forms

Specifications

Developer: King Street Labs LLC

Compatibility: Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Opera, Safari

Category: Legal forms, PDF annotation

Upgrade from free version: $89/year

Reasons to buy

+

Extensive library of legal and business forms

Reasons to avoid

-

Limited text tools

FormSwift offers a slightly different twist on PDF editing. While it gives you the option to upload and edit PDF files, it also offers a large library of legal and other business forms you can fill in online and download as a PDF file or Word document. 

I found FormSwift's offerings to be excellent and well worth a look if you need basic business documents such as 1099s, lease agreements and business meeting minutes.

All of these forms can be filled out online and downloaded once you've added the pertinent information. Or you can download blank versions of the documents and enter information locally on your computer.

For PDF editing, the process is simple. Drag a file to your browser — there's a 10MB max size — then use FormSwift's tools to add new text and images; highlight, redact or erase existing text; and sign documents.

FormSwift's text tools are limited. You have four fonts to choose from, but you can resize those fonts to almost any level you want, and you can also make changes to text colors and styles. You can add a new text field to your document, enter new text and adjust the text, placing it anywhere you want on the document. 

But there is no way to make changes to existing text, other than by redacting it. All the other tools work as expected, including a signature tool that lets you sign a document using the keyboard, your mouse or an uploaded image.

5. Smallpdf

Good for file conversion

Specifications

Developer: Smallpdf GmbH

Compatibility: Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Opera, Safari

Category: PDF conversion and editing

Upgrade from free version: $108/year

Reasons to buy

+

Basic editing tools for PDFs

Reasons to avoid

-

No annotation or markup features

Smallpdf's free online PDF editing offering is super-basic, only making it possible to add minor changes to documents. 

But you may find Smallpdf's other free features more compelling. These include tools for converting PDF files to Word, Excel, PowerPoint and JPEG. You can also convert each of those file types to PDF. 

Basic as it may be, Smallpdf can add pages to or compress existing PDF documents. Additionally, there are tools for adding signatures to documents that are similar to those available with Apple's Preview application on a Mac. 

All of this is available with no file-size limitations, but Smallpdf lets you process only two documents per day. If you want to do more, you'll have to upgrade to the Pro plan, which gives you Smallpdf desktop applications as well as unlimited processing.

As with all online PDF editors, you begin using Smallpdf by dragging the file you want to work with directly to your browser window. 

For editing PDFs, you have four options to work with: Add Text, Add Image, Add Shape and Draw. You'll note that there are no options to add notes or comments, and no way to highlight existing text. If you need to add annotations or otherwise mark up a PDF document, you should look elsewhere.

Even if the four options offered seem to be enough for you, you'll still feel constrained within each of those tools. Add text, and you have only five size options and no font choices (although you can select serif, sans serif and monotype styles for your single font choice). You're also limited to seven font colors.

While Smallpdf may lack anything beyond the basics for editing PDF files, it's much more appealing for adding electronic signatures, converting or compressing files and merging documents. 

How to choose the best free PDF editor for you

Picking the best free PDF editor is a lot like choosing a paid version of a document editor as you first need to identify exactly what you want to do with PDF files and go for the program that offers the features needed to accomplish your goals.

This can be as simple as deciding whether you need a PDF editor that can handle document creation and design or whether you just want a program that allows you to leave comments and suggestions on a PDF.

As this is free software, you should pay attention to any limitations that are imposed on the free tier. Are there restrictions on the size of the documents you can edit or are certain tools locked behind a paywall. If you need access to these tools, then it may be worth paying for those particular features.

If you’re doing your PDF editing on a computer, first check to see if you have built-in software that can handle the job. For instance, Mac users might not realize just how good Preview is at annotating documents and adding signatures to PDFs. You can save a lot of time searching for the best free PDF editor if you already have access to all of the features you need.

How we test free PDF editors

When testing free PDF editors, we used the same process as when we test paid PDF editors. However, we make note of the limitations that can come with free software. We also considered both general PDF editors as well as applications specifically designed for annotations.

When looking at free PDF editors, we used a few different types of documents that comply with file-size restrictions. These included text-heavy files, documents with a mix of formatted images and text and simple documents with text and images inserted in a linear fashion.

While free apps often don’t include features like text recognition, we did test this feature when it was available. We also tried making changes to text, replacing and adding images and adding notations to each product we tested.

For more on our testing procedures, check out this guide on how Tom’s Guide tests, reviews and rates products. 

Anthony Spadafora is the security and networking editor at Tom’s Guide where he covers everything from data breaches and ransomware gangs to password managers and the best way to cover your whole home or business with Wi-Fi. Before joining the team, he wrote for ITProPortal while living in Korea and later for TechRadar Pro after moving back to the US. Based in Houston, Texas, when he’s not writing Anthony can be found tinkering with PCs and game consoles, managing cables and upgrading his smart home.