How to edit a PDF on a Mac

What Preview can (and can't) do

Preview ships with every Mac, so it's the obvious first stop. Open a PDF, click the Markup toolbar (the pen-tip icon), and you get a genuinely useful set of annotation tools.

• Highlight, underline, and strike through text.
• Add a signature you've drawn on the trackpad or captured with the camera.
• Draw shapes and freehand lines, and add comment-style notes.
• Drop a new text box anywhere on the page and type into it.
• Rotate pages and rearrange them in the thumbnail sidebar.

The one thing Preview won't do: edit existing text

Here's the catch that trips people up. A Preview text box sits on top of the page — it can't touch a paragraph that's already part of the PDF. If a contract says "Net 30" and you need "Net 45," Preview has no way to click into that word and retype it.

The usual workaround is to draw a white rectangle over the old text and type the replacement on top. It looks fine on screen, but the patch is obvious when printed, and your new text is almost always a different font from everything around it. That's the giveaway that a document was edited.

Edit existing PDF text in the real font, in your browser

When you actually need to change the wording inside a PDF, use a browser-based editor that reads the document's embedded font. It runs in Safari, Chrome, Edge, or Firefox on your Mac — nothing to install. Your file is opened locally and never uploaded to a server, so a lease, invoice, or tax form stays on your machine.

Because the editor reuses the font that's already inside the PDF, your edited text matches the surrounding text in shape, size, and color. There's no white box and no mismatched typeface — the change reads as if it was typed that way originally.

• Open the PDF in the browser editor by dragging the file onto the page.
• Click the existing text you want to change and retype it; the editor matches the embedded font.
• Add new text, and it auto-matches the size and color of nearby text.
• Highlight, sign (draw or type), insert a logo or image, add stamps or sticky notes.
• Rotate, delete, or reorder pages, then download the finished PDF straight to your Mac.

Which tool should you use on a Mac?

There's no rule that says you have to pick one. Many people sign and highlight in Preview and switch to a browser editor only when they need to correct real text. Both are free, and neither requires an account.

• Just marking up or signing a PDF? Preview is fast and already installed — use it.
• Need to change words that are already in the document, in place and in the right font? Use a real-font browser editor.
• Working with a sensitive file? A local, in-browser editor keeps it on your device; verify by watching the browser's Network tab while you edit.