We looked at both PDF annotation and editor apps in this roundup, checking to see how they displayed PDF documents, if they worked well, and if they could edit PDFs without deeply changing how the original PDF document looked.

They can also create new PDF documents and forms from scratch. When you need to replace an image, change the text in a PDF, add new form fields, or edit anything else in a PDF, they're the apps you need. These tools-including Adobe Acrobat, Foxit, and more-often look like Office apps with detailed toolbars and menus, and can cost hundreds of dollars. The most professional PDF software is PDF editor apps. You can't change the core, original PDF text-but you can add to it much like you might write notes on a printed document. These let you add comments to PDFs, rearrange pages, add shapes and arrows to call out things in the document, and insert new text blocks and images into the PDF. Then there are PDF annotation apps, including macOS Preview, Xodo, and most mobile PDF apps. They're built to help you read PDF files like you would a book, and help you flip to the page you want, search through the book, highlight text, and perhaps fill out PDF forms and sign them digitally. The PDF apps you've likely used the most-Adobe Reader, Apple iBooks, Windows Reader-are PDF reader apps.

For more details on our process, read the full rundown of how we select apps to feature on the Zapier blog. We're never paid for placement in our articles from any app or for links to any site-we value the trust readers put in us to offer authentic evaluations of the categories and apps we review. We spend dozens of hours researching and testing apps, using each app as it's intended to be used and evaluating it against the criteria we set for the category. All of our best apps roundups are written by humans who've spent much of their careers using, testing, and writing about software.

Free download pdf professional