Everyone has experienced one time or another when you wanted to edit a PDF file and tried opening the same with a few different tools online after a quick search and were unable to change a single character! Finding the right program to do your job fast and for free seems to be a hard thing to come by these days, leaving users with the error ‘unsupported file format’ warning.
If you can relate to this situation – don’t worry! I have found the three best PDF editors online that will meet your personal and business needs. There’re a lot of PDF editors available on the web. To be in this top 3, they need features that make them stand out as the best. You can use this article as a reference to select a PDF editor that meets your required needs.
Here are my top PDF editors (in no particular order) that will help you edit PDF files in a seamless way.
1. Wondershare PDFelement
Wondershare is a renowned company in the world of desktop tools. They have video editors, presentation makers, and a few other tools under their roof. PDFelement is yet another useful tool for them. You can’t merely grade Wondershare PDFelement as a PDF editor only. It is a complete set of PDF tools, I should say. You can create, convert and edit PDF, edit OCR scanned files, and deal with forms (with fields) on PDF as well.
When you open a PDF file with this tool, you get an MS Word-like interface. Selecting a particular text allows you to change it in any way possible. You can edit, change the font style, color, size and even drag the same to a position where you think it suits the best. A typical PDF editor can’t edit scanned PDF files. PDFelement excels in that department as well. One can edit OCR scanned PDF in twenty different languages. But you have to make it editable, first (using PDFelement itself).
What if you want to create a PDF file? PDFelement sports a one-click creation feature. Drag any file (image, webpage, txt, MS Word or anything) you want to create a PDF from, into the interface of the software or the desktop icon of PDFelement. You will soon be able to edit the file and save it as PDF. In the same way, you can convert different file types to PDF and vice versa.
The software is available for both Windows and Mac as well. Being a paid tool, PDFelement needs you to pay an amount of $69.95 (for the basic version) to get your hands on it. You can make use of the trial period to try it, though.
2. Foxit PhantomPDF
You might have heard of Foxit Reader. PhantomPDF comes from the very same company. If you are a person who loves the simple interface, PhantomPDF has got everything to entice you up. The software is not dedicated to editing PDF only. Just like the previous one I have shared, PhantomPDF is an ultimate toolbox, with which you can create, edit and convert PDF documents.
Let’s take PDF creation first. Once you install Phantom PDF on your computer, it integrates itself with MS Word, Outlook and your browsers (Chrome, Firefox and Internet Explorer). Whenever you want to create PDF from any of those applications, the outcome stays only a single click away. You can also create PDFs from more than hundred popular file formats.
PhantomPDF is a full-fledged editor. Apart from offering a mere way to edit the text blocks, it gives you abilities to join, link and split them. The option to resize text provides you with an extra feature to alter the layout. You can insert pictures and videos without fumbling much. PhantomPDF also helps you edit existing objects in a PDF document (adding shades, changing layout properties, etc.).
Portable Document Format aka PDF is widely used for business purposes so sometimes you have to share files with your colleagues. This tool makes your life easier by giving you a seamless integration with popular cloud storage services. The OCR file support is one feature I found most useful. You can make such files editable with the help of PhantomPDF. And, encrypting the document is also possible. Unlike PDFelement, this one works by a monthly subscription.
3. Nitro Pro PDF Editor
Nitro Pro PDF Editor has made it easy to edit PDF files. Once you install the software on your computer, you can edit any PDF file simply by opening it. You know how difficult it is to make corrections to a PDF document. If you have Nitro Pro PDF Editor, you can edit, replace, add or delete texts and images on any PDF file without even thinking about the difficulty.
Similar to those two given above, this one also excels in almost everything related to PDFs. You can combine two files with ease, export PDFs to any format you like and make an OCR file editable.
The digital signature feature is also available for copyrighting your documents. The cloud connectivity is another worth mentioning feature of Nitro Pro PDF Editor. To make collaboration easier, you can open documents directly from cloud storage services like Google Drive and Dropbox. You can convert PDFs to other file formats and vice versa using this software as well. They have priced the product at $159.99. Unlike the Foxit PhantomPDF, you don’t have to keep on paying a fixed monthly amount to use it forever.
Now that you’ve read about these three PDF editors you are armed with the knowledge you need to select the one that best works for you. All three are competing inch by inch to be the best. If you don’t want to spend a lot of money on a top shelf PDF editor, but still get the quality they offer, I recommend going with PhantomPDF as it comes with a very low monthly subscription rate. But again, you can avoid a monthly payment by going with either PDFelement or Nitro Pro PDF Editors.
Featured photo credit: Christin Hume via unsplash.com
