8 Best Online PDF Editors
Due to their cross-platform support and lack of modification options, PDF documents are widely used for sharing files online. Be it reading material digitally shared after a class lecture or a file for official use, PDF files are one of the most commonly used file formats. This also means that many people who require making slight amendments, need to digitally sign a file or wish to edit it for further use find it hard to do so. This is why we have picked a list of 7 best online PDF editors to help you edit files saved in the Portable Document Format.
What is the PDF File Format?
The Portable Document Format or PDF is a print-friendly file format. The format was developed in 1993 by Adobe to allow presenting documents independent of operating system and hardware. It is widely used for sharing files that cannot be edited but usually signed digitally using PDF applications. The format is also widely supported across various platforms including desktop and mobile operating systems. A PDF file can even be viewed using a modern browser like Chrome and Firefox that natively supports the file format.
What Functions can be Performed with PDF Files
Other than the ease of sharing, PDF files can also be used for digital signatures, encrypted and password protected. PDF files can also be protected with DRM restrictions to prevent editing, copying or printing of files. PDF files also support rich text format, embedding images, adding bulleted lists, etc.
There are a number of tools that also allow further modifying a standard PDF file such as by merging, splitting, rotating, password protecting, encrypting and batch converting files between multiple formats.
Best Online PDF Editors
The Portable Document Format is famous for its ease of sharing, wide support and lack of editing options that can help avoid file tampering. There are very few applications that provide PDF editing support, most of which are paid or come with expensive application suites. A workaround is to use online PDF editors to quickly edit your files. Especially when it is imperative to edit a file and you might not have the time to request the sender to send you the file in another file format.
1. PDFSimpli
PDFSimpli is a feature-rich PDF editor that can be used for editing and creating PDF files online. The latter is a feature that allows you to create a PDF online using a browser-based editor. You can also convert PDF to Word, PDF to JPG or JPG to PDF, PDF to PNG or PNG to PDF, TIFF to PDF, HTML to PDF, PDF to text, PowerPoint to PDF and Excel to PDF.
PDFSimpli is also powered by OCR (Optical Character Recognition) technology, allowing conversion of images to text. You can also perform other handy functions using this web app including compressing, rotating, watermarking and signing PDF files.
Go to PDF Simpli
2. JotForm PDF Editor
JotForm PDF Editor could be one of the great alternatives to the traditional PDF editors out there. With a power of an online form behind it, JotForm PDF Editor can automatically create professional-looking and well-designed PDF documents from the data collected by the online form. You can also use JotForm PDF Editor to edit the created PDF documents according to your needs easily, it also supports electronic signatures, offers password protection, fillable PDFs, and has many integration possibilities with popular business tools such as Slack, Zoom, Google Drive, and more.
3. PDFEscape
PDFEscape is one of those tools that can be deemed as a free PDF editor online, with a desktop version for Windows-based operating systems (Windows 7, 8 and 10). With PDFEscape, you can edit PDF files, as well as share and password-protect them. The tool also provides a PDF form filler. The premium version of the tool also comes with additional features such as the utility to merge, watermark, compress and convert PDF files to numerous formats.
Go to PDFEscape
4. Sejda Online PDF Editor
Sejda’s is another PDF editor with the added utility to create PDF documents from scratch. You can either upload a PDF file for editing or using the PDF authoring tool provided by the developer to make a file from scratch. The free version of the tool supports files that are as large as 200 pages or 50 MB.
Go to Sejda Online PDF Editor
5. Desygner
Desynger PDF Editor is a convenient tool that incorporates a powerful design tool with helpful features that let you create professional designs easily and painlessly. With Desygner PDF Editor you can easily and quickly edit PDF files.
It is a PDF editor that imports your files in a format that keeps every element on the page editable. Desygner is available on desktop and mobile devices.
The tool allows you to easily modify textual content and change fonts, colors, and word spacing. You can also manipulate images, and rotate text freely on the page, or Access, edit, and download your PDFs whenever you need to. With the free and easy-to-use design editor, you can organize all your PDFs into specific folders.
The documents or designs can be stored and easily downloaded as images (JPG, PNG, or PDF) for use on your presentations, websites, social media channels, or printed at any time.
Desygner is compatible with major Adobe & Microsoft files. If you have PDFs made in InDesign, Illustrator or Photoshop, upload them into Desygner. You can save your business documents or presentations PowerPoint and Word. The documents are now ready to edit on one online platform by anyone in your team. There is no software or technical skills required.
6. PDF Buddy
PDFBuddy provides a number of PDF authoring tools including an editor, splitter and a PDF merge online utility. The free version of PDF Buddy is limited to editing 3 PDFs per month and 1GB of cloud storage.
Go to PDF Buddy
7. PDF2Go (a.k.a PDFTogo)
If you want an online PDF editor that also provides support for fetching files via URL, Dropbox and Google Drive, PDF2Go is just what you need. Other than drag and drop functionality, its ability to fetch files from multiple sources makes it a handy online editing tool for PDF files. The basic editing features of the tool also include PDF editing, merging, splitting, rotating and sorting options. You can also edit, compress, password protect, repair, optimize and unlock PDF files. PDF2Go is also known as PDFtogo.
Go to PDF2Go
8. ILovePDF
We covered ILovePDF in a previous post. For people asking the question about which is the best online PDF editor that can get the job done for free, ILovePDF is likely to be one of the top options. There are a number of PDF management tools offered by the service to edit, split, compress, merge or convert files. You can upload your PDF files to get started or fetch a file via Google Drive or Dropbox.
Go to ILovePDF
9. DocFly
With claims of being the best online PDF editor, DocFly provides a number of handy PDF editing options. You can not only upload PDF files but even fetch them from secure HTTPS links or cloud storage services. Like other tools in our list, DocFly contains editing options to erase, add or highlight text, add images or signatures, merge, split and rotate files.
With DocFly, you can also create and convert Portable Document Format files between Word, PowerPoint and Excel to PDF and PDF to image or Word. The tool also enables adding, changing or removing passwords from PDF files.
Go to DocFly
Final Words
PDF editing tools are often paid or can be hard to find. Using the list above you can quickly access a handy list of tools with free and premium PDF editing features. These tools can be a good option especially when you aren’t willing to pay a hefty amount for expensive apps like the Adobe PDF Editor online or third-party Office applications. A good example is Microsoft Word that allows opening a PDF file in editable format with often a less than desirable output. You can avoid this hassle by picking an online editor that can get the job done more robustly for you.
