For changing a line of text on a Mac, the two apps differ most on fonts. Superace, the company behind UPDF for Mac, says in its own guide that the UPDF PDF editor keeps a line’s original font “only when that font is available on your system”, so a font you have not installed has to be found and installed first. PDF Textfix writes the correction with the font stored inside the PDF, installed or not, and marks any character that font cannot supply. UPDF for Mac’s free version watermarks saved files from the first save. PDF Textfix is free to try. Your first 5 line edits save clean. After that, saved files carry a watermark until you buy once. UPDF for Mac is a full editor across four platforms with a US$79.99 lifetime plan for four devices; PDF Textfix is a one-job Mac app bought once.

How does UPDF for Mac edit existing text?

Its guide on editing with the same font gives the steps in one sentence: “Open the PDF in UPDF, choose Edit, and click the text you want to change—UPDF automatically detects and keeps the original font, size, and color, so your edits blend in seamlessly.” You can also add new text in the same font, and the guide says the steps are the same on Windows and on a Mac. Being a full editor, UPDF for Mac also converts, annotates, recognizes scanned text and organizes pages, and its paid plans add an AI assistant that this page does not compare.

PDF Textfix edits a line at a time. Select a line and press Return, or double-click it, and an editor opens over the line in the line’s own font. Type, then press Return to apply or Escape to cancel. Tab applies and moves to the next line, and Shift-Tab to the previous one. There are no text boxes and no paragraph mode, and the app changes no font, size or color. What it adds instead is a check: before an edit is applied, every other character on the page must stay where it was, or the edit is refused with the reason.

Does UPDF for Mac keep the original font?

Yes, when the font is installed on your computer, and not otherwise. The guide is direct about it. In its questions section: “UPDF keeps the same font only when that font is available on your system—install it and the discrepancy disappears.” And in the steps: “If you are editing text in special fonts, you should confirm whether you have them installed on your device. Otherwise, you cannot edit the text with the same font.” The rest of that guide is about finding the font’s name, downloading it, often from Google Fonts, and installing it with Font Book before you edit.

That works when the font is a free one you can download. It is harder when the PDF was made with a commercial typeface, a company font or a font bundled with the software that produced the file, because you may not be able to get a copy you are allowed to install.

What does PDF Textfix do with a font you do not have?

A PDF usually carries its fonts inside, often as a subset: only the characters the document uses. PDF Textfix reads that font from the file and writes your correction with it, so the font does not need to be on your Mac. The guide to fonts that are not embedded covers the rarer case where the file holds no copy at all.

The harder case is a character the subset never held. The screenshot above shows it on the demo cover letter. The letter was typeset without any accented letter, so its embedded IBM Plex Serif lacks “é”. Typing the writer’s corrected name “Renée Okafor” in its heading makes PDF Textfix look for “é” in a fixed order: a character already in the same font, another copy of the same face in the document, the same font installed on your Mac, then the closest standard font. On a Mac without IBM Plex, the “é” comes from a fallback font and turns orange while you type; every other letter stays in the document’s own font. A character taken from another copy of the line’s font is underlined instead, and one that no font can draw is red, with the reason and, where there is one, a suggested replacement you can accept with ⌃⌘U.

The fonts already in the file are never modified. Glyphs a fallback adds go into a new font that only the inserted text uses, and the Issues pane lists every fallback font your edits used. The how-to on keeping the same font shows the steps, and the comparison of editors that keep the original font sets several Mac editors against this one question.

How do the free versions compare?

Both watermark, at different points. Superace’s pricing page lists the trial limits, and the first is: “The free version automatically adds a trial watermark when saving the document.” The same list limits OCR: “The trial version limits OCR to 5 uses.” You can try every tool and see the edit, but a saved file carries the trial mark until you buy.

PDF Textfix is free to try. Your first 5 line edits save clean. After that, saved files carry a watermark until you buy once. Those first saves are complete files with no mark, so you can send a corrected invoice before deciding anything. Past them, the app still saves your edits, with a watermark on every page: faint diagonal text, a small logo in the corner and the footer “Saved with the free version of PDF Textfix. Buy once to remove this watermark.” The footer and the logo open the pricing page, or PDF Textfix on the Mac App Store in the Mac App Store version. The sample documents under Help never count. Once you buy, the app saves without the mark and also takes it out of files saved with it: open such a file and save it.

What do they cost, and on how many devices?

On October 12, 2026, Superace’s pricing page showed UPDF Pro at US$79.99 for lifetime use, under the line “Pay once, use forever” and marked 20 percent off US$99.99, with a yearly plan beside it. One purchase covers four devices: “When you purchase UPDF, you can use it on up to 4 devices (including web access) with no port/system restrictions”, mixing Windows, Mac, iOS and Android. In the Mac App Store, the same app lists an annual subscription at US$49.99 and a perpetual licence at US$79.99 among its in-app purchases. The AI assistant is sold separately.

PDF Textfix runs on the Mac only, so there is nothing to spread across a phone or a Windows PC. It is a one-time purchase: US$29.99 as an in-app purchase in the Mac App Store, which Family Sharing can share, or a licence from this website, which is active on 3 Macs at a time; activating a fourth removes the one used least recently. There is no subscription and no account. The pricing page lists every region’s price, and the comparison of one-time-purchase PDF editors sets the prices side by side.

Which one should you use?

UPDF for Mac fits when you work with PDFs across a Windows PC, a Mac and a phone, want conversion, OCR, annotation and an AI assistant in one place, and either use standard fonts or can install the ones your documents use. Its Mac App Store listing asks for macOS 11 or later, so it also runs on Macs that PDF Textfix does not support.

PDF Textfix fits when a finished document has one wrong line and its font is not on your Mac: a supplier’s invoice, a CV designed in another app, a letter set in a commercial typeface. It needs macOS 26 or later on Apple silicon. It writes the correction in the file’s own font, marks each character that came from elsewhere, refuses an edit that would move anything else on the page, and saves the whole file again: the replaced lines are removed, and everything else is copied as it was, unless the file was damaged; the app tells you when it repaired one. The alternative page for UPDF for Mac walks through switching for this one job.

Questions people ask

Does UPDF for Mac have a free version?

Yes. Its pricing page says “The free version automatically adds a trial watermark when saving the document”, and limits OCR to five uses.

Why does my font change when I edit in UPDF for Mac?

Superace’s answer is that the original font is not installed: it keeps the same font “only when that font is available on your system”. PDF Textfix uses the font stored in the PDF instead, and marks any character that font lacks.

How many devices does one UPDF Pro purchase cover?

Up to four, across Windows, Mac, iOS and Android, according to its pricing page on October 12, 2026.

Does UPDF for Mac have OCR?

Yes; the free version limits it to five uses. PDF Textfix does not edit scanned pages, since their text is a picture; see editing text in a scanned PDF.

Which Macs does UPDF for Mac run on?

Its Mac App Store listing asks for macOS 11 or later. PDF Textfix needs macOS 26 or later on a Mac with Apple silicon, so an older Mac can run UPDF for Mac but not PDF Textfix.