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How to edit a PDF on a Mac

Step-by-step guides for changing PDFs on a Mac, by the job you have: the text, the fonts, the file, the other apps.

Most PDF jobs on a Mac fall into a few kinds: changing a word or a line that is already on the page, keeping the document’s font while you do it, working with the apps the Mac already has, and dealing with the file itself once it is saved. The guides below are grouped that way. Each one starts with what the job involves, gives the steps with the tool that fits, and says plainly where each tool stops, the apps that come with the Mac included.

Where PDF Textfix is the right tool, the guide says so and shows it on the demo documents made for the app, synthetic files with invented names and figures. Where it is not, because the job is adding a text box, changing a font, editing a scanned page or redacting, the guide points to the kind of tool that does it. Every guide names its sources and the day its claims were checked.

Which kind of edit is it?

A PDF can be changed in several ways, and each needs a different kind of tool. Find your job in the list; the page linked under it has the steps.

  1. Change words that are already on the page: a date, a name, a typo, a number

    PDF Textfix changes the line where it stands, in the font inside the document, and checks that nothing else on the page moves.

    How to edit text in a PDF on a Mac, step by step

  2. Add a comment, a highlight or a new text box

    A markup tool, such as the Markup toolbar of Preview, puts notes, shapes and text boxes on top of the page; the text underneath stays as it was.

    Can you edit PDF text in Preview? What works

  3. Sign a document or fill in a form

    Preview signs PDFs and fills in interactive forms on a Mac. PDF Textfix does not edit form fields, and saving an edit to a signed file stops its signature from verifying.

    How to edit a signed PDF, and what it does to the signature

  4. Combine, reorder, rotate or delete pages

    Preview does this in its sidebar of page thumbnails. PDF Textfix changes the text on the pages, not the pages themselves.

  5. Rewrite paragraphs or change the layout

    Convert the PDF into a document a word processor edits, then export a new PDF. The conversion rebuilds the layout, so fonts and line breaks can change.

    How to edit a PDF in Word or Pages, and what changes

  6. Change the font, the size or the color of text

    An editor that sets the text again in a font installed on your Mac. PDF Textfix keeps the document’s own font, size and color.

    Can PDF Textfix change the font, size or color? No

  7. Edit the text of a scanned page

    Text recognition (OCR) first. The words of a scan are a picture of text, so a text editor has nothing to change until they are recognized.

    Editing text in a scanned PDF: what OCR can and cannot do

  8. Remove confidential text for good

    A redaction tool. PDF Textfix removes the text it replaces from the page, but the same words can remain elsewhere in the file, so it is not one.

    Redacting versus deleting text in a PDF

Change a line of text

9 pages

A wrong date, a misspelled name, a figure, a word that appears in several places: the jobs where the text is already on the page and one line needs to read differently. Each guide gives the steps on a demo document and says what the edit leaves alone.

The demo invoice in PDF Textfix with the invoice date open in the line editor, corrected from 2026-02-30 to 2026-02-28 in the invoice’s own monospaced font; the lines around it are unchanged.
The demo invoice’s date, corrected in place in the font inside the document.

Keep the font

3 pages

Why an edited line can come out in another typeface, how to see which fonts a file embeds, and what to do when Acrobat cannot find a system font for the line you are editing.

You type é. The line’s own font has no é.

  1. Another copy of the same font in the file.
  2. The same font, installed on your Mac.
  3. The closest standard font.
Where a missing character comes from. When the line’s own font lacks a character you type, PDF Textfix looks in three places, in this order, and marks the character so you can see it.

With the apps you have

5 pages

Preview, Word and Pages, Acrobat, a Mac without a network connection, and macOS Tahoe: what each route can change in a PDF, step by step, and where it stops.

The file, its signature and its versions

5 pages

What Save writes into the file, what an edit does to a digital signature, how to get an earlier version back, and the file’s properties and default app on a Mac.

Incremental save. The new line is appended after the original; the old line is still in the file.

Full rewrite. The file is written again, and the replaced line is gone from the page.

Two ways to save an edit. An incremental save appends the change, so the old text stays inside the file. A full rewrite writes the file again without the replaced line. PDF Textfix saves by rewriting.