PDF Textfix 1.0.0

Requires macOS 26.0 or later on a Mac with Apple silicon.

Download · All releases · The manual · Support

Added

• Change the text of a PDF one line at a time: double-click a line, or select it and press Return, type, and press Return to apply. Tab and Shift-Tab apply the edit and move to the next or previous line; Escape cancels.
• The new text uses the fonts inside the document. A character the line’s font lacks comes from another copy of the same font in the file, then from the same font on your Mac, then from the closest standard font. Characters drawn with another font are marked in orange, characters written with another copy of the line’s font are underlined, and characters no font can draw are marked in red, with a suggested character when there is one (Control-Command-U).
• You type in the line’s own font where PDF Textfix can draw it, and the bar below the pages names the font and its size while you edit.
• Every edit is checked before it is applied: every other character on the page must stay where it was, and the rest of the line keeps its place unless the new text would run into it; then PDF Textfix moves it and says so, and you can keep it in place or move it yourself with Shift Rest of Line. An edit that fails a check is refused with the reason, and the file stays as it was.
• Shift Rest of Line (Control-Command-R) moves the text after your edit when the new text is wider or narrower than the old.
• Save writes the whole file again and says “Saved and verified.” once the saved file has been checked. The lines you replaced are removed from the pages, and the saved file keeps no earlier version of them. Everything you did not edit is copied as it was, unless the file was damaged; PDF Textfix tells you when it repaired one.
• Save As writes the edited file under a new name and leaves the original untouched. Undo and Redo step through your edits, and Revert to Saved drops every edit since the last save.
• The Lines pane lists the lines of the pages on screen, with an Edited filter, and Find searches the lines of the whole document. The Issues pane lists locked lines and why they are locked, fonts the file does not embed, fonts whose licence limits edits, fallback fonts your edits used, edits that fall outside the visible area of the page, and damage repaired while reading.
• The Go menu and the page field in the toolbar move between lines and pages, and Go to Page (Option-Command-G) shows any page.
• Print prints the pages as the window shows them. Share offers the saved file. Drop a PDF on the Dock icon or on a window to open it.
• A welcome window with Open PDF, Try a Sample and your recent files. Help > Open Sample PDF offers two sample documents to practice on.
• PDF Textfix asks before your first edit of a signed or certified document and says what viewers will show. A file with a password asks for it before its pages show.
• PDF Textfix repairs a damaged file as it opens it, and a banner says so.
• Help > Saving and Privacy says what Save writes and what a saved file still holds. Help > Report a Problem… builds a text report for support, shows it to you first, and lets you email it or save it.
• Help > Privacy Policy and Help > Terms and Licence show the privacy policy and the terms inside PDF Textfix, with no connection needed. The privacy policy’s window also opens the legal notice and the security policy, and offers the page on the website.
• In the free version, the first 5 line edits on each Mac save without any mark. After that, every page of a file saved with edits carries a watermark until you buy PDF Textfix once: faint diagonal text, a small PDF Textfix logo in the corner and a line at the bottom; the line and the logo open the pricing page on pdftextfix.com, or PDF Textfix on the Mac App Store in the Mac App Store version. Once bought, PDF Textfix also removes its watermark from files saved with it. The sample documents never count and are never watermarked.
• The version from pdftextfix.com is unlocked with a licence bought on pdftextfix.com. A licence can be active on 3 Macs at a time (3 per person on a team licence): PDF Textfix activates it online once on each Mac, and activating a fourth Mac removes the one used least recently. After activation it works offline and checks the licence about once a week when the Mac is online; after 30 days without a check it asks to connect once. Help > Licence… lists the Macs using the licence and removes one.
• The version from pdftextfix.com checks for updates only when you allow it. A check is one HTTPS request for the list of releases; it carries your IP address, the app’s name and version and Sparkle’s version, and system profiling is off, so nothing about your Mac is sent. The licence activation sends the licence, a hashed identifier of the Mac, the Mac’s name and model and the app’s version, and the weekly check the licence ID, that identifier and the app’s version; nothing about your files.
• The Mac App Store version is unlocked with a one-time in-app purchase, and goes online only when you buy or restore it, to confirm the purchase with RevenueCat, the service that records our in-app sales, and, until you quit the app, a few times more to keep that confirmation current. It sends Apple’s record of the purchase, a random identifier and the versions of the app and of macOS, and nothing about your files. The unlock itself is read from the App Store on your Mac, so it works offline.
• Dark mode, full keyboard control, and accessibility labels for the lines and controls.

Changed

• Nothing: 1.0.0 is the first release.

Fixed

• Nothing: 1.0.0 is the first release.

Known issues

• PDF Textfix is not a redaction tool. Save removes the lines you replaced from the pages, but the same words can remain in links and the addresses they open, bookmarks, comments, form fields, the accessibility text of a tagged file, images and the file’s properties, and fonts keep the shapes of all their characters. Editing a line under a link leaves the link’s address as it was.
• In some tagged (accessible) files, the accessibility text of an edited line keeps the old words when another page shares it.
• A file saved by an app that adds its changes to the end of the file holds earlier versions of its pages. Saving an edit with PDF Textfix writes the file without them; saving with no edit writes the file as it was read, earlier versions included.
• Some edits that would look right are refused, which is safe but can surprise: a new character in the place of one that overlapped its neighbor, text the file draws backwards with a negative size, and an edit that would run into other text on the line when Shift Rest of Line cannot make room.
• An edit is refused, with the reason, when a part of the file outside the edit is damaged and saving would have to repair it.
• Saving an edit to a signed file means its signatures no longer verify. Saving an edit to a damaged file writes the repaired file, and the damaged original cannot be recovered from it. Keep a copy, or use Save As.
• Text is locked, with the reason on the line, in fonts made of pictures, in the hidden text layer of a scan, in vertical text, in right-to-left and joined scripts, in Chinese, Japanese and Korean encodings, and in form fields and comments. Scanned pages, encrypted files and files whose permissions forbid changes cannot be edited. PDF Textfix does not add text boxes, reflow text, or change fonts or sizes.
• While you type, a line in some embedded fonts shows in the closest installed font; once you apply the edit, the page shows the line in its own font.
• On pages with very many lines, such as spreadsheet exports, a preview can take a few tenths of a second. On very large files, every edit, undo and redo can take a second or two, because PDF Textfix writes and checks the whole file each time.
• A line you edit and then change back to its old text still counts as a line edit while other edits remain in the document.
• In the free version, past the free line edits, a file whose pages cannot take the watermark is saved without it, and only the Issues pane says so; the watermark sheet still shows before that save.
• In the free version, past the free line edits, a PDF/A file no longer conforms to PDF/A once it carries the watermark.
• In the free version, past the free line edits, a file whose pages share many fonts and images can grow much larger with the watermark; it returns to its size once the unlocked app saves it without the watermark.
• In the free version, while a file carries the watermark, text level with the watermark’s footer, at the very bottom of the page, cannot be edited.
• In the free version, Print… is off until your edits are saved, except in a sample or a file that already carries the watermark; edits past the free line edits then print only from the saved file, which carries the watermark.

Files