{"id":1566,"date":"2016-06-08T12:17:39","date_gmt":"2016-06-08T16:17:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.computeradvantage.us\/v3\/?p=1566"},"modified":"2016-06-07T12:22:36","modified_gmt":"2016-06-07T16:22:36","slug":"goldilocks-and-the-three-pdf-apps-which-is-right-for-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.computeradvantage.us\/v3\/goldilocks-and-the-three-pdf-apps-which-is-right-for-you\/","title":{"rendered":"Goldilocks and the Three PDF Apps: Which Is Right for You?"},"content":{"rendered":"

PDF files are usually meant as digital representations of paper-based documents. Scanners generally create documents in PDF, ebooks are often distributed in PDF, and government agencies like the IRS make their paper forms available as interactive PDFs.<\/p>\n

So it\u2019s essential to have an app on your Mac that can work with PDFs, and in fact, such an app is included: Preview. But as good as Preview is, it can\u2019t do everything you might want, and just like in the fairy tale of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, there are three popular apps for working with PDF: Preview is the first, and while it\u2019s decent and free, Smile\u2019s PDFpen and PDFpenPro offer quite a few more features but cost $75 or $125. The high-end spot is occupied by Adobe\u2019s Acrobat Pro DC, which is priced at a hefty $450. Which PDF app is right for you?<\/p>\n

\"PDF-Preview-icon\"You won\u2019t go wrong starting with\u00a0Preview<\/a>, which enables you to rearrange pages in a PDF, copy pages from one PDF into another, delete pages, and even import new pages from a scanner. Preview lets you navigate PDFs via the table of contents or thumbnails, and can display the pages in a grid. If you\u2019re trading a PDF back and forth with a collaborator, you can use Preview to highlight text and add annotations. Preview even makes it possible to fill out interactive forms and sign documents. It has a search capability, although it\u2019s a little weak, and you can bring up an inspector window that displays metadata about the PDF, although you can\u2019t change anything in there apart from keywords.<\/p>\n

\"PDF-PDFpenPro-icon\"PDFpen<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0PDFpenPro<\/a>\u00a0can do everything Preview can, and quite a bit more. When scanning a page, they can perform optical character recognition (OCR), which adds searchable and editable text to the scanned image of the document. Speaking of text, both apps can add to and change the text of a PDF, which is handy when you want to make a quick correction or update an old document. They also let you move, resize, and delete images in PDFs, redact sensitive information, find and replace text, add file and audio attachments, and export to Microsoft Word format. PDFpenPro goes even further, making it possible to turn a Web site into a PDF, export to Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint formats, create and edit a PDF\u2019s table of contents, create links from URLs in a document, and more.<\/p>\n

\"PDF-Acrobat-icon\"What more do you get with\u00a0Acrobat Pro DC<\/a>\u00a0for more than three times the price of PDFpenPro? (It\u2019s also included with an Adobe Creative Cloud subscription.) Since it comes from Adobe, the company that created PDF, Acrobat will work with complex and involved PDFs that could stymie the other apps. Acrobat offers high-end print production features, integration with Microsoft Office, and a side-by-side view for fixing suspected text recognition errors in an OCRed scan. Most important, if you need to edit PDFs frequently, Acrobat\u00a0can reflow text across an entire page, add new lines to existing bulleted or numbered lists without reformatting, and clean up document photos to remove the background and adjust perspective.<\/p>\n

Our recommendation?<\/strong> Start with Preview and see whether you need more features. If PDFpen or PDFpenPro will resolve your problems, they\u2019re solid performers that don\u2019t cost too much. But if you find yourself spending your days working on PDFs, particularly in a collaborative environment or with a lot of text editing, Acrobat Pro DC may be worth the money.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Whether you\u2019d like to fill out and sign PDF forms, rearrange PDF pages, or otherwise manipulate PDF files, you have three excellent choices on the Mac: Preview, PDFpen, and Acrobat Pro DC. But they range in price from free to $450.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1567,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[39,49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1566","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","category-os-x"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.computeradvantage.us\/v3\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/PDF-on-desktop-1080x675.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6YLEm-pg","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":30454,"url":"https:\/\/www.computeradvantage.us\/v3\/heres-how-to-mark-up-photos-and-screenshots-with-text-and-graphics-in-ios-13\/","url_meta":{"origin":1566,"position":0},"title":"Here\u2019s How to Mark Up Photos and Screenshots with Text and Graphics in iOS 13","author":"computeradv","date":"February 28, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Ever needed to circle an item on an expense receipt, add some text to a photo, or sign a PDF\u2026on your iPhone or iPad? iOS 13\u2019s Markup tools are surprisingly capable\u2014learn more about what they can do I this article.","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"http:\/\/www.computeradvantage.us\/v3\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.computeradvantage.us\/v3\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/heres-how-to-mark-up-photos-and-screenshots-with-text-and-graphics-in-ios-13.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.computeradvantage.us\/v3\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/heres-how-to-mark-up-photos-and-screenshots-with-text-and-graphics-in-ios-13.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.computeradvantage.us\/v3\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/heres-how-to-mark-up-photos-and-screenshots-with-text-and-graphics-in-ios-13.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.computeradvantage.us\/v3\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/heres-how-to-mark-up-photos-and-screenshots-with-text-and-graphics-in-ios-13.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.computeradvantage.us\/v3\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/heres-how-to-mark-up-photos-and-screenshots-with-text-and-graphics-in-ios-13.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":30684,"url":"https:\/\/www.computeradvantage.us\/v3\/troubleshooting-steps-for-when-your-mac-wont-print\/","url_meta":{"origin":1566,"position":1},"title":"Troubleshooting Steps for When Your Mac Won\u2019t Print\u00a0","author":"computeradv","date":"March 27, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Unable to print from a Mac? 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