3 Best Adobe Reader for Mac Alternatives. Adobe Reader for Mac is often the only PDF application people know about, but there are actually many excellent alternatives, most free and some with more features than Adobe Reader for Mac. Foxit Reader. Foxit Reader is a lightweight and fast PDF solution with a familiar user interface and plenty of features. PDF Reader for Windows 10 is a lightweight and full-featured PDF viewer used to open, read, view, review, and print Adobe PDF files. Convert PDF to TXT, BMP, JPG, GIF, PNG, WMF, EMF, EPS, TIFF.
Getting a good PDF viewer is easier than ever. Modern web browsers like Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and Microsoft Edge can all read PDFs out of the box, so you may not even need one. But if you want a separate PDF viewer, perhaps for the advanced PDF features some documents require, we have some options.
Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, or Microsoft Edge: Your Browser Handles the Basics
Modern web browsers come with integrated PDF readers. You don’t even need to install a separate PDF viewer anymore. Browser PDF readers work well, offering a speedy experience without additional load times and clutter. And, since your browser updates its integrated PDF reader automatically, it’s always up-to-date with the latest security fixes.
Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and Microsoft Edge all come with integrated PDF readers. When you find a PDF on the web, click it and it will open directly in your web browser. PDFs are treated just like other web pages. When you’re done, you can just hit the back button and keep browsing.
You can make PDF files on your hard drive open in your preferred web browser, too. For example, let’s say you want to open PDF files in Chrome. Just locate a .PDF file on your computer, right-click it, and select Open With > Choose Another App.
Select Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, or Microsoft Edge in the list, check the “Always use this app to open .pdf files” option, and click “OK”. The browser you chose will become your default PDF reader and will be used when you double-click a PDF file.
If you don’t see your preferred browser here, scroll down in the list, select More Apps > Look For Another App on This PC, and point Windows at the browser’s .exe file in your Program Files folder.
Sumatra PDF: A Speedy, Lightweight PDF Viewer Outside Your Browser
If you do want a separate PDF reading program, we recommend Sumatra PDF. Sumatra is an open-source PDF viewer that also has support for other types of documents, including ePub and Mobi eBooks, XPS documents, and CBZ and CBR comic books.
Sumatra PDF is small, lightweight, and fast. It works entirely outside your browser, so PDFs will open in a separate window. It’s even available as a portable application, so you can take it with you and use it on any PC, even if you can’t install software on that PC.
There’s no real advantage to using this application over your web browser unless you just like having a separate application. It should work just as well as your browser, with no big additional features. But, if you’d rather see PDFs in a separate window, Sumatra PDF is your best bet.
Adobe Acrobat Reader DC: Slower, But Supports Advanced PDF Features
We recommend you stick with your web browser or a lightweight PDF reader like Sumatra PDF most of the time. Most PDF documents you’ll come across are not complicated, and they work very well—and very quickly—in these simplified PDF readers.
But, every now and then, you may come across a PDF document that needs additional features. For example, we’ve seen official government PDFs that include complex, scripted fillable forms that don’t work in the average PDF viewer. PDF documents can also contain 3D models and other rich media objects, and those just won’t work in your browser or Sumatra.
If you come across a PDF that doesn’t work properly in your typical PDF reader, we recommend Adobe’s official Adobe Acrobat Reader DC application. It’s unnecessarily heavy compared to lightweight PDF alternatives, but it will be able to handle all the obscure PDF features you’re likely to encounter. If you find yourself needing to open PDFs that require advanced features regularly, you should probably just stick with Adobe Acrobat Reader DC as your main PDF viewer, as much as it pains us to say.
Adobe Acrobat Reader has historically had regular security holes, likely due to all the additional features it needs to support. Modern versions of Adobe Acrobat Reader DC are automatically kept up-to-date with the latest security patches. Don’t worry about enabling automatic updates—automatic updates are enabled by default, and you can’t normally disable them.
Warning: The latest versions of Adobe Acrobat reader automatically prompt you to install a Chrome extension that reports information about your web browsing to Adobe. When you’re prompted to install an Adobe Acrobat extension in Chrome, click “Remove from Chrome”. There’s no good reason to activate this extension.
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Best PDF reader for Mac
Read on for our detailed analysis of each app
While it's easy to open PDF's these days, with most browsers and even office suites offering some form of built-in PDF reader, often it's not enough to simply be able to read a PDF.
The Portable Document Forum (PDF) was originally developed by Adobe in the early 1990's, as a way to share documents between users with different operating systems. Additionally, because it couldn't be edited, that meant the document's integrity could be preserved.
The problem for users nowadays is that PDF's now commonly form user agreements which require signing. On top of this, collaborative working means that having to convert PDF files into native documents for editing and then back again just isn't practical.
Therefore it helps to have a PDF reader that has extended features for editing and e-signing.
However, the prevalence of Windows PCs means that sometimes Apple Macs can seem left behind, especially with the continued development of macOS as an app platform.
We've therefore highlighted the best in PDF readers for the Mac, not least where additional features will allow macOS users to do more with the PDF files they have.
- We’ve also highlighted the best free PDF readers
- Want your company or services to be added to this buyer’s guide? Please email your request to desire.athow@futurenet.com with the URL of the buying guide in the subject line.
1. PDF Reader Premium
Available to download directly from the Mac App Store, PDF Reader Premium from Kdan Software is one of the most powerful and popular PDF management tools for Apple computers. It functions as a file manager, file converter and page editor.
Best Pdf Reader For Macbook Pro
With the software, you can easily edit PDF files by adding freehand writing, text boxes, sticky notes, hyperlinks and annotations. And to ensure that important documents don’t get mixed up, you’re able to label them by adding tags and color-coding. What’s more, to keep track of all your saved files, you can make use of an import history feature.
The app works with iCloud, too, meaning you can back up and access saved documents on an iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad. There’s even compatibility with Dropbox, so you can easily import documents from devices that run on other operating systems.
Overall, you should find the app smooth and quick to use. It’s powered by a proprietary rendering engine, which aims to ensure that large files are processed and loaded without any lag. Currently, the app costs $59.99 (£42), although there is a free version that you can try before you purchase.
2. Apple Books
Apple Books is more than just an app for reading novels-at the heart of Apple Books is the ability to read and organize PDF files. The only stipulations is that they must be DRM-free, which makes it somewhat limited by comparison to some of the more dedicated readers featured here.
However, as a simple PDF reader Apple Books-formerly iBooks-does the job exactly as it needs to. Better still, it's bundled for free with iOS 12 so if you're already up to date with the upgrade cycle then the chances are you already have it but perhaps didn't know it can be used to read PDFs as well as novels and a range of document formats.
The one limitation Apple Books has that some of the other apps here don't have is that it can't be used for editing, anotating, or creating PDF files. However, as we're only focused on PDF readers in this piece Apple Books is still a wworthy and necessary inclusion. Even still, there are other apps available in the App Store that can provide expanded functions for manipulating PDF files, if required.
3. Adobe Acrobat Pro DC
Adobe’s own heavyweight offering
Acrobat Standard DCAdobe not only invented the trusty PDF document in the first place, but the company has also created some top-notch apps to manage them. Acrobat Pro DC is a great example, and it supports both Windows and Mac devices. The software allows you to create, edit and convert PDF files with ease.
Whether you happen to be using a desktop PC, laptop or tablet, Acrobat lets you turn any paper document into a PDF file. You just have to snap a photo of the piece of paper and upload it to Adobe’s platform, then you can subsequently edit it. Acrobat also lets you convert PDFs into any Microsoft Office file format, preserving all fonts and formatting.
Thanks to integration with Excel, you can even edit data in scanned tables, making it easier to edit and analyze financial data. Just like Kdan Software’s PDF Reader Premium, you can keep track of the changes you and your colleagues make to PDF documents.
Acrobat is capable of detecting the differences between two versions of the same PDF, too. You can sign up for a business plan for £15.17 a month, which gives you the option to add more team members in the future.
4. PDF Expert
PDF Expert is a robust and easy-to-use solution for managing business documents. And with a four-and-a-half star rating in the Mac App Store, it seems to be one of the most popular options out there for Mac users. The software gives you the ability to read, edit and annotate PDF documents from a central dashboard.
One of the great things about PDF Expert is that it’s fast and slick to use. Thanks to smooth scrolling and a fast search function, you can quickly find what you’re looking for across multiple PDF files.
This app lets you edit images, text and links, plus the software can automatically detect fonts, size and opacity of writing. Plus, if you happen to own an iPad Pro and Apple Pencil, you can add annotations and notes to documents on-the-go. Like most PDF apps out there, PDF Expert comes with a free download option, but the app for iPad/iPhone costs $9.99 and includes in-app purchases, while the version for Mac costs around $100 for 3 Macs.
5. PDFelement
Pdf Readers For Mac
Wondershare has developed a Mac version of the popular PDFelement app, which is positioned as an easy way to edit PDF documents. It gives you the tools to add text, images, links, backgrounds, watermarks, headers and footers to PDF documents.
Best Pdf Reader For Mac
The software provides an extensive selection of PDF editing options. Not only can you add text to documents, but you can also tweak the font type, size and style. There’s the ability to rotate, extract, replace and crop images too.
PDFelement is a great option for teams in particular, with powerful collaborative capabilities, letting you add sticky notes, comments, text boxes and more. And you can use the tool to fill out business documents such as contracts and tax forms. PDFelement retails at $49.95 for the standard package, but for all features you will need the Professional package priced at $79.99.