How to Edit PDF Files for Free

  

Not everyone can afford the steep subscription fee that Adobe charges for its Adobe Acrobat DC PDF editor (Rs. 12,168 per year). The app is the best in the business for editing PDF files and there’s a reason Adobe charges that kind of money for it. However, most people don’t need that level of advanced PDF editing and can make do just as easily with free PDF editing tools. If you want to edit your PDF files without paying through your nose, here’s our quick guide to help you accomplish that task.

Edit PDF for free online

This method works on Android, iOS, Windows, Linux, and macOS — essentially any platform you want. Note that on iOS this works best on Google Chrome, as some of the required tools don’t load properly on Safari. Follow these steps.

1. Go to PDF Escape.
2. Either drag and drop the PDF file you want to edit or tap/ click Choose File.
3. Now select the file you want to edit and upload it.
4. After a few seconds of processing the fill will be available to edit. On the left pane you will see tools that let you add text, blank white boxes to hide elements, and even to add fillable forms to your PDF.

You can even annotate the PDF, append pages from another PDF, and move pages around using this website. PDF Escape is a great website for free PDF editing although it lacks some advanced feature such as letting you move things around on your PDF file. You’ll find it hard to adjust the position of an image on a page or to move text around. This is good for basic editing and it’s free, which should do the job for most people.

 

Convert PDF to Word and then edit

It’s easy enough to convert your PDF files to Word format online. This process works on all platforms.

1. Head to PDF to Word Converter's website.
2. Tap or click Upload a file to convert.
3. Select the correct PDF file.
4. After a short processing time, you’ll see a page that says your document is ready. Click Download at the top of the page.
5. Now click Download Word file.

After this you can open the Word file in apps such as Microsoft Word, LibreOffice Writer, or Apple’s Pages. These apps let you edit Word files and then you can export those back to PDF.

Editing PDF files on desktops or laptops

If you want to edit PDF files on your desktop or laptop, then you can use apps such as Inkscape or LibreOffice Draw. Both are free vector drawing apps that let you open and edit PDF files easily. The following steps are for editing PDF files using LibreOffice Draw.

1. Go to File > Open.
2. Select the PDF file you want to edit.
3. Now you’ll see that you can easily select elements on the page to move them around and that text is easily editable. Make sure that your system has the fonts used in the PDF as that makes editing text much easier. Since each line of text or each image appears as a separate object, editing the PDF file should be a breeze. The only time-consuming aspect of this is alignment as the app has a tendency to mess that up.
4. Once you are done click File > Export as PDF.

This should help you edit PDF files easily on any platform without paying anything. If you use any other apps to get the job done for free, let us know via the comments.