Adobe Acrobat Reader DC is free but has a smaller feature set than Preview.īut while Apple has snuck up and taken on a lot of Adobe Acrobat’s functionality in recent years, Adobe has made itself an iconic brand name to professionals. If your PDF needs are limited to completing forms, signing documents, and other basic functions, Preview should be enough and it’s on every Mac. Skim functions as a free, open-source PDF reader and editor, and Smile Software’s excellent PDFpen software adds a comprehensive set of PDF editing and markup tools for a one-time payment of $80. If your infrequent needs for PDF editing tools make Adobe’s subscription fee seem excessive, there are other apps that allow for comprehensive PDF file editing and offer one-and-done software payment.

Your subscription fee allows access to features such as editing PDFs, adding comments, text recognition, file conversion to PDF format, and signing features such as requesting signatures, creating areas of a PDF file that can be signed, and form creation that has become staples of web-based business.Īdobe is active with its promotions for its subscription services. This built-in advertising can drive users out of their minds.Ī subscription to Adobe Acrobat Standard or Pro DC goes towards being able to cleanly mark up and edit PDF files and be part of a suite that plays nicely with other Adobe programs such as Illustrator, Lightroom, InDesign, and others.

Upon opening your first PDF file in Acrobat and unless you make a decision and click the “Do not show this message again” box, Acrobat DC will endeavor to make itself your default application for opening and working with PDF files, its follow up ads promoting subscriptions to the Adobe Acrobat DC platform to gain access to editing, markup, export, and security features for your documents. Adobe does have, however a pesky subscription request alert, regardless of which Acrobat DC app you use.

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