Sejda PDF Editor is one of the very few options that lets you edit pre-existing text in the PDF without adding a watermark. Most editors only let you change the text you add yourself, or they support text editing but then throw watermarks all over the place.

Additionally, this tool operates entirely within your web browser, making it easy to start without downloading any programs. Alternatively, you can choose to use the desktop version if preferred.

There are some differences between the online and desktop versions that you should know about. For example, the desktop edition supports more font types and doesn’t let you add PDFs by URL or from online storage services as the online editor does (which supports Dropbox, OneDrive, and Google Drive).

Another useful feature is Sejda’s web integration tool, which allows PDF publishers to provide a link for their users to easily open the file in this editor. The completed document can then be easily saved or emailed to the owner.

This tool works no matter which operating system you use. Sejda PDF Desktop runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux, but it’s a bit more limited and doesn’t support 32-bit Windows.

Inkscape is an extremely popular free image viewer and editor, so it might surprise you, as it did me, to find out that it also has PDF editing functions that most dedicated editors support only in their paid editions.

This is a highly capable image editing program. However, if you are not already familiar with programs like Photoshop or GIMP, it might be somewhat advanced for you.

For PDF editing, you should consider this software only if you want to delete or edit the images or text in the PDF. I suggest using a different tool in this list to edit forms or add shapes, and then plug that PDF into Inkscape if you need to actually edit the preexisting text.

You can install it on Windows, macOS, and Linux.

Canva is a very capable website for creating unique, high-quality designs. While you could create a project from scratch or a template, another way you can use its editing tools is on a PDF.

Unlike most free tools, Canva allows you to fully edit text without needing to sign up. Click any text area to change the text and adjust the font type, size, and color. You can also add hyperlinks to text and other objects, and special fonts are available for easily typing out your signature.

Of course, because this is a full graphic design platform, it has a wealth of other tools so you can also edit images, add shapes, edit and build PDF pages, include charts, etc. Most of my media is on Google Photos, so I was happy to find that I could connect to it (and Dropbox, Instagram, and Facebook) to easily copy things like images into my PDF.

PDFs you edit with Canva can’t exceed 100 MB or 300 pages, so this isn’t ideal if your document exceeds those parameters. When you’re done, you can save it back to PDF or choose from various image and video formats.

This website is incredibly simple, which is good or bad, depending on what you want it to do.

I included this PDF editor website in the list because it allows you to easily add your signature. There are no extra features that complicate the process, it does not watermark your document, and it is overall very easy to use if you need a quick way to sign a PDF.

If you want to, you can also include your written name and a date.

PDFgear is a full toolkit for doing pretty much anything you could want to do with a PDF. A few reasons I include it in this list are that it starts up immediately without needing a user account and it saves the document without any watermarks.

Beyond basic PDF viewing and full-text editing are options to add a signature, convert the file to other formats, extract text, annotate and insert your own watermark, rotate and delete pages, add a password, compress the PDF, and more. You can even present the PDF as a slideshow if you want to.

Something I really like is the Extract Text tool. It lets you highlight any part of the page to pull out text into an easily usable text box so you can copy that content. This is great for lists and other situations where selecting PDF text is usually difficult.

This freeware PDF editor runs on Windows 11 and Windows 10, and macOS 10.14 and newer. There’s also an app for iPhone and iPad.

This is often my go-to website for PDF-related functions. TinyWow is an amazing service with loads of free PDF tools, one of which is this editor.

All the functions you need are available here: Edit the PDF’s text, add text, highlight and blackout items, include shapes and checkmarks, import the date and time, upload images, and add your signature. You can also delete PDF pages, rotate them, and add new pages to your document.

If you’re concerned about your PDFs sitting around on a website when you’re done with them, you can rest assured that won’t happen here. There’s a file manager you can open to manually erase your files if you don’t want to wait an hour for them to go away automatically.

Files can be uploaded from your device or your Dropbox account. All edited documents can be saved back to a .pdf file.

Draw is LibreOffice’s flowchart and diagram program, but it also lets you open and edit PDFs. One of the neat things I like about editing PDFs with this program is that it’s made for creating and manipulating objects, so I can just as easily edit non-text things, too, like images, headings, colors, etc.

This freeware PDF editor runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux. When you’re ready to save, don’t use the typical save option; go instead to File > Export As to find the PDF option.

SimplePDF is a website offering several PDF editing tools designed specifically for editing and filling out PDF forms.

While you can’t edit existing text like some of the competition, it does support adding text, as well as checkboxes, signatures, and pictures. This might be enough for you, depending on what you need from a PDF editor.

A few reasons I like this website so much are that it’s not cluttered with ads, and saving the PDF is fast and easy without a watermark or user account necessary.

If there are multiple PDFs you want to merge into one document, SimplePDF can do that, too. You can also rearrange the pages, rotate them, and delete individual pages.

One of the quickest ways to add images, text, shapes, or your signature to a PDF is with Smallpdf. I find it extremely easy to use for those things, but I opt for one of the editors that top this list if I need to edit the text because this one won’t do it for free.

I also like that you can upload a PDF, make changes to it, and then save it back to your computer, all without needing to make a user account or pay for any anti-watermarking features. Files can be uploaded from Dropbox or Google Drive.

Importing shapes is possible if you want a rectangle, square, circle, arrow, or line. You can change the object’s main color and line color, as well as the thickness of its edge.

Text size can be small, regular, medium, large, or extra large, but you can’t change the font type, just the color.

When finished editing the PDF, you can decide where you want it saved; to your device or your Dropbox or Google Drive account. You can also generate a share link that anyone can use to download the PDF.

After editing one document, you’ll have to wait several hours to keep using the site or upgrade/pay.

It works with all operating systems that support a modern web browser.

PDFescape has quite a lot of features. It’s free as long as the document doesn’t exceed 100 pages or 10 MB.

You can’t truly change text or edit images for free using this editor, but you can add your own text, images, links, form fields, etc. 

The text tool is very customizable so that you can pick your own size, font type, color, and alignment, and apply effects such as bolding, underlining, and italics.

You also can draw on the PDF, add sticky notes, strikethrough text, put white space over anything you want to disappear, and insert lines, checkmarks, arrows, ovals, circles, rectangles, and comments.

PDFescape lets you delete individual pages from the PDF, rotate pages, crop out parts of a page, reorganize the order of the pages, and add more pages from other PDFs.

You can upload a PDF file, paste the URL to an online PDF, and make your own PDF from scratch. 

When finished editing, you can download the PDF to your computer without ever having to make a user account. You need one only if you want to save your progress online without downloading the PDF.

The online version works on all operating systems. There’s also an offline editor that runs on Windows, but it isn’t free.

PDF-XChange Editor offers some great tools, but not all of them are free to use. If you use a non-free feature, the PDF will save with a watermark on every page.

If you stick to just the free features, however, you can still do some editing and save it back to your computer.

You can load PDFs from your computer, a URL, SharePoint, Google Drive, and Dropbox. You can save the edited PDF back to your computer or to any of those cloud storage services.

There are lots of features, so it might seem overwhelming at first. Having said that, I found all the options and tools to be simple to understand, and they’re categorized into their own sections for easier management.

One handy feature is the ability to highlight all the form fields so that you can easily spot where you need to fill in. I tried this with a few applications with lots of forms. Super helpful.

While many features are free (such as text editing), some require payment. If you use a paid feature, the saved PDF file will have a watermark on every page.

You can use PDF-XChange Editor if you’re on Windows 11, 10, 8, or 7. It’s also available in portable mode to use on a flash drive.

PDF BOB is a free online PDF editor that requires no user account. Just upload your file, make the changes you need to, and then export it to PDF again to finish up.

There are several tools here, like a text option that lets you select a custom color and font type, an image picker, a colored pencil/marker, and a few shape tools.

It uses OCR to identify the text, so things like the strikeout and underline tool look great, and all you have to do is double-click the word you want to apply it to.

You can also use this website to delete pages from the PDF and add new ones to it. When you save, there’s even a password option to secure the document.

When you’re done editing, export to the PDF format or, if you log in, JPG and PNG. Files can be saved back to your computer or imported directly into Google Drive or Dropbox.