Updated October 14, 2026. Written for PdfCraft 0.7.1 (what changed since).
Preview or PdfCraft, task by task
| Task | Preview | PdfCraft (browser or Mac app) |
|---|---|---|
| Add text boxes, notes, highlights, shapes | Yes | Yes, with threaded replies |
| Fill in a form and sign it | Yes, signature from trackpad, camera, iPhone or iPad | Yes, drawn, typed or image signature |
| Delete, move, insert, rotate pages; combine PDFs | Yes | Yes, plus split every n pages or by bookmark |
| Password-protect, reduce file size | Yes, from File › Export | Yes |
| Change existing text | No | Short fixes in Latin-script text |
| Header, footer, watermark, Bates numbers | No | Yes |
| Redact | Text you select | Text, areas, whole pages, search, patterns, word lists |
| Export pages as images | File › Export to JPEG, PNG, TIFF, HEIC | Every page, one file each, at a set resolution |
| Certificate (digital ID) signature | No | Mac app only, including Keychain identities |
What Preview already does well
Most "edit a PDF" jobs are really "add something to a PDF", and Preview's Markup toolbar covers them: Text for a typed box, Note for a sticky note, Highlight Selection, shapes, Sign, and Form Fill for typing into fields. To keep the marks editable, save normally. To lock them into the page, choose File › Print and then Save as PDF.
Page work happens in the sidebar. Open View › Thumbnails, drag pages to reorder them, press Delete to remove them, and use Edit › Insert for a page from another file or a blank page, as Apple's page guide shows. Dragging thumbnails from one PDF's sidebar to another moves pages between files, and dragging them to the desktop makes a new PDF.
Two useful options hide in File › Export. Permissions sets a password to open the file and an owner password for printing and changes. The Quartz Filter menu has Reduce File Size, which works by compressing the images, so check that scanned pages are still readable afterwards.
Where Preview stops
The words already on the page. Preview can't change the text of a PDF; you can only put a text box over it. PdfCraft's Edit text & images tool changes the text itself, and it handles a typo or a changed date in an English paragraph. It is not a word processor: when your typing needs letters the PDF's embedded font doesn't contain, another font is substituted, and Chinese, Japanese, Korean and right-to-left text don't edit reliably yet. The guide to editing a PDF for free walks through it.
Repeating page furniture. Preview has no header, footer, page number, watermark or Bates numbering tool. In PdfCraft those are in the Add content group of All tools, and a header, footer or watermark can be updated or removed later in one step.
Redaction you can trust on a long document. Preview's Redaction Selection blacks out the text you select. The redaction becomes permanent once you close the document, and table-of-contents entries pointing at the redacted text stay in place. PdfCraft searches the whole PDF for words, word lists and patterns such as phone numbers, email addresses and Social Security numbers, marks every match, and can strip metadata and hidden content as well. See how to redact a PDF for free.
Every page as an image. Preview's File › Export converts to JPEG, PNG, TIFF, HEIC and more, which is quick for a one-page PDF. PdfCraft's Export to image writes one file per page at the resolution you pick; the PDF to JPG guide has the settings.
Running PdfCraft on a Mac
In the browser. Go to pdfcraft.run/editor in Safari, Chrome or Firefox and drag the PDF onto the window. The first visit downloads the app, about 15 MB compressed, and later visits open from the cache. The file is never uploaded: the app works on it inside the tab, and Save downloads the result to your Downloads folder. There is no autosave in the browser, so save before closing the tab.
As a Mac app. The download page has a universal .dmg for Apple silicon and Intel Macs, signed and notarized. It is the same program, with two things the browser can't do: autosave and crash recovery, and certificate signatures, including identities stored in your macOS Keychain. If you edit PDFs every week, install it.
Both are early software: PdfCraft is in alpha, about 55% of the way to replacing Acrobat for everyday work, so keep the original file until you have checked the edited one.
Which to open for which job
For signing a lease, adding comments, deleting a page or merging two statements, Preview is already open and is the quicker choice. Reach for PdfCraft when Preview's menus run out: changing printed text, stamping a watermark or header on every page, redacting a long document, or turning every page into an image.
The one decision that takes thought is a text change. If it is a word or a number in an English paragraph, try PdfCraft's Edit text & images and compare the line with its neighbours before saving. If it is a paragraph, edit the original Pages or Word file and export a new PDF. Paying for Acrobat Standard (US$14.99 a month on an annual plan) only makes sense when rewriting other people's PDFs is a regular part of your work. For other free replacements on the Mac, see open-source Adobe alternatives.
Next time Preview can't do something, drag the same file into pdfcraft.run/editor, make the change, and save it under a new name.