PDF Expert
Read, mark up, sign and edit PDFs on Mac and iPhone
The verdict
Free for reading, highlighting, filling out forms and signing, PDF Expert covers what most people do with PDFs on Mac, iPhone and iPad before asking for money. Editing the actual text and images, redacting, merging, OCR and Word or Excel conversion need Essential at $49.99 a year, or $139.99 once on the Mac alone. If you only read and annotate on a Mac, Skim does that free and open source.
Get it if
You fix, sign or redact PDFs for work often enough that Preview keeps falling short.
Skip it if
You open the odd PDF to read or sign it, which Preview and iPhone Markup do free.
Screenshots 4
What it helps you do
- Fix a typo inside a PDF without the original
- Sign and send a contract from your iPhone
- Merge scanned pages into one file
- Shrink a big PDF so it fits in email
What it really costs
Pay once or subscribe? Drag to see the total after each year.
Pay-once totals leave out paid upgrades to future major versions.
Plans and prices
Free
Read PDFs, highlight and annotate, fill out forms and sign documents
Essential
$49.99$49.99 a year for iPhone, iPad and Mac, adds PDF editing, conversion to Word, Excel and PowerPoint, OCR, Translate PDF and the PDF Copilot AI assistant
Pro
$79.99$79.99 a year for iPhone, iPad and Mac, with the same feature list on the pricing page
Lifetime
$139.99$139.99 once, Mac only; new features may cost extra
Students and educators
Discount on the annual plan after verifying a school email
What changed
Version 7.26.3
PDF Expert is ready for iPhone Duo from day one! Enjoy a more polished Liquid Glass design and more accurate handwriting recognition when you take notes. Business customers with managed devices get an easier sign-in in Settings. Update and tell us what you think!
Added to The Useful Apps
Pick something else if
SkimPick this if you read long papers or textbooks on a Mac and want your highlights in 1 list.Free, open source
NotabilityPick it if you annotate PDFs by hand with an Apple Pencil, often during lectures you're recording.Free to start
OwlOCRPick it if you pull text out of screenshots, scans or PDFs and want it done on your Mac without uploading anything.Free to start
PDF Expert head to head
The details
- Runs on
- Mac, iPhone, iPad
- Requires
- macOS 16.0 or later
- Version
- 7.26.3
- Size
- 315 MB
- Made by
- Readdle Technologies Limited
- Rating
- 4.7 from 216K ratings on the App Store
- Free trial
- Try the paid version first
Developer's websiteSpot a wrong price or fact?