Seven Easy Ways to Edit PDFs Right on Your Mac
The best PDF editor for your Mac is the app that comes with it. I’m talking about Preview, an app whose name belies its versatility. It can do much more than just open different file types. For PDFs, it’s on par with most free PDF editors.
Enable dark mode for easier reading
I suffer from migraines, and to help manage them, I use dark mode whenever possible. In macOS 26 Tahoe, you can now enable dark mode for any PDF file in Preview, eliminating the need for a bright white background when working with PDF documents.
To use this feature, open a PDF in Preview on your Mac. Then, click the View button in the menu bar at the top and select Use Dark View for PDF .
Insert pages into a PDF file
Preview makes it easy to add pages to a PDF. You can add a blank page or insert a page from another file. To use this feature, open the PDF in Preview and select Edit > Insert . You can choose either “Blank Page” or “Page from File…”
The function for inserting a blank page into a PDF file is self-explanatory. If you want to insert a page from another file, there are several ways to do so. The “Edit” menu item allows you to directly insert the entire selected PDF or an image into the PDF file. This is convenient if you’re selecting a single-page PDF file to fit into a larger file, but isn’t suitable for adding just one page from a 50-page document. To do this, open the two PDF files side by side in the preview window and drag the pages from the first to the second.
If the sidebar is hidden in Preview mode, select View > Thumbnails . Now you can easily drag a thumbnail from one sidebar to another.
Change the page order in a PDF file
If you want to rearrange the pages in a PDF file in Preview mode, simply drag and drop the thumbnails in the sidebar. It’s quite convenient and intuitive, and you can do it fairly quickly.
Remove pages from a PDF file
Preview also has a built-in page deletion feature. Simply open a PDF in Preview, select any page in the sidebar, and click the “Delete” button to remove it from the PDF. This feature is also available in the Edit > Delete menu.
Annotate, edit, and revise text in a PDF file
You can use basic markup tools to add, highlight, edit, and modify text in Preview. These tools, along with PDF annotation and signing features, are available in the Markup toolbar in Preview for Mac. To access these tools, open any PDF in Preview and click the pencil icon in the toolbar. You can also select View > Show Markup Toolbar . These tools are more than sufficient for quickly editing PDF documents.
Add PDF password
You can use Preview to add or remove a password from a PDF file. To add a password to a PDF file viewed in Preview, select File > Edit Permissions > Edit Permissions and select the Require Password to Open Document checkbox. After adding and confirming the password, you will also need to add a document owner password. The owner password prevents other users from making changes to the PDF file, printing it, and so on. Ideally, it should be different from the password used to open the PDF file. After adding both passwords, click Apply to confirm the changes.
Rotate pages in a PDF file
Sometimes PDFs come in awkward orientations, such as portrait pages scanned in landscape. In these cases, you can use the Preview feature to rotate the PDF pages. Simply navigate to the page you want to rotate and press Command-L to rotate it left, or Command-R to rotate it right. Fun fact: you can also do the same with a trackpad. Use two fingers to simulate rotation, and you’ll see the PDF page rotate left or right.
These features are also available in the “Tools” menu. There you’ll also find the option to flip the page horizontally or vertically, as well as the option to remove the background from a PDF page.