PDF Expert
Summary
PDF Expert is a fast and intuitive PDF editor for Mac and iOS. While you are reading a PDF, an extensive set of annotation tools allow you to highlight, take notes, and doodle. A set of editing tools allow you to make corrections to the text of a PDF, as well as change or adjust images.
Is PDF Expert the app for you? If you need basic markup and editing features, and you value speed and ease of use, then definitely! This is one quick and easy app. But if you’re looking for editing power, the feature set is more limited than the alternatives — despite the word “Expert” in the name.
While the tools are easy to use, they are also a little less capable, and the app is not able to provide optical character recognition (OCR) on scanned documents. Adobe Acrobat Pro or PDFelement will better meet your needs. You can read our latest best PDF editor review for more.
What I Like: This app is fast, even with huge PDF files. The annotation and editing tools are easy to use. Tabbed interface makes it easy to switch between PDFs. It’s a good choice for reading PDFs too.
What I Don’t Like: The program lacks OCR. Signing using the trackpad is messy.
What can I do with PDF Expert?
It is a fast and intuitive PDF editor. Besides allowing you to read PDF content, it enables you to add your own notes and highlights, and even change the text and images within a PDF file. The app is also a convenient way of filling in and signing PDF forms.
Is PDF Expert any good?
Speed and simplicity are its strength. How fast is PDF Expert? It’s incredibly responsive. The app is a nice way to read PDFs. It has day, night, and sepia modes for more comfortable reading, fast search, and handy bookmarks.
Is PDF Expert really free?
No, PDF Expert is not free, though it does come with a trial version so you can fully evaluate it before parting with your cash. Students and professors can apply for an educational discount.
Is PDF Expert safe to use?
Yes, it is safe to use. I ran and installed PDF Expert on my MacBook Air. A scan using Bitdefender found no viruses or malicious code. Several Mac App Store reviews complain of frequent crashing. That’s not my experience. In fact, I didn’t have any problems with the app whatsoever.
Is PDF Expert for Windows?
The app is not yet available for Windows. You may like to consider an alternative like PDFelement, Soda PDF, or Adobe Acrobat Pro.
Can I use PDF Expert on iPhone or iPad?
PDF Expert is also available for iOS. It’s a universal app that works on both iPhone and iPad, and supports Apple Pencil. Signatures are synced across all of your devices.
Table of Contents
Why Trust Me for This Review
My name is Adrian Try. I’ve been using computers since 1988 and Macs full-time since 2009. In my quest to go paperless, I’ve created thousands of PDFs from the stacks of paperwork that used to fill my office. I also use PDF files extensively for ebooks, user manuals, and references.
On my paperless journey, I’ve used a range of document scanners and apps to create and manage my PDF collection, both on Mac and iOS. Most days I need to read or search for information in a PDF, and most days I create a few more to throw on the pile. I hadn’t tried Readdle PDF Expert, so I downloaded the trial version and put it through its paces, testing every feature the app offers.
What did I discover? The content in the summary box above will give you a good idea of my findings and conclusions. Read the detailed PDF Expert review below for the ins and outs of everything I liked and disliked about the app.
Detailed Review of PDF Expert
Since PDF Expert is all about editing PDF documents, I’ll cover its features in the following five sections, first exploring what the app offers, then sharing my personal take.
1. Annotate Your PDF Documents
Whether I’m studying or editing, I prefer to have a pen in my hand. That simple act moves me from passively taking in information to directly interacting with it, evaluating it, and digesting it. The app allows you to do the same with PDF documents.
To test PDF Expert’s annotation features, I downloaded a PDF user manual. There are two options at the center of the top bar of the app: Annotate and Edit. Make sure Annotate is selected.
The first icon is the highlighter tool, which allows you to change color very easily. Just select the text to highlight.
The pen, text, shapes, note and stamps tools are similarly easy to use.
My personal take: PDF Expert’s annotation features take it from being just a PDF reader to a tool for actively working with information. That’s great for study, effective for marking assignments submitted as PDFs, and useful for editors.
2. Edit Your PDF Documents
PDF editing is a new feature for PDF Expert. To test the app’s editing ability, I selected Edit at the top of our PDF user manual. Four new options appeared: Text, Image, Link and Redact.
I selected Text and some controls appeared on the right of the screen. When clicking on text in the document, the font settings changed to match the text.
When I added additional text, the font matched perfectly. I was able to bold the text and change its color, though the usual command-B shortcut key didn’t work.
Next, I tried the Image tool. Not all images are recognized as images. With those that are, a black border is placed around the image when hovering the mouse over it.
Clicking the image places a dotted blue border around the image, with resize handles.
The image can now be resized and moved around the document. Guides appear to help you line up the image with the surrounding text, however text does not wrap around the image when it overlaps. Images can also be cut, copied and pasted.
New images can be inserted by clicking or dragging the mouse and selecting the required image file.
Finally, I tested the Link tool. It’s useful for adding hyperlinks to the web, or internal links to other sections of the PDF. Click on the tool, then select the text you want to convert to a link.
For a web link, select “to Web” then enter the URL.
My personal take: If your main goal for purchasing this program is the complex editing of PDF documents, you may be better served with another app. But for basic editing of text and images, you won’t find an easier-to-use PDF editor.
3. Fill In & Sign PDF Forms
More and more business forms are available as PDFs. It’s very convenient being able to fill in the form electronically, without having to print it out and fill it in manually.
To test PDF Expert’s form-filling features, I downloaded an online form for applying for Australian citizenship. I opened the file and ensured that neither Annotate or Edit were selected at the top of the form.
Filling in the form was easy. Clicking on a checkbox added a check. Clicking on a text field allowed me to enter text.
To sign the form, I selected Annotate then clicked the My Signatures tool.
I can add a signature to PDF Expert via the keyboard, signing on the trackpad, or from an image of my signature.
A text signature is fine in some situations. I used one a few years ago when applying for a finance option for a guitar. Using the trackpad was a little messy. I got the best result by using a thin (0.5 pt) line, and looking at the trackpad rather than the screen when I signed with my finger.
The nicest option is to use an image of your signature. You’ll need to scan and crop the image before adding it to PDF Expert.
Whichever method you use to add your signature, drag it to the appropriate place on your form. From there, you can tweak the color and line thickness.
My personal take: Filling in a form with PDF Expert was fast and easy, though to be honest using the Mac’s Preview app is almost as effective.
4. Reorder & Delete Pages
Besides editing the text on a page, the app allows you to make larger scale changes to your document, including reordering and deleting pages. This is accomplished using Page Thumbnails, which is the second icon on the top bar.
Options appear for adding a page, appending a file, copying (and pasting) a page, rotating a page, and deleting a page. There are also options for sharing and extracting a single page. To reorder pages, simply drag and drop.
Pages can be deleted either from the icon at the top of the screen, or by right-clicking on a page.
My personal take: Rearranging and deleting pages from a PDF is simple with PDF Expert. If you do that often, you may find that feature alone justifies the price of admission.
5. Redact Personal Information
When sharing PDFs that contain personal or sensitive information, it is often necessary to redact some of the content in the file. In PDF Expert, this is done using the Redact editing tool. I tried this on our PDF user manual. PDF Expert’s tabbed interface made switching back to this document easy.
First click Edit, then Redact. You can redact by erasing text, or blacking it out. I chose the Blackout option.
After that, it’s just a matter of selecting the text you want to redact.
My personal take: Redaction is an important and frequent task in some professions. PDF Expert allows you to redact sensitive information without fuss.
The Reasons Behind My Ratings
Features: 4/5
What PDF Expert does, it does very well. It’s just that the range of features is a little narrower than most of its competitors. If the app does everything you need, its ease of use will make the purchase worthwhile. If you regularly create OCR PDFs, you’ll need to look elsewhere.
Pricing: 4.5/5
PDF Expert is somewhat cheaper than the alternatives, but the price gap is closer than in previous versions. The subscription plan costs $79.99 per year. You can also choose the one-time purchase of $139.99.
Ease of Use: 5/5
PDF Expert is one of the most intuitive apps I have used. Click Annotate, and all of the tools you need are there. Click Edit, and you can change text and add images. If you’re after a fast, easy-to-use PDF editor, add the app to your shopping list.
Support: 4.5/5
Readdle provides a comprehensive knowledge base for their products, and support can be contacted via a form on their website. While phone and chat support are not offered, the app is very intuitive, so that level of support is unlikely to be needed.
Alternatives to PDF Expert
- Adobe Acrobat Pro DC was the first app for reading and editing PDF documents, and is still one of the best options. However, it is quite expensive.
- ABBYY FineReader is a well-respected app that shares many features with Acrobat. It, too, comes with a high price tag, though not a subscription.
- Nitro PDF Pro is another popular and affordable PDF editor developed for macOS.
- PDFelement: PDFelement is another affordable PDF editor available for both Windows and macOS.
- Apple Preview allows you to not only view PDF documents, but mark them up as well. The Markup toolbar includes icons for sketching, drawing, adding shapes, typing text, adding signatures, and adding pop-up notes.
Final Verdict
PDF is a common file type and the closest thing you’ll find to paper on your computer. These days when many companies are going paperless, it’s more common than ever. PDF Expert promises to help you read, markup, and edit those documents quickly and easily.
PDF editors can be expensive and difficult to use. Some programs include so many features that you need to do a course to learn how to use them effectively. PDF Expert shares many of the same features, but not the complexity. It makes editing PDFs simple.
Do you value speed and ease of use over advanced features? Then PDF Expert is for you. It’s the fastest and easiest-to-use PDF editor I’ve used.
What do you think about this PDF Expert review? Leave a comment below.
I have PDF Expert for iPad, when password protecting it has started to delete the first page – any clues?
I got the Pdf expert when I was downloading a my book in iMac in author and paid $59.99 so I can send my book in google drive and in 3 day they cancelled my order after the go my money from the bank this is the ( PDF EXPERT VERSION 2.5.1 (661) FOR MAX 1.0. PLO RASH REPORTER [PADDLE.NET REEDLE LONDON GBR20060. #4365 .) BEWEAR
I am enjoying PDF Expert on my iPad. Now I need an app on my MacOS laptop beyond Preview. I need to edit/create form fields for PDFs. I don’t see that listed as a feature but I want to ask before I move on to look for another product since I am quite happy with your iOS version.
Hi Patrick. Creating PDF forms isn’t PDF Expert’s strong suit. I’d recommend PDFelement instead.
For the past few days I’ve struggled with Mac’s “Preview” app to fill in, edit and sign and sign a number of PDF documents. It mostly was a good experience except the seeming inability to “save” changes and edits. Unless one select’s “print,” then “save as PDF,” only the original, unedited form is saved. And even then sometimes it doesn’t work. This morning I tried that workaround but simply could not get Preview to retain my changes and edits in the saved version of a rather long PDF doc. A web search led me to your review of PDF Expert but in your mentions of Preview, you make no mention of this anomaly. Others on the web have made note of it — https://www.macworld.com/article/2027181/solving-the-mystery-of-the-empty-pdf-form.html — but have you never encountered this? Thanks for your consideration.
Thanks for the information, David, I haven’t come across that before. According to the article you linked to, Preview does save the information you fill in. That has always been my experience. The author’s problem was when he sent the file to Windows users. For some reason, Windows programs couldn’t recognise the filled-in information, even though it was there. The author’s print workaround “flattens” the PDF so that all of the information is in the same layer, and it could be recognised by the Windows apps. I believe Preview’s Export as PDF option would do the same.