How to edit a PDF on Mac

What Preview can and can’t do

Preview adds things on top of the page: text boxes, highlights, notes, shapes, signatures, answers in form fields. It also rearranges, deletes and inserts pages. It doesn’t let you edit the PDF’s own text, such as fixing a typo in a paragraph.

Preview saves changes to the open file on its own. To keep the original as it is, choose File › Duplicate first and work in the copy.

How to edit a PDF on Mac with the Markup toolbar

1. Double-click the PDF. It opens in Preview unless you have chosen another app for PDFs.
2. Click the Show Markup Toolbar button in the window’s toolbar. A second row of tools appears.

3. Pick a tool and use it on the page, as described below.

• Text: adds a text box. Type, then drag the box where it belongs. Text Style changes the font, size and color.
• Highlight Selection: select text to mark it in color.
• Shapes: lines, arrows, rectangles, ovals, plus a highlight shape and a zoom lens. Drag a shape into place and resize it by the blue handles.
• Sketch: draw a shape by hand with the mouse or trackpad.
• Note: a sticky note with your comment.

Sign a PDF

1. In the Markup toolbar, click the Sign button.
2. Create a signature: click Trackpad and sign with your finger, or click Camera and hold your signature on white paper up to the camera, or choose your iPhone and sign on its screen. Then click Done.
3. Click the signature in the list and drag it to its place on the page. Resize it by the blue handles.

Preview remembers the signature, so next time you only do the last step. If you use iCloud Drive, your signatures are available on your other Macs too.

Fill out a PDF form

Most forms have fields: click a field and type. If the form has no fields, click the Show Form Filling Toolbar button, then the text box tool, and put text where it’s needed. On macOS Sonoma 14.2 and later, Preview can also fill in your name, address and other contact details: click AutoFill Form above the PDF or click a field and choose your name.

Move, delete or add pages

1. Choose View › Thumbnails to show the pages in the sidebar.

2. To move a page, drag its thumbnail up or down.
3. To delete pages, select them and press the Delete key.
4. To add a page, select the one it should follow and choose Edit › Insert › Page from File or Blank Page.

Deleting a page also removes the notes and markup on it. To join two PDFs, see how to merge PDF files on Mac.

If you need to change the text itself

• If you have the original document, for example in Word or Pages, edit it there and save it as a PDF again. That’s the cleanest way.
• Otherwise you need a separate PDF editor that can edit text. Preview has no such mode.
• Don’t hide old text under a white box with new text on top: the old text stays in the file and can still be selected and copied.
• To really remove a piece of text, use Redaction Selection in the Markup toolbar. Once you close the document, the redaction can’t be undone.