PDF files are now the standard for official documents in companies and on the Internet. One of the first problems we run into with PDFs is the inability to edit them quickly: this format cannot be edited as a simple document file unless you have Adobe Acrobat Writer, i.e. Adobe's paid program for creating, modifying, merging or separate PDF files.
If we don't want to spend money (considering that the Adobe program is also quite expensive for personal use), there are various alternatives to edit a PDF file for free, with the possibility of extracting even only part of the text and converting it into a Word document, definitely easier to manage.
In this article we see together the tools and sites that we can use to edit PDF, create a new one, how to convert them back to word files (.doc) and much more.
At the end of the guide you will be able to manage any type of PDF file without problems.
READ ALSO: Top 10 programs to edit PDF
1) Programs to edit PDF files for free
Below we will immediately show you the programs that we can install on your computer to be able to edit PDF in its entirety, completely free of charge.
Some programs are really very complete, others instead have only limited editing features (we will have to buy the full version to unlock all the features).
- PDF24 : it is one of the simplest and most immediate programs to create new PDFs, to modify existing ones, to compress too large ones, to cut out part of the text and to convert to other editable formats.
Definitely one of the best programs we can use to manage PDFs for free in the home and office.
- PhantomPDF is an alternative to Adobe Reader which, in addition to opening PDF files, allows you to edit them in a simple way by inserting lines, notes, attaching files to pages, adding text, adding captions, drawing with a pencil, adding rectangles, lines, arrows, polygons and clouds and stamps.
- Nitro PDF Reader, is one of the most powerful and complete programs to edit PDFs, to the point of being able to play it on a par with Adobe Acrobat; we talked about it in more detail in the guide linked above, unfortunately it is no longer free.
- PDF995 is a real suite of free programs to manage every aspect of PDF, in fact it includes a "virtual printer" (to print PDF from each program), a document converter and a complete and effective PDF editor that allows you to edit PDF files .
With PDFEdit you can, among other things, combine two or more existing documents into a single file, change the page orientation with 90 ° rotations, add pre-set text at the end of each page (footer) and embed fonts in documents.
The program is free, but every time an advertising page is opened: to remove it, we can pay a user license of about 10 dollars.
- LibreOffice, the free suite that can replace Office, allows you to edit most PDF documents that contain plain text (there may be some difficulty with PDFs that contain images, layouts or graphics).
To edit with LibreOffice we load the document into the LibreOffice Draw program, then we use the drawing and editing tools available to make the necessary changes.
At the end of the modification, simply click on Export in PDF format at the top to generate the new document with our modifications.
2) Programs to convert PDF to Word (and vice versa)
In this part of the guide we will show you the programs that allow you to convert PDF to Word or any other format (and vice versa from Word to PDF).
- LibreOffice, as already mentioned above, allows you to generate new PDFs starting from .doc or .docx documents.
To carry out the conversion, open the text document in DOC or DOCX format with LibreOffice Writer and, once we have checked that the text is coherent and well ordered, click on the top of Export to PDF to convert the text document into PDF without having to use no other program.
- Free Pdf to Word Converter converts Acrobat PDF files into .doc files in a simple and linear way, without too many frills and graphic frills.
- PDFCool Free Studio can extract text and images from a PDF and then edit it, for example, in a Word document.
- To convert the PDF file into a text file and then extract the text only from the PDF file there are two excellent programs: A-PDF and PDFZilla, which can be used without limits both in the home and in the business environment.
- LightPDF is a site that offers PDF conversion programs in any format, so that you have a Word, Excel, JPG or other file.
You can download and install LightPDf on your PC or use it online.
3) Sites to edit and convert PDF documents online
Here instead we will show you the best sites to be able to edit and convert PDF online, without installing anything on our PC.
They are ideal for use on PCs with limited users, on Mac and Linux.
- Smallpdf is undoubtedly the best site to manage any type of PDF; it allows you to convert, compress, sign, edit, delete or add pages to a PDF, divide them, rotate them and much more.
To use it, simply drag the file into the specific section of the site we want to use, then proceed with the tools provided.
At the end of the operation the converted file or the new PDF will be downloaded directly from the browser.
- FreePdfConverter is an excellent tool for online conversion of documents to PDF and vice versa from PDF to, for example a Word .doc file.
- PDFZen to edit and share PDF is an easy-to-use and excellent free online service.
Without any registration on the site, you can free download an editor that allows, once the PDF file is loaded, to create forms, add text, colors and various elements.
- Online PDF editor is an online site that allows you to edit PDFs in a simple way, simply drag the file to be edited inside the window and take advantage of the many tools available for managing PDF files.
At the end of the work it will be possible to download the new PDF document directly from the browser and save it where we deem it most appropriate.
- PDFZorro is an excellent online converter that converts both images and tables well positioning them in the right way.
It does not seem to suffer from the formatting of the text and the colors used by generating a word file very close to the original PDF.
The file that can be uploaded must be a maximum of 10 MB in size, for larger files it will be necessary to use a program to split PDFs .
- SodaPDF is one of the most popular sites that you can use, without registration and for free, to upload a PDF file to be made editable and writable.
- PDFCandy is another site with many free tools that can be used online, including the one to edit PDF.
In another article, we saw yet other ways to convert PDF to Word online and easily edit it via the Web.
4) Other PDF guides
If the programs and sites that we show you are not enough, we have created other guides on our site on tools and tools to be used to work with PDFs.
- unlock those password protected PDF files
- convert an Office document to PDF and how to create a PDF file online
- fill in the fields in a form of a PDF file and to sign it, also freehand
- merge PDF files into one or split a PDF into two or more files
- Compress PDF
If we work a lot with PDFs, we advise you to read them all so as to become real masters in managing the document format provided by Adobe.
READ ALSO: OCR programs to convert sheets and PDFs into editable texts
