Free Acrobat Reader already views, comments on, fills and signs PDFs. The paid features are the ones you need to replace, and most have a free match. Use our Merge PDF, OCR PDF and Redact PDF in the browser, Word or LibreOffice for PDF-to-Word, and PDF24 Creator or Mac Preview on the desktop. The one gap is sending documents out for legally tracked e-signatures.
Adobe sells three individual plans. These are the US prices on Adobe's own pricing page in October 2026:
| Plan | Annual plan, billed monthly | Month to month | Cost over a year (annual plan) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Acrobat Reader | Free | Free | $0 |
| Acrobat Standard | $14.99/mo | $24.99/mo | $179.88 |
| Acrobat Pro | $19.99/mo | $29.99/mo | $239.88 |
| Acrobat Studio | $24.99/mo | $34.99/mo | $299.88 |
Pro and Studio come with a free trial. Prices differ by country and Adobe adjusts them from time to time, so check before you buy. If you only need a PDF tool a few times a month, that's $240 a year for work free tools handle fine.
More than people expect. Reader opens, prints and searches PDFs. You can highlight, add comments and sticky notes, fill in form fields and add your signature. If your PDF work stops there, you don't need anything else.
What Reader won't do is change the document itself. Creating PDFs, editing existing text, combining files, converting to Word or Excel, running OCR on scans and redacting are all paid features. That's where the alternatives come in.
Here's the swap for each feature people most often pay for, with the catch for each one. Everything in the ToolAspect column runs in your browser, so your file isn't uploaded anywhere.
| Paid Acrobat feature | Free alternative | The catch |
|---|---|---|
| Combine files | Merge PDF | Encrypted files must be unlocked first |
| Organize pages | Organize PDF | Bookmarks may not carry over to the rebuilt file |
| Compress | Compress PDF | The strongest mode turns pages into images |
| Scan and OCR | OCR PDF | Accuracy depends on scan quality. 300 DPI works best |
| Redact | Redact PDF | Every page becomes an image, so no text stays selectable |
| Compare files | Compare PDFs | Compares text only, not fonts or images |
| Protect with a password | Password Protect PDF | Print and copy restrictions rely on the reader honoring them |
| Add page numbers or Bates numbers | PDF Page Numbers, Bates Numbering | Numbers are stamped onto the page, so check margins on full-bleed scans |
| Add text or a watermark | PDF Add Text, Watermark PDF | Adds new text. It can't change existing words |
| Create PDF from Word or Excel | Save as PDF in Office, or Word to PDF | Our converter is close to Word's layout, not pixel-perfect |
| Export PDF to Word | Open the PDF in Microsoft Word or LibreOffice | Complex layouts shift during conversion |
| Edit existing text | Sejda (online) or LibreOffice Draw | Sejda's free tier allows 3 tasks an hour |
| Request e-signatures | No true free equivalent | Sign PDF covers signing yourself, without an audit trail |
Merge, OCR, redact, compare and protect PDFs in your browser. No account, no watermark, no upload.
Open OCR PDFIt depends on your computer.
Pair any of these with browser tools for the gaps. A Mac user, for instance, might use Preview for daily merging and signing and our OCR PDF when a scan needs to become searchable.
Yes, but this is the feature that's hardest to replace. A PDF stores text as positioned fragments, not as flowing paragraphs. Changing a sentence means rebuilding those fragments without wrecking the spacing around them.
Sejda's online editor does a good job of it. You can click straight into existing text and change it, as long as you stay within the free tier's three tasks an hour, 200 pages and 50 MB. LibreOffice Draw also edits PDFs and runs offline, though columns, tables and embedded fonts can come out shifted.
The other route works better more often than you'd think. If you have the original Word or Google Docs file, edit that and export a fresh PDF. You'll get a cleaner result than editing the PDF ever gives you.
It can be, as long as the tool removes the content and doesn't just cover it. Drawing a black box over text in a normal editor hides it visually, but the words are still in the file. Anyone can copy them out.
Acrobat's redaction removes the underlying text and keeps the rest of the page as text. Our Redact PDF takes a blunter approach. It rebuilds each page as an image with your boxes burned in, so nothing under the box survives. The cost is that the whole document loses its selectable text. If you need the remaining text searchable, run the redacted file through OCR PDF afterward. Our guide on how to redact a PDF covers the details.
Some work really does need it. Law firms and agencies that send contracts out for signature need a tracked e-signing workflow. Accessibility work for public-sector documents leans on Acrobat Pro's accessibility checker. Print shops use its preflight tools. And if you edit existing PDF text every day, a paid editor saves real time.
If none of that is you, the free mix is enough: Reader for reading and form filling, a desktop app for daily jobs, and browser tools for OCR, redaction and comparison. Our roundup of the best free PDF tools lists all 31 of ours, and if you're weighing other PDF websites, see how the Smallpdf alternatives compare.
Yes, Acrobat Reader is free. It views, prints and searches PDFs, and lets you comment, fill in forms and sign. Creating, editing, combining, converting, OCR and redaction need a paid plan or a free alternative.
In the US, Acrobat Pro is $19.99 a month on an annual plan billed monthly, or $29.99 a month with no annual commitment, according to Adobe's pricing page in October 2026. Acrobat Standard is $14.99 and $24.99 on the same terms.
There isn't one tool that does everything. On Windows, PDF24 Creator covers the most ground offline. On a Mac, Preview handles merging, reordering and signing. Browser tools fill the gaps for OCR, redaction, comparison and password protection without uploading files.
Yes. Microsoft Word can open a PDF directly and convert it into an editable document, and LibreOffice can open PDFs too. Simple text documents convert well, but complex layouts with columns, tables or unusual fonts will shift.
Yes. Acrobat Reader itself lets you fill and sign for free, Mac Preview has a signature tool, and ToolAspect's Sign PDF lets you draw or type a signature in your browser. What free tools don't give you is a tracked e-signature workflow for sending documents to other people.