I'm a freelance writer, and this profession involves dealing with a lot of PDFs. I have to fill and sign contracts with my employers, create invoices to send to all my clients, and sign NDAs sent by brands who send me products before launch -- you get the drift. My Mac is filled with PDFs. A lot of times, these PDFs aren't just single-use documents. They can be edited later on to change a few entries here and there and reused. For instance, I need to write letters to the customs department here in India to receive shipments sent to me from abroad. I have the format stored as a PDF, so all I have to do is change the tracking number and date every time. Such tasks require a PDF editor. More often than not, I resorted to using online services like ilovepdf for this purpose. However, some features on the platform like OCR aren't free.

So, I started looking for alternatives. I downloaded tons of apps from various app stores, tried a bunch of online services, and finally settled on an app that I found to be the best in terms of functionality, and didn't ask for my credit card details or show spammy ads -- PDFgear. The app is free to download and is available on most platforms. Now, it's not just the free aspect that made me stick to PDFgear. Several aspects of the service appealed to me, and will probably impress you too. Here are some reasons why I ditched most online PDF editors for PDFgear.

The issue with most free PDF editors

As mentioned earlier, I used ilovepdf -- an online service -- for quite a few years for all my PDF editing needs. The website works without any issues with basic tasks like merging two PDFs, splitting a PDF into two separate ones, converting a spreadsheet into a PDF, etc. Moreover, it's a free service, so there's very little to complain about. However, I faced a couple of issues or limitations when using ilovepdf -- which made me look for other options.

Firstly, the OCR functionality on ilovepdf doesn't work on all PDFs. It only tends to work on those that have been typed on a computer, but fails when using a PDF that either has handwritten text, scanned images, or spreadsheets that are converted to PDFs. This is a deal-breaker for me since a lot of PDFs from which I want to extract text or make changes also have scanned images or documents attached to them. Another issue I experienced not only with ilovepdf but with a few other free PDF editors is the formatting of the end output. When it does work properly, though, I upload a large document and am asked to pay for the premium version since the free one only allows files up to a certain size.

A common issue with a lot of free PDF editors is also the fact that they don't truly allow you to make changes to a document. For instance, I tried a couple of PDF editor apps that only let me annotate, highlight, and add images to a PDF. Anything more, and it asked me to pay for the premium version. Thankfully, during this hunt for a good solution, I encountered PDFgear.

Why PDFgear?

The first green flag for me when trying out PDFgear was the fact that the developer mentions on the app's website that it's 100% free to use and doesn't ever ask for your credit card information. Moreover, there are no ads on the website or inside the app either. Speaking of apps, PDFgear is available on Windows, macOS, Android, and iOS. Those are all the operating systems I use, so no matter whether I'm using my desktop or tablet, I can quickly fire up the app and make edits to any PDF without having to switch between devices. The app isn't present on Linux, though. This is a bit of a bummer since there's no online version of the service either. So, if you're running a Linux distro, you will have to use a VM or switch to a different computer temporarily.

Another aspect of PDFgear that I liked but may not be important to a lot of users is the fact that the app is available on the official app stores of all platforms. This is something small, but it reinforces confidence in the user. For instance, my dad doesn't download any apps from outside the Apple app store on his Mac since he's afraid it might be some sort of malware. It's a fair concern since most users are worried about their privacy and security. In fact, it also makes it easier for me to recommend the app to someone, since first, I feel it's safe. On top of that, I can simply ask them to look up 'PDFgear' in the relevant app store instead of sending them a specific link to the website and having them navigate through it to find the right Download button.

Has all the required features

An app's availability on official platforms obviously cannot be the sole determining factor behind using and recommending it. PDFgear also delivers on the functionality front and offers a host of features that let you take full control of your PDFs. For starters, there are the usual features like merging multiple PDFs, splitting them, converting a PDF into a Word document, deleting a page from a PDF, etc. Apart from this, PDFgear also offers the ability to compress PDFs to reduce file size and two different types of OCR options.

Several online portals where you may have to upload a PDF file have a size limit. More often than not, this limit is unusually low. I've seen anywhere from 1MB to 500KB -- depending on the site you're on. In such instances, the compress feature comes in extremely handy. Simply select the PDF file, choose the compression level, and hit the Compress button. There are three levels to choose from - Low, Medium, and High. If it's a document, select the highest level as the text remains legible. If your PDF has images, you may want to opt for Low or Medium.

Excellent OCR capabilities

Then comes the Local OCR feature. This is primarily used to extract text from PDFs, and PDFgear does a fantastic job. There are no typos in the final output, which is a great sign. Once the text is extracted, you can copy it or export it into a PDF. Now, OCR is a feature that is present in quite a few PDF viewers and editors. However, most of them don't work for documents scanned using a smartphone camera. Thankfully, the OCR on PDFgear works perfectly fine even for such files.

The second option that I found to be rather interesting is the Screenshot OCR feature. When you click on it, PDFgear launches a screenshot tool that allows you to select any portion of your screen using the mouse pointer. The app then reads all the text on the screen and presents it to you in an editable format. Funnily, the OCR is so accurate that it even detects small and faint elements that weren't even a part of the text but are in the accompanying images. Very cool!

Miscellaneous features

The accompanying mobile app on both Android and iOS has the same set of features as the desktop version. It also has a built-in document scanner with OCR, which is a fantastic addition if your smartphone's default camera app doesn't have a native scanner. It's also worth noting that the app works without an active internet connection. So, if you're concerned about privacy while editing sensitive documents, you can run the software on an offline computer.

The basic PDF editor on the app is also fantastic. You can click on any text to alter it or add more elements. For instance, if there's a form with someone else's name or address entered, you can edit and change it to your own.

It misses out on some features

All the included features work well, although there are some features that are missing on PDFgear compared to some competitors. For example, the ability to unlock a password-protected PDF, sort the pages inside a PDF, repair damaged PDFs, add page numbers to documents, etc. are available on some other apps and are quite useful. Hopefully, the developers add these features to PDFgear with time.

Modify PDFs for free

From basic corrections to changing the contents of a PDF, I found PDFgear to be one of the best apps out there that simply works. It has a no-frills UI, no ads, no payments, and almost all important features. If you deal with a lot of PDFs regularly, I would highly recommend checking out the app.