FranC

I've had some luck with PDF Expert. It provides some editing capabilities.

BobHartung Loc: Bettendorf, IA

Try PDF Expert and PDF Studio.

Also, many pdfs have an embedded tiff file that can be exported, edited and then turned back into a pdf. At least in my experience.

nadelewitz Loc: Ithaca NY

You could also use a scanner and optical character recognition program (OCR) to capture text from a printed document, PDF or otherwise.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Have you tried Apple Preview? It is fairly capable, but you may have to look to articles and videos on the Internet to learn how.

Of course, since Adobe CREATED the PDF format, they will have the best tools for creating and editing PDF files.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

Yup, more than one way to skin a cat.
Some are just more tedious but may be the simplest solution.

fetzler Loc: North West PA

Consider the following software. https://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf-editor/

I have not used it but it seems quite capable. I have acrobat with perpetual license so no need. Creating PDFs is easy editing requires good software.

Note that some PDFs are secure and cannot be edited.

gleneric Loc: Calgary, Alberta

The type of PDFs you have, and what type of editing you want/need to do with them, will affect what tool(s) might work the best. At work (engineering office) we use a PDF editor called Bluebeam ... I don't think I could get by without it now that it is engrained in my day-to-day work. I have tried a number of cheap and/or freebie programs and none of them come even close to being as "robust" and user friendly IMO.

Advark

https://www.softmaker.com/en/ has a very good program,
reasonably priced.

NJphotodoc Loc: Now in the First State

Look at the Nuance products. I use them for business and home. Affordable and has full editing features.

PGHphoto Loc: Pittsburgh, PA

Word in Microsoft office 365 will do a fair job of allowing you to edit. Formatting can be tricky but for basic manipulation and text editing its automatic. Just open Word, go to file > open > browse and change the file type (to the right of the file name: box) to All Files *.* or PDF. The file will open and be converted to a word document. You can then save as PDF after editing.

CurleyB Loc: MAITLAND FL

I purchased a copy of Acrobat 9 around 2005(?). Still us it seamlessly on Windows 10. My brother purchase a copy on EBay for under $75 a few years ago and has had equal success. Be sure the original owner doesn’t have a copy still working and you should be good to go. Adobe does not, in any way, support this old of a product.

RichieC Loc: Adirondacks

Portable Document Format. PDF

History-
Basically, someone noticed while Macs and Windows machines could send print files to a printer, they could not display easily things on screen to each other. So the PDF format is essentially an interruption of the normal work flow of what happens to a file after you hit "print". and instead of printing, it appears on-screen..it is a virtual printer- why to create a PDF- you select PDF from where you would select from whatever list of printers you have available, this won't make sense if you only have one. But if you have many, they would appear by their name, and somewhere on the list would be adobe etc. Now days windows has moved this to "share" or under "export" but this is where it started. .

As it is what the printer needs to print your doc, typed content loses its structure, Lines, words and even letters are often floating on their own, and you can screw up things pretty quick if you try and adjust too many words. . I have a full version of Acrobat, always have since the early 90's,and editing pdfs has worked best for fixing a typo or changing a number, something that would not mean re-flowing type. PDF's were essential for sharing electronically, layouts and proofs cross platform. SO PDF's are fantastic! You can do other things with the full acrobat, so it's very useful past this ( Interactive, animated, all sorts of bells and whistles) , but i just go back to InDesign or PSD or Illustrator to fix anything more complicated than a letter, number or space.

So there are a emulators that duplicate the original Adobe brainchild PDF software, and they can screw up a document... you can download Adobe reader free, but if the software companies supply it in a bundle, they have to pay Adobe a royalty... so they have come up with inferior options that are affordable. So if a PDF looks bad, or prints bad on screen, or online, it is because you are looking at it through whatever cheap emulator they are offering for free to you to be able to see the document in real time. I always make Adobe the default. It is the best IMHO.

PGHphoto Loc: Pittsburgh, PA

Be very wary of Cute PDF - there are bundles in many of the the downloads that will load spyware. You can opt out of some of it but be very cautious. The executable at one point contained weatherbug and a browser extension that were not needed and exposed user data to external view. Registry entries are inserted by the install process that you must go in and delete in order to not have the spyware active. You can't just uncheck a box in the install process.

If you do decide to download Cute PDF - do it from their server directly http://www.cutepdf.com

Dennis833 Loc: Australia

I have used Affinity Photo to edit PDF files.

bobbyjohn Loc: Dallas, TX

I have Nitro PDF Pro and have used it for years...still have Version 9 which is old (I believe the latest version is V12). Nevertheless, my V9 is full function and does everything I need...so never had a want or need to upgrade. Not super cheap at $159.00 perpetual, but much less that the Adobe $450 or $179/year.