Apple Preview review

Before you buy anything on a Mac, try Preview. It ships with macOS, and Apple's user guide shows it covers most everyday PDF chores. You can fill out and sign forms without a printer, with AutoFill for your details, and mark up documents by highlighting, underlining, striking out text and adding notes or speech bubbles. Page tools let you combine PDFs, add, delete or move pages, and crop or rotate them. You can lock a file with a password, reduce a PDF's size, and export to other formats. Files can live on the Mac or in iCloud. Where Preview stops is real editing: Apple's guide does not cover rewriting existing text, converting PDFs to Word or Excel, or running OCR on scanned pages, so anyone who needs those tasks should add PDFgear for free or a paid editor. It also only runs on a Mac, so Windows users should start with PDFgear instead.

Who it is for

Mac owners who only need to fill, sign, annotate, combine or shrink PDFs.

Price

Included with macOS at no extra cost.

In the Preview app, you can view, edit, and manage PDFs and images on your Mac.
Quoted from the vendor pricing page on November 10, 2026.

Key features

• Fill out and sign PDF forms, with AutoFill
• Highlight, underline, strike out text and add notes
• Combine PDFs and add, delete or move pages
• Password-protect a PDF and reduce its file size
• Export PDFs and images to other formats

Strengths and weaknesses

• Strength: Already on every Mac, with nothing to install or buy
• Strength: Handles signing, annotating and page changes well
• Strength: Works with files stored on the Mac or in iCloud
• Weakness: Mac only
• Weakness: Apple's guide covers annotation, signing and page tools, not rewriting existing PDF text
• Weakness: No conversion to Word or Excel and no OCR tool for scanned PDFs listed in the guide

Key facts

• Price: Included with macOS
• Signing: Fill out and sign forms, no printer needed
• Page tools: Combine PDFs; add, delete or move pages; crop or rotate
• Security: Password-protect a PDF
• Platforms: Mac

Where it ranks

Apple Preview is No. 10 in our Best PDF Editors verdict.