Free Adobe Acrobat Alternative: EveryApp PDF Tools

If you want a free Adobe Acrobat alternative for everyday PDF jobs, EveryApp covers most of them in your browser. PDF Editor lets you type on a PDF, highlight, white-out, draw and add pictures, free and with no account. Separate free tools merge, split, sign, rotate and delete pages, and your file stays on your device for all of them. Acrobat is still the better choice if you need to change the original text and layout of a PDF, redact private details or send documents out for signature with tracking.

This comparison is based on what each product is designed to do. Adobe changes its plans, prices and free tools over time, so check Adobe's own site for the current terms.

The short version

	EveryApp PDF tools	Adobe Acrobat
Built for	Quick PDF jobs in a browser	Full PDF work, from single users to large companies
Add text, highlights, drawings, pictures	Yes, free, with PDF Editor	Yes
Change the PDF's original text and layout	No; cover it with white-out and type over it	Yes, a core feature
Redaction that removes text for good	No	Yes
Merge, split, rotate, delete pages	Yes, free, each as its own tool	Yes
Sign a PDF yourself	Yes, free, with Sign PDF	Yes
Send for signature and track who signed	No	Yes
Compress, convert to Word, OCR, passwords	Yes, as Pro tools; a free account can try them on small files	Yes
Install	Nothing to install; opens in your browser	Desktop and mobile apps, plus online tools
Price	The core tools are free; Pro is paid	Free Reader and paid plans; check Adobe's pricing page

Who each one is for

Choose Acrobat when PDFs are a big part of your work. A legal team that redacts names before sharing a file. An office that sends contracts out for signature and needs to see who has signed. A designer who has to change a paragraph inside a PDF and keep the fonts and layout. These jobs need a full PDF suite, and Acrobat is built for them.

Choose EveryApp when you have a PDF job to do now and don't want to install anything. Fill in a form that has no fillable fields. Sign a lease and send it back. Join three scans into one file. Pull two pages out of a long report. Mark up a draft with arrows and notes. Each job has its own page, and the free ones run on your device without an account.

What PDF Editor does

PDF Editor adds to your pages. It doesn't rewrite them.

• Nine tools. Text, Highlight, White-out, Pen, Box, Circle, Line, Arrow and Image.
• Text that matches the form. Choose Sans, Serif or Mono, set the size, make it bold and pick one of four colours.
• Highlights in four colours, and a pen in three line widths for notes in the margin.
• Pictures. Add a logo, a stamp or a photo in JPG, PNG, WebP, GIF, BMP or AVIF.
• Everything stays editable until you save. Switch to Select to move, resize, restyle or delete anything you added. Undo and Redo go back up to 100 steps.
• Snap to shapes. With the Pen, a rough rectangle, circle or arrow drawn in one stroke becomes a clean shape.
• Your PDF stays on your device. It is edited in your browser and never uploaded. Files can be up to 100 MB and 200 pages.

To change a wrong word or date, cover it with White-out and type the new text on top. It looks changed, but the old words are still inside the file. Don't use White-out to hide private information.

The rest of the toolset

Acrobat puts everything in one program. EveryApp gives each job its own page. These are free and run on your device:

• Merge PDF joins up to 30 PDFs into one, in the order you choose.
• Split PDF pulls out the pages you need, splits a file by ranges or saves every page as its own PDF.
• Sign PDF adds a drawn, typed or photographed signature to as many pages as you need.
• Rotate PDF and Delete PDF Pages fix sideways scans and remove pages you don't want.
• Watermark PDF and Add Page Numbers stamp DRAFT or page numbers on your pages.
• JPG to PDF and PDF to JPG convert between photos and PDF pages.

These are Pro tools. A free account can try each one on a small file, with up to 5 free tries a day across all Pro tools:

• Compress PDF shrinks the photos and scans inside a PDF so it fits email and upload limits.
• PDF to Word and Word to PDF convert in both directions. PDF to Word reads scanned pages too.
• OCR PDF makes a scanned PDF searchable.
• Protect PDF and Unlock PDF add or remove a password.

These Pro tools run on our servers rather than on your device.

If you'd rather have one workspace, PDF Studio opens several PDFs in tabs to read, annotate, fill forms, and move, delete, combine or split pages. Saving the PDF never needs an account.

What Acrobat does better

Acrobat does several things EveryApp doesn't:

• Real text editing. Acrobat can change the words, fonts and layout already in a PDF. PDF Editor only adds on top.
• Redaction. Acrobat has redaction tools that remove sensitive text from the file for good. EveryApp's White-out only covers it.
• Signature requests. Acrobat can send a document to other people to sign and show you who has signed. Sign PDF adds your own signature as an image, which isn't a certified digital signature.
• One program for everything. If you handle PDFs all day, having every tool in one app saves time.
• Characters. PDF Editor types letters used in English and other Western European languages. Other scripts, like Cyrillic, Arabic or Chinese, can't be typed.

How to get started

1. Open PDF Editor and choose your PDF, or drop it on the page.
2. Pick a tool, such as Text, and click on the page to type.
3. Switch to Select to move or fix anything you added.
4. Click Save PDF, then Download edited PDF.

Need to do more than mark up the page? Use the matching tool from the list above. For example, sign with Sign PDF, then join the signed pages with the rest using Merge PDF. For a wider look at which PDF jobs you can do for free, read free alternatives to paid PDF software.