PDF Editing Software

By: Steve Wilkinson
Posted:
Tagged with:
​​​
PDF Editing Software
SoftwareWindowsMacLinuxNotes
Adobe Acrobat Pro (external website)YesYesNo​Industry standard
axesCheck (external website)YesYesYes​Web version of PAC 2026 (10MB file max), free
AxesPDF (external website)YesNoNo​Recommended by Dax Castro and Chad Chelius – does tables easier than Acrobat Pro
CommonLook PDF Validator (external website)YesYesNo​Allyant’s (external website) Adobe Acrobat Pro plugin, free
CommonLook PDF (external website)YesYesYes​Allyant’s (external website) PDF Remediation Software
Equidox (external website)YesYesYes​Software as a Service PDF remediation software and browser-based, it will fix all issues except Color Contrast
Foxit PDF Editor (external website)YesYesOnline​Free online PDF editor that can edit text, add comments, annotate, fill and sign forms
Foxit PDF Editor (external website)+YesYesOnline​Supported on iOS and Android too. Foxit PDF Editor can absolutely help remediate PDFs so they pass the PAC 2024 Accessibility Checker
Grackle GO (external website)YesYesYesGoogle Workspace Add-on, free
GrackleDocs (external website)YesYesNoUsed by GrackleDocs to remediate documents commercially for customers
Inkscape (external website)YesNoNoSVG editor with pdf export capabilities, not a native PDF editor
MobiPDF (external website)YesYesNoAlso available for Android. Cannot be used to remediate PDFs.
Omni Tools (external website)YesYesYesRuns in Docker - VM on Windows and Mac, has PDF tools, PDF manipulations like annotation, form-fill, highlight, split, rotate, compress, protect, merge etc. No Accessibility Checker – I’ve raised issue on GitHub
PAC 2026 (external website)YesNoNoPDF checker, runs on Windows desktop, free. Industry standard
PAVE (external website)YesYesYesOnline software that makes PDFs accessible, free (5Mb maximum file)
PDFix (external website)YesYesYes
  • Desktop Lite, free – PDF Viewer and Accessibility Checker
  • Desktop Pro – remediates documents, uses AI
PDFgear (external website)YesYesNoAlso available for iOS and Android. Edits, converts, merges, and signs PDFs. Cannot remediate documents
PDFSam (external website)YesYesYesCannot be used for remediation
Scribus (external website)YesYesYesNot a PDF editor - for precise positioning of text for printing
SimplePDF (external website)YesYesYesBrowser based PDF editor, does not have an accessibility checker built in, nor allows editing PDFs at the tag level. These features are not planned at the moment.
Soda PDF (external website)YesNoNoOnline version available too. Waiting for response
Stirling PDF (external website)YesYesYesContacted Stirling but not heard anything yet
Xodo PDF Studio (external website)YesYesYesXodo PDF Studio does not include a built-in Accessibility Checker for verifying compliance with standards like PAC 2026. However, it does provide tools to enhance PDF accessibility, such as adding searchable text through OCR, creating bookmarks, and editing document structure. Unfortunately, it does not support editing PDFs at the tag level for full accessibility remediation
​

Please contact us if you find any other PDF editing software that is not listed.

Share on:

Site preferences

Please feel free to display our site, your way by finding the preferences that work best for you. We do not track any data or preferences at all, should you select any options in the groups below, we store a small non-identifiable token to your browser's Local Storage, this is required for your preferencesto persist across pages accordion be present on repeat visits. You can remove those tokens if you wish, by simply selecting Unset, from each preference group.

Theming

Theme
Code block theme

Code theme help

Code block themes can be changed independent of the site theme.

  • Default: (Unset) Code blocks will have the same theme as the site theme.
  • Light 1: will be default for users viewing the light theme, this maintains the minimum 7:1 (WCAG Level AAA) contrast ratio we have used throughout the site, it can be quite difficult to identify the differences in colour between various syntax types, due to the similarities in colour at that contrast ratio
  • Light 2: drops the contrast for syntax highlighting down to WCAG Level AA standards (greater than 4.5:1)
  • Dark: Syntax highlighting has a minimum contrast of 7:1 and due to the dark background differences in colour may appear much more perceivable

Motion

Motion & animation

Motion & animation help

  • Default (Unset): Obeys device settings, if present. If no preference is set, there are subtle animations on this site which will be shown. If you have opted for reduce motion, smooth scrolling as well as expanding and collapsing animations will no longer be present, fading transtitions and micro animations will still be still present.
  • None: All animations and transitions are completely removed, including fade transitions.

Links

Underline all links

Underline all links help

  • Default (Unset): Most links are underlined, with a few exceptions such as: the top level links in the main navigation (on large screens), cards, tags and icon links.
  • Yes: Will add underlines to the exceptions outlined above, resulting in every link being underlined

Text and paragraphs

Font size (main content)

Font size help

This setting does not apply to the site's header or footer regions

  • Default (Unset): Font sizes are set to site defaults
  • Selecting Large or Largest will increase the font size of the main content, the size of the increase depends on various factors such as your display size and/or zoom level. The easiest way to determine which option suits you best would be to view this text after clicking either size's button
Letter spacing

Letter spacing help

  • Default (Unset): Default letter spacing applies
  • Increased: Multiplies the font size by 0.12 and adds the sum as spacing between each character
Line height

Line height help

  • Default (Unset): all text has a minimum line height of 1.5 times the size of the text
  • Increased: all text has a line height of twice the size of the text
Line width

Line width help

  • Default (Unset): all text has a maximum line width of 80 REM units (this averages around 110 characters per line)
  • Decreased: all text has a maximum line width of 55 CH units (this averages around 80 characters per line)
Paragraph spacing

Paragraph spacing help

  • Default (Unset): The space between paragraphs is equivalent to 1.5 times the height of the paragraph's text
  • Increased: The space between paragraphs is equivalent to 2.25 times the height of the paragraph's text
Word spacing preference

Word spacing help

  • Default (Unset): No modifications to word spacing are present
  • Increased: Spaces between words are equivalent to 0.16 times the font size