What PDF editing tool would you recommend?

For most people, PDF-XChange Editor is completely sufficient - it's free, not bloated, and has all the important features like annotations, adding text, inserting images, and filling out forms. It's pretty intuitive to use, and you can also merge or split PDFs with it if needed.

If you need more and work with PDFs regularly, then check out Adobe Acrobat - that's the gold standard, but it costs money monthly. The big advantage is that it really can do everything and works reliably even with tricky documents. For occasional users though, that's kind of overkill.

For simple stuff in the browser, you can also use ILovePDF or similar online tools - you don't have to install anything. But generally I'd recommend the desktop version because it's faster and you don't have to upload your files to third-party servers.

It really depends on what you actually need. If you just mark things up or add text here and there, PDF-XChange Editor is genuinely solid. But if you're editing PDFs regularly and want to rearrange or delete pages sometimes, I'd go with Master PDF Editor instead - it's a one-time purchase for a few euros, but it's way more intuitive and has less bloat than the free alternatives.

For simpler tasks you can work directly in the browser too - lots of online tools like PDFtk or similar do the basics. But honestly, I prefer keeping things locally and working offline when it comes to documents I open multiple times. Preview on Mac is also worth mentioning if you're on that - super lightweight and totally enough for quick annotations.

I'd honestly say a lot of people spend way too much money on specialized tools when they really just need browser-based solutions like ILovePDF or something similar - they're often faster and you don't have to install anything. But if you work with PDFs regularly, it's worth taking a look at LibreOffice Draw. It's free and underrated because most people think it's just for presentations - but you can actually edit PDFs properly with it and even add new content without the file falling apart like it does with some other tools.

If you're having trouble with the free options or just need more power, LibreOffice Draw is also an underrated choice - you can open and edit PDFs without installing extra software 📄 Sounds odd, but I use it regularly for quick edits and it just works everywhere.