PDF is an acronym for portable document format. It is the most popular file format for documents. You can easily find a PDF viewer app, but the options are fewer when it comes to editing. For Chrome OS users, PDFs can present a bit of a challenge. The most popular PDF tool, Adobe Reader isn’t available for Chrome OS. Sure there are Android apps but they’re not really that great for bigger screens as has been proved by the demise of Android tablets. Luckily, several easy-to-use and even free tools are available for Chrome OS and Chromebooks.
Without any further ado, let’s check out 5 of the best PDF editors for Chromebook or Chrome OS.
1. Lumin PDF
Lumin is a beautiful online PDF Editor for Chrome OS. It can be installed from the Chrome Web Store and adds an icon to your app launcher, opening the app in a Chrome browser window. Features include highlighting and underlining text, the ability to erase blocks of text, add digital signatures, rotate and remove individual pages, draw lines and shapes, add comments, and more. You can also share PDF files directly in real time.
2. SEJDA PDF Editor
SEJDA is one of the best PDF editors for Chromebook with great features and a user interface. This PDF Editor is a web app or tool, accessible via any device as long as it has a browser. Not many PDF Editors will let you edit the existing text on a PDF file. Usually, you are allowed to only add text and edit the added text. Sejda lets you edit the text in the PDF file. Most of all, unlike other free online tools, it does not add watermarks to your documents.
To edit a document, visit the website following the link below and upload the PDF. You can even paste the link of the PDF you want to edit if it is already present online. The fact that you don’t have to install anything is a plus if you don’t often edit documents. It lets you add PDF Files through URL and can also be used to convert PDF files to Word or JPG and vice-versa. There is also a desktop Linux app you can install on your Chromebook which is a wrapper for the web app.
3. KAMI
KAMI, previously known as Notable PDF, is a great choice for Chrome OS users. It lets you immediately annotate a PDF document rather than having to save it elsewhere first. As long as you’re online while using KAMI, it will immediately sync all your changes to Google Drive. This is not a Chrome app or an online tool but an extension. That means while it does work offline, it works inside the Chrome browser.
It has a vertical sidebar that makes it easy to switch between the pen and the highlighter. The free version comes with ads and allows you to add text, highlight text, and underline and strikethrough. There is also a paid version with features like splitting/merging and OCR. KAMI is one of the best PDF editors for Chromebooks.
Install KAMI from Chrome Web Store
4. Okular
Okular is not a Chrome OS app, extension, or an online tool. It is a Linux app developed by KDE, the team behind the KDE Plasma desktop, KDE Neon and Kubuntu. Being a Linux app means Okular is completely free and works more like the Adobe Reader than anything else you can find on the Chrome side. You can install and use Okular on a Chromebook thanks to Linux app support being added to Chrome OS. If this is the first time you’ve heard about it, here’s how to enable Linux apps on Chromebook. Once you have them enabled, use the following command in the Terminal to install it or install Okular from the Software Center.
sudo apt-get install okular
5. PDFEscape
This is another web-based tool that can be handy if you don’t want to install anything on your PC. Since you can visit the web using any operating system compatibility is never an issue with web-based tools. There is a limit to the free use of PDFescape though. The PDF should not contain more than 100 pages and should not exceed 10 MB in size. You can do anything from adding images, texts, deleting or adding pages, etc. to signing the document. It won’t let you edit existing text though.
You can draw on the PDF, add sticky notes, strikethrough text, put white space over anything you want to disappear, and insert lines, checkmarks, arrows, ovals, circles, rectangles, and comments. The editor is flexible enough that even though you can not edit existing text, you can cover it with white space and type over it with the same font. Being an online tool it does let you add PDFs via URL.
PDFescape also offers a dedicated Windows tool for offline use if you want to have it available offline.
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