So you go back to the app that you were using, you open up the document, and then you export a new version of that document. Well, the way you do it is not to work with the pdf document itself but to work with the original document. You're not printing a physical piece of paper. Now the same kind of thing happens when you make pdf. You would send it to the printer and then you would get a sheet of paper with the document printed on it. You would have that document in the app and then you would say, Print It. So let's look at what happens when you work with the document. Whatever you're using to create the pdf that's the actual app you're using and you have the document in it. You could even be saving or exporting a pdf from a web browser.

There are all sorts of apps that you could use. For instance, you could be creating a document in Pages, in Word, in Illustrator, InDesign. The app could be any document creation app. When you create a document you're in an app and you have a document open. It wouldn't change just because they were holding it instead of you. The pdf should look the same just like if you gave them a piece of paper. Send it to somebody else and not worry about what they've got on their computer. You can fill a document with fonts, formatting images, all sorts of things. It's meant to be permanent, this thing that you can't change. Think of it as a digitally printed document. Well a pdf is essentially the same thing. Even if you scanned it in it would be a scanned image. You wouldn't take that printed sheet of paper and try to edit it. You would simply ask them for the original document. If you had a printed sheet of paper somebody gave to you and said can you edit this and give me a modified version. A pdf document is very much like a printed sheet of paper. Well, first understand exactly what a pdf document is. But you can't edit the content that's already there. For instance you can put a white box over something or add a text box on top of something.

You can do some things that fall under the realm of Markup. But what you can't do is actually edit the content of the document. You could do a lot of things with this pdf document. You've got a pdf document opened up in Preview. How do you now edit that pdf to create a new modified version? Well, the answer is you really don't. Say you have a pdf, you open it up in the default app which is Preview.

So this is one of the questions I get asked the most. Join us and get exclusive content and course discounts. There you could read more about the Patreon Campaign. MacMost is brought to you thanks to a great group of more than 1000 supporters. Today let me answer the question, How do you Edit a PDF on your Mac? Video Transcript: Hi, this is Gary with. Check out Why You Can't Edit PDF Files In Mac Preview at YouTube for closed captioning and more options.

Open pdf in preview