The 7 Best AI PDF Editors in 2024

In office work, we deal with PDFs every week. Having a reliable and versatile PDF editor is essential. 

Not so long ago, PDF editors was limited to offer simple functions like editing text and images, adding annotations, merging and splitting files, and converting PDF to different formats. However, AI (artificial intelligence) has drastically changed this scenario.

Now there are many AI PDF editors that will help you do whatever you want: be that correcting typos, interacting with PDF files intelligently, extracting valuable insights, summarizing the key points of a PDF, or do content proofreading and rewriting. 

All this significantly improving the efficiency of PDF document processing.

I've been testing and using AI PDF editors since they've been available. Based on that experience, here are my current AI PDF Editor favorites. I'll update this list as new AI PDF Editors hit the market.

Key takeaways:

Part 1. What does an AI PDF editor do?
By Utilizing AI to a PDF Editor we can read, annotate, proofread, summarize and communicate with PDF files.

Part 2. The Best AI PDF Editors

• PDFMaster - All in One Toolkit, the Preferred AI PDF Editor
• Adobe Acrobat Pro - The Official AI PDF Edito
• PDFgear - Totally Free AI PDF Editor 
• Smallpdf - Online PDF Editor Supports Summarize and Chat with PDF
• PDFelement - The AI PDF Editor with Chat and BookMark Function
• Foxit PDF Editor - Office Look AI PDF Editing Software
• UPDF - Offline AI PDF Editor with Beautiful Interface

Part 3. Comparing the 7 Best AI PDF Editors

Part 4. Expect AI PDF editors to change fast
Now, we are at the very start of utilizing AI in PDF editing software, it is expected that these AI PDF editor will get more powerful and a lot more AI PDF editors will come on the scene.

 

Part 1. What Does an AI PDF Editor Do?

By Utilizing AI to a PDF Editor we can read, annotate, proofread, summarize and communicate with PDF files. We can also utilize GPT's intelligent rewriting function to quickly edit and refine PDF documents. Additionally, GPT can be used to interpret and understand the content of PDFs therefore enhancing work efficiency.

So what kind of things can an AI PDF editor do? Here are some of the major AI features you'll see in these softwares.

• Read or convert image-based text into an editable format with AI-driven OCR (optical character recognition) functionality.
• Convert PDF files into editable formats such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc. 
• Extract tables, charts, and other data from PDF files. 
• Real-time language translation. AI-powered language models can translate PDFs with high accuracy.
• Summarizing long PDF documents with AI-based semantic text analysis.
• AI Audio-to-text, text-to-audio for readability and accessibility
• Proofread and rewrite PDF to make it correct and grammar free.
• Ask AI Assistant to quickly gain information in the PDF file.

 

Part 2. The Best AI PDF Editors

#1: PDFMaster - All in One Toolkit, the Preferred AI PDF Editor

Introduction: A professional, efficient, and powerful AI PDF editor.
Supported Platforms: Mac/Windows
Key Features: PDF editing, Format conversion, Merge & split, Compress, View and annotate, OCR, Redact and encrypt, Digital Sign, Adding/deleting watermarks, Create & fill forms, AI summarize, AI rewrite, AI proofread, AI translate, etc.
Access Link:  https://www.cisdem.com/pdfmaster.html

Cisdem PDFMaster is the top-rated PDF editing software that equipped with ChatGPT. It allows you to read, edit, annotate, sign, compress, split, merge, encrypt, convert and create PDFs. 

With its latest algorithms, it not only supports editing PDF files, but also provides AI capabilities like summarizing PDF documents, translating PDF files, proofreading documents, rewriting manuscripts, and turn text to speech to help read the PDF files, further enhancing the product's intelligence.

Basic Operations for Editing PDF Files

Adding and Editing Existing Text
Adding, deleting, and modifying text and images in PDF documents. It will automatically reflow text, so you have no layout changing worries. 

Inserting Images and Links
Easily add images and links to desired positions of PDF file, and you can freely adjust size and position.

Adding Watermarks
Add personalized watermarks or background designs to protect PDF document.

Viewing and Annotating PDF Files
Comes with preset PDF viewing modes to relieve eye strain. Provides annotation tools such as highlighting, underlining, strikethrough, magnify, add notes, etc. to better present your viewpoints and opinions.

Converting PDF Files to Other Formats
Convert PDF files to other formats such as images, Excel, Word, CSV or HTML, etc. 

Adding Personalized Signatures and Stamps
To increase the credibility and authenticity of the document, you can add personalized signatures and stamps to the PDF file. 

Merging, Splitting and Compressing PDF Files
Merging multiple PDFs into One, Splitting PDF into separate pages, compressing PDF files for emailing or archiving.

Form Creating and Filling
Support creating PDF forms, recognize form field, filling and building interactive forms.

Document Encryption
Add passwords to PDF documents to restrict access and limit features like printing, copying, and editing.

Digit Signature
Add digital signatures and bates numbers for more effective document protection.

Various Practical Functions
Redact to black sensitive information in PDF file, Adding/deleting watermarks, document comparison, Adding headers and footers, adding and removing watermark, etc.

Assisted Editing with AI

Summarize PDF File
Generate short summaries for long and complicated PDFs without having to read them all. This is useful for students, professionals and researchers who need to understand complex and long material.

AI Rewrite to improve text and make it easier to understand
Paste the content that needs to be rewritten into the AI box, it will optimize the document with a single click. In our test, the text remains largely the same, but I get the impression that the nuances have become clearer. 

AI Proof-read to Ensure accuracy of PDF documents
Correct grammar, spelling, vocabulary, and other errors with document proofreading.

Easily translate PDF into any language
Breaking down language barriers by using the AI translate feature. Translations are available in over 100 languages.

OCR Text Recognition
Use AI OCR technology that can turn images or scanned PDFs to editable files with high accuracy. It provides 2  different OCR modes according to users' different needs.

AI Text to Speech
Choose to listen to PDF files when you are tired of reading, 50+ languages supported.

With PDFMaster you get all needed PDF editing functions. You can quickly understand the contents of long PDF files and get brief summary. You can also translate PDF file and get summaries of what is written. It’s AI function is particularly skilled at "summarizing," "explaining," and "translating."

When used effectively, it can serve as a effective learning assistance. Also you can use the AI OCR function to digitize text in images, and it text to speech function will comes in handy when you need to listen to PDF while doing other things. 

 

#2 Adobe Acrobat Pro - The Official AI PDF Editor

Introduction: Official AI PDF Editor
Supported Platform: Mac/Windows/Android/iOS
Key Features: PDF annotation, adding text, comment, file merging, splitting, OCR text, Redact, PDF document encryption, AI summarize PDF, Word, PPT, etc.
Access Link:  https://www.adobe.com/acrobat.html

As the inventor of PDF documents, Adobe Acrobat is the official PDF editor, now it also add support for AI. It has the widest supports for all kinds of PDF files, such as 3D PDFs, JavaScript, and more. It also have the most profound PDF editing functions. 

However, perhaps because it's too professional, it occupying a large amount of memory, and the speed of opening PDF documents is slow. 

According to Adobe’s FAQ, the assistant is based at least in part on OpenAI’s technology. The AI feature integrates seamlessly with other features in Adobe Acrobat Pro. You can chat with the PDF to discover new information about the PDF content. you can also use it to summarize PDF, Word, reports, and research papers in seconds. 

Basic Operations for Editing PDF Files

• Text Editing - Edit text and images within PDFs.
• OCR - Convert image or Scanned PDF files into editable text through OCR processing.
• Page Editing - Delete unnecessary pages, reorder pages, merge or split pdf pages. 
• Annotations - Make annotation and comments to PDF.
• Password Protection - Set password to restrict viewing and editing of PDF files.
• Digital Signature - Add digital signature with digital IDs to ensure document integrity.
• Add Watermarks - Add watermarks such as company names or brands for copyright protection.
• Convert PDFs - Convert PDF to office document like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc. 

Assisted Editing with AI

• Chat with PDF, Word, Powerpoint, etc. to get relevant information about PDF. 
• Summaries long word and PDF documents and show summary in an easy to read formats. 
• Support navigate to cited references quickly.

Adobe Acrobat AI generally takes 20+ second to process and generate answers. The answer and summary it returns are more detailed and longer than those of several other software. The Limit of Adobe Acrobat AI Assistant is that. The file can’t exceeding 25MB in size, and has to be less than 120 pages.

 

#3 PDFgear - Totally Free AI PDF Editor 

Introduction: Totally free PDF editor with AI function
Supported Platforms: Mac/Windows/Android/iOS
Key Features: PDF format conversion, Edit, Highlight and comment on a selected area, OCR, translate, AI chat. 
Access Link: https://www.pdfgear.com/

PDFgear is a comprehensive and easy-to-use free PDF editor. It allows users to view, convert, edit, fill out forms, manage PDF pages, splitting PDFs, rotating page orientation, adding or deleting pages, etc. 

It has a chatbot integrated with ChatGPT to help one chat with documents to understand PDF content. When you load a PDF file, it will list several recommended questions in the right panel. 

Basic Operations for Editing PDF Files

• View PDF in single-page or double-page display mode
• Add highlights, underlines, and strikethroughs to PDF, and customize mark colors
• Add stamps into PDF document
• Create signatures using mouse, keyboard, and image files
• Convert PDF to Word, Excel, PNG, JPG, RTF, TX, THTML, XML, and other formats
• Convert Word, Excel, PPT, images, RTF, TXT, and other formats to PDF
• Merge and split PDF files freely
• Support filling PDF forms with text boxes, checkboxes, list boxes, etc.

Assisted Editing with AI

• Chat with PDF 
• List commonly used AI commands for quickly access like summarize PDF, convert PDF to word, Compress PDF etc. 

PDFgear runs on Windows 11, Windows 10, and macOS 10.14 to macOS 13. There is also an app available for iPhone and iPad. It is a complete toolkit, and it is totally free without the need for a user account, the documents it saves do not have any watermarks.

The downside of this app is that its convert function is not good, When Pdfgear converts PDF to Word files, it cannot convert PDF files generated by photos. Even if you select language, OCR recognition, it remains the same. Also, like UPDF, the opening speed is terribly slow. And It takes 3 to 4 seconds to act, after double-clicking a function.
 

#4 Smallpdf - Online PDF Editor Supports Summarize and Chat with PDF

Introduction: Online PDF Editor with AI
Supported Platforms: Mac/Windows/Android/iOS
Key Features: PDF file editing, format conversion, compressing, PDF document encryption, pdf scanner, etc.
Access Link: https://smallpdf.com/ai-pdf

Smallpdf is an online platform that provides various PDF-related tools. It mainly includes various format conversion tools and functions like PDF splitting, merging, encryption, etc. It is one of the few online PDF editor that provides AI functions including summarize and chat with PDF

Overall, Cisdem PDFMaster is preferred for editing, while this one is preferred for conversion. If your files are not very large, you can try this website for file editing!

As this is an online tool, you can use it to edit PDF as long as you have a browser. Just open the website and choose AI PDF Summarizer. You will see a big button ask you to Select PDF file, just click it to uploading the file. The document will then be analyzed and the AI will answer questions user input. 

Its AI operating interface is clear and concise, the answers provided by Smallpdf AI are all based on the content of the loaded PDF, it cannot answer questions beyond the content of PDF files.

Note: As for online site we need to upload the PDF file which as usual, a certain caution in sharing data, please make sure that the PDFs do not include private information.
 

# 5 PDFelement - The AI PDF Editor with Chat and BookMark Function

Introduction: AI PDF Editor that supports a full set of PDF editing functions with a simple interface 
Supported Platforms: Mac, Windows
Key Features: PDF editing, annotation, convert, page manage, AI chat, AI summary, AI translate, AI bookmark
Access Link: https://pdf.wondershare.com/

PDFelement is a powerful and user-friendly PDF editor that also comes with AI functions. It provides a variety of convenient and practical functions, integrating editing, conversion, annotation, OCR, form filling, and signing in one. PDFelement is few of the PDF editing software that incorporate AI capabilities at the first time it’s available.

Its AI PDF editing functions include: AI content detection, rewriting, translating, proofreading, and summarizing. For AI PDF translating it supports both full-text translation and custom selection translation. 

Basic Operations for Editing PDF Files

• PDF editing - Support edit text and images within PDF. 
• PDF conversion - Convert PDF files to office documents such as Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. 
• OCR PDF - Convert scanned documents into text-searchable PDF files.
• eSign - Sign PDF Files with digit signature.
• Combine PDFs - Combine multiple PDF files into one PDF file. 
• PDF batch processing - Perform processes such as converting, creating, printing, and OCR on multiple PDF files at once. 
• Template - Provides PDF templates for various uses such as resumes and posters. 

Assisted Editing with AI

• Proofreading and rewriting of texts
• Language translation
• Creating summaries and interpretations of texts in a short time
• Asking questions about the PDF content with the AI assistant
• Use AI to automatically make bookmarks for PDF document based on main structure and headings. 

This AI PDF Editor offers the most comprehensive AI function, but one thing to note is that one have to be careful on it’s complexing pricing modes, at first I get the basic version and only to find that it convert scanned PDF to a whole image which is uneditable and they told me to upgrade and get the version that support OCR. And for the AI function it’s pricing model is also deceptive, after you get the subscription for the AI function, you’ll find it’s actually extremely limited, if you file is long, it will use all the tokens and will ask you to subscribe again. Also, when your file is large, the the loading time of PDFelement will be a bit longer. 

 

# 6 Foxit PDF Editor - Office Look AI PDF Editing Software

Introduction: An Office look PDF editing software that supports AI functions like PDF summarizing, rewriting, chat, etc. 
Supported Platforms: Mac, Windows
Key Features: PDF file editing, annotation, convert, merge, compress, redact, insert and delete pages, add comment, hyperlinks and images, AI chat, AI summary, AI translate
Access Link: https://www.foxit.com/pdf-editor/

Foxit has been in the PDF industry for a long time, and its PDF engine has even been integrated into Chrome. Now, it also integrate AI into it’s PDF editor, which can create, edit, convert, compress, encrypt and sign PDF documents. 

Just like Adobe Acrobat it has a whole bunch of PDF tools and because it has too many features the menu bar is densely packed, sometimes it's very hard to find the needed functions. Also, it looks a bit outdated.

Basic Operations for Editing PDF Files

• PDF Creation - Create PDF form documents or make a new one. 
• PDF Editing - Add or edit text or images in PDF file. 
• Embedding objects - Add watermarks, audio, and video to PDF file. 
• OCR - Use OCR technology to convert images or scanned PDFs into searchable and editable PDFs.
• File Conversion: Convert PDFs to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, HTML, text, or image files, and vice versa.
• Page Organization: Split or merge PDFs, reorder, compare, compress PDFs.
• PDF Signing: Sign PDF Files electronically.
• PDF Protection: Add opening or permission password to PDF files.
• File Sharing: Integration with common CMS solutions, cloud providers, and Microsoft's SharePoint server.

Assisted Editing with AI

• Summarize PDF, Rewrite PDF, Translate PDF. 

For its AI function. Foxit AI integrates ChatGPT into its system to increase productivity when editing PDFs. You can use AI to generate summaries of the PDF file, proofread and rewrite the PDF. Additionally, you can chat with the PDF on the content related information.

Foxit offer some of its PDF editing functions for free, and some are paid. Its text editing functions requires payment, and the price is slightly high. When dealing with large files, the editor may become sluggish or even crash. For beginners, it's also difficult to find a specific PDF function. 

 

UPDF - Offline AI PDF Editor with Beautiful Interface

Introduction: A beautifully designed AI PDF editor
Supported Platforms: Mac/Windows/Android/iOS
Key Features: PDF editing, annotation, convert, encrypt, AI chat, AI summary, AI translate
Access Link: https://updf.com/

UPDF is a PDF Editor that emerged in the past two years. Similar to PDFelement, UPDF focuses on simplicity and ease of use. Its interface is pretty and visually pleasing, it provides functions like PDF reading, editing, annotating, compressing, OCR recognition, converting, and more. 

Its AI assistant can help one summarize a PDF, translate PDF, and you can choose to save the translation as annotations. It also supports AI Explanation which will give definition to words and you can use it to chat with PDF, proofread PDF. 

Basic Operations for Editing PDF Files

• Edit or add text in PDF documents
• Add comments, highlights, stamps and shapes to PDFs.
• Rearrange or delete pages in PDFs.
• Convert PDF to Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.

Assisted Editing with AI

• Converting PDF using OCR with AI
• AI grammar and spelling checks
• Summarize the content of PDFs
• Translate the content of PDFs
• Answer questions about the content of PDFs

UPDF has a very good interface design, but it’s software backend is not particularly well-developed, it will lag when opening large files or it will take some time to response when selecting an option. For some large files you have to close the program or wait until it unlocks. 

Also, the same as PDFelement, it has a complex pricing system, you will be asked to pay other services beyond the initial purchase, and the AI token you get for 1 month is not enough for you to read a single document. Also, to use the AI function it will force you to upload PDF to Cloud.
 

Part 3. The Best AI PDF Editors at a Glance

Frequently Asked Questions about AI PDF Editors

What is the best AI PDF Editing Software?
PDFMaster is the best AI PDF Editor because it offer a full set PDF editing tools and build in with AI functions like PDF translate, PDF rewrite, PDF proofread, and PDF summarize. This tool is easy to use and gives you the option to test all functions totally free for 7 days.

Are the PDF Editors free?
Very few AI PDF editors are free, most of the PDF editors are paid ones. However, most of the paid tools offer free trials to their users. Most of the online site offer AI and PDF editing functions free for limited times and have limit on file number and sizes, PDFMaster offers a free trial where you can test all it’s functions totally free for 7 days.

How to choose the right AI PDF Editor?
Several factors should be considered when choosing the right PDF editor. These include it’s editing function, some tools only supports adding text and images but cannot edit exiting text and images in a PDF. For AI functions you need to check whether the software support the AI features you need, is it accurate, what AI source it uses, document security, ease of use, and the level of customer support , etc. 

Is ChatGPT a PDF Editor?
No, ChatGPT is not a PDF editor, it does not support edit text or images in PDF files and you cannot use it to add annotations and manage PDF files. 
 

Expect AI PDF Editors to Change Fast

The integration of AI into PDF editing software has greatly changed the way we process and interact with information. Now, we are at the very start of utilizing AI in PDF editing software. It is expected that these AI PDF editor will get more powerful and a lot more AI PDF editors will come on the scene. 

After comparing all the features in this review, we can easily conclude that Cisdem PDFMaster is an exceptional PDF editor that combines PDF editing features with ChatGPT functionality. It provides basic PDF editing, annotation, conversion, compressing, encrypting and other functions! Moreover, its AI summarize, translation, rewriting, proofread, and other functions are unique features rarely seen in the market. 

It provides all its functions totally free for 7 days, Just download and see how it simplifies the way we deal with PDF files.

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