Set Adobe Acrobat as the Default PDF Reader in Mac OSX (zipForm Standard) In OS X, Apple’s Preview is the default application for opening a number of file types, including PDF’s. While versatile, Preview will NOT allow you to make changes to PDF’s with editable content.
This may seem like a silly question, but PDFs are indispensable to the practice of law so this is an important consideration.
As I wrote in my review of Adobe Acrobat 9 for Law.com, PDF has become the lingua franca of legal documents – it is the standard for electronic filing, scanned documents, digital signatures, form distribution and much more. This means lawyers and legal professionals have to open and read a LOT of PDF files every day.
Opening & reading a PDF
About 90% of the time, all we need to do is open and read a PDF – we don’t need to highlight or annotate anything, create bookmarks, or do anything else except just read the content.
PDF Reader Pro is a PDF powerhouse that will fulfill all your document needs. Building on solid features such as Annotation, Edit, Form filling, OCR, Convert, Create, Sign, Bookmark and protect your PDF files, PDF Reader Pro allows you to maneuver through your PDF files. Adobe Acrobat Reader is the most reliable, free global standard document management system available. View, edit, sign, and annotate PDF documents by working directly on the text. Adobe Acrobat Reader is the free global standard for reliably viewing, signing, and commenting on PDF documents. VIEW PDFs. Quickly open and view PDF documents. Search, scroll, and zoom in and out.
So 90% of the time, I’m opening PDFs in Preview, the excellent image viewer that’s built into Mac OS X.
Preview is truly a hidden gem that’s built into Mac OS X. It’s fast, functional and free, and it was designed by Apple to work within the Mac OS. It’s the default viewer for image files such as JPG or TIFF, as well as PDFs. That means out of the box, your Mac will open Preview when you double-click a PDF file.
I choose to leave Preview as my default PDF viewer, even though I have both PDFpen and Adobe Acrobat on my system. I leave Preview as my default PDF viewer because it’s fast and performs admirably when I simply need to open and read a PDF. Compression app for mac.
When you need to do more with a PDF…
Preview is “free” since it’s built into the Mac OS – you get it with any Mac you buy. In additional to simply opening and reading a PDF file, Preview is also excellent for sorting pages in an PDF, extracting certain pages out of a PDF, and dragging & dropping pages from one PDF file to another.
Preview does have some basic annotation tools which are nice, but they don’t quite rise to the “professional” level. That’s when I turn to PDFpen from Smile Software, or Acrobat Professional from Adobe.
![App To Open Pdf Files On Mac App To Open Pdf Files On Mac](/uploads/1/3/4/2/134200484/596102620.png)
PDFpen from Smile Software
PDFpen offers a nice, intuitive interface that allows you to easily add a graphical signature, highlight text, annotate with a circle, place a stamp, and a myriad of other features.
The standard version of PDFpen is only $59.95, and the Pro version is only $99.95. That’s a terrific bargain compared to Adobe Acrobat Standard at $299 and Acrobat Professional at $449.
But while I’m a big fan of PDFpen, I usually turn to Acrobat Professional when I need more features to interact with my PDF files.
Adobe Acrobat Professional
Can't Open Pdf On Mac
Acrobat is the original author of the portable document format (PDF), and even though they have freely and graciously licensed it over the years, they developed the original so they know PDF the best. That’s not to say that others can’t compete, but I tend to trust Acrobat when I need to do some heavy lifting on my PDFs.
For example:
- Security settings: you can set security on PDF files in Preview and PDFpen, but Acrobat gives you more options (e.g. refuse printing, restrict modification, prohibit combining files or extracting pages, etc.).
- Bates numbering: you can do this is PDFpen, but Acrobat offers several more options to tweak the look and settings of the Bates numbers.
- Redactions: Adobe has really improved their redaction feature since introducing it with Acrobat 8. This is “true” redaction and NOT just simply covering over the text with a black box (see some scary stories in “Redaction Gone Wrong!“)
- Split PDF files: with Acrobat 9, you can split PDF files by number of pages, file size, and bookmarks.
- Forms: other applications (such as the Pro version of PDFpen) can handle form creation, but Acrobat just does it better.
- OCR: Acrobat has been doing this longer than many of the other applications, and I tend to see better results from Acrobat when compared to other PDF applications (although separate, devoted OCR applications still probably do a better job).
- Signatures: PDFpen does an excellent job of giving you the basic tools necessary for inserting a scanned image of your handwritten signature. In fact, PDFpen offers a simple workflow to create a transparent background on your signature. You have to jump through a few more steps to do the same in Adobe Acrobat. The big difference, however, is that Acrobat allows you to make that signature a little more sophisticated and trustworthy. You can customize the “appearance” of the signature in Acrobat which could include text such as the date to accompany the scanned image of your signature. Acrobat also “validates” the signature meaning that if the PDF is altered in any way after you apply that electronic signature, a warning box tells you that the “signature is invalid.” I don’t suggest that this is the ultimate is authenticity, but it is enough to raise the question if you need to investigate if someone altered the PDF after it was “signed.” It’s still a long way from a true, encryption-based digital signature, but it’s an excellent step forward.
- Document compare: this is an excellent feature baked into Acrobat that I don’t see a lot of people using, which is unfortunate. Both documents used in the comparison obviously need to be in PDF, but Acrobat provides an excellent comparison report on the differences found in the two files which is all most folks need when comparing two documents.
What should I buy?
I always recommend that lawyers and legal professionals purchase a full version of Adobe Acrobat Professional. Yes, there are less expensive options, but PDFs are integral to our profession and we therefore need professional-grade software.
I do NOT, however, suggest that you use Adobe Acrobat to the exclusion of any other PDF software. In fact, I recommend that you leave the default PDF viewer as Preview since it is faster in opening PDF files. And it doesn’t hurt to have PDFpen on your system as well since there are occasions when a certain feature may be easier to implement when compared to a more convoluted process in Acrobat.
When to use which PDF application…
Leave Preview as your default PDF application. When you double-click a PDF file, it will open in Preivew.
Cannot Open Pdf On Mac
When you need to open a PDF file in another application such as PDFpen or Acrobat, simply right-click (Ctrl+click) the file, go to “Open With” and then select PDFpen or Acrobat from the list.
I know that involves a few extra steps, but for the majority of time when you just need to view a PDF, you’ll be happier with the speed and performance of Preview.
(Adobe offers the free Adobe Reader for Mac, but I still recommend Preview over Reader because Preview is built into the Mac OS. The only time I would recommend Reader is when you might need to complete a form that someone created in Adobe Acrobat. But in that case you should have Acrobat Professional on your machine and will use that instead.)
Open Pdf Files On Mac
The price is definitely right
The biggest barrier to Acrobat Professional is the price. Many folks understandably balk at the $449 price for a piece of software, so here is the best piece of advice if you’ve lasted this far in the post:
Don’t buy Adobe Acrobat Professional by itself. Get a full copy of Adobe Acrobat Professional bundled with a Fujitsu ScanSnap S1500M scanner for a little over $400. I know it sounds too good to be true, but you get one of the best desktop scanners on the market with a full copy of Adobe Acrobat Professional thrown in!
The only caveat is that the copy of Acrobat Professional is version 8, which is now two versions back (Acrobat X is just getting released now). I suspect that Fujitsu will update the version to 9 soon which will be more than adequate for most law practices. Actually, version 8 only lacks a small handful of features found in 9 and above. Most people using version 8 will never miss those features so I have no qualms about recommending the Fujitsu ScanSnap S1500M with Acrobat Professional 8 right now.
Apr 29,2020 • Filed to: PDF Tips
There are many advantages which are related to PDF and especially if it is saved in form of pages. The large corporate organizations always make sure that the PDF files are saved in form of pages. It is because the data search and extraction becomes easy if such measures are taken. The exact page from the entire PDF file can easily be extracted by a single click. It is also important that such measures are taken as it will allow easy extraction of the important PDF forms as well. The PDF files which can also be combined in form of pages. It means that all important pages can be at the same place at the same time. There are many programs which can be used to perform the task. It also ensures that the PDF related tasks become easy and handy and therefore it is highly recommended to save PDF in form of pages. https://vilgkf.weebly.com/security-web-apps-mac.html. In this article, we will show you how to open PDF in pages with ease.
Part 1. How to Open PDF in Pages for Editing on Mac
The Best Way to Open PDF in Pages
![Mac Mac](/uploads/1/3/4/2/134200484/949351064.jpg)
The PDFelement Pro is one of the best programs which can be used to open PDF in pages easily. The program can convert, edit and OCR PDF as well. The PDF forms can also be made and the users can also protect the PDF files by password locking them.
How to Open PDF in Pages on Mac
Step 1. Start PDFelement Pro and import PDF files
From the official website you can easily download the program, install and launch the program to access the main interface. Then you can import the PDF file to program by drag and drop feature. It can also be done with the help of 'Open File' button at the bottom.
Step 2. Edit PDF file before converting
The PDF can also be edited before it is converted to pages. This step is optional. Under the 'Edit' tab of the program the PDF can be edited using paragraph or line mode.
Step 3. Convert PDF to Pages
Under the 'Convert' tab you can convert PDF to other file formats. Here you can click on the 'To Pages' button. From the right side toolbar click on the 'Convert' button and save the PDF in pages to the local folder.
Step 4. Open PDF in Pages
Now you can fin the converted files in local folder and open the file in Pages easily.
The PDFelement Pro is one of the easiest ways to make sure that the best outcome is generated of all PDF related tasks. The users of the program are highly satisfied and therefore it also has been rated high. The program can also be used to convert PDF not only to pages but a wide range of formats. The use of program is highly simple and therefore can be used by novice users as well. The program has multiple features which can also be used to carry out tasks such as OCR, PDF editing and the list goes on. It is also used to make PDF forms which are a very common task. Click here, you can get the full guide on how to manage your PDF documents easily with this PDF editor.
Why Choose PDFelement Pro to Open PDF in Pages
There are many reasons to choose PDFelement Pro for Mac for all PDF related tasks. It is not only reliable but also makes sure that various PDF related tasks are performed with ease. The users can also combine, OCR and convert PDF files to various formats with ease.
The main features of PDFelement Pro:
- It comes with sticky notes, drawing tools, text box, mark up tools, and so much more.
- Add notes to a PDF on Mac with this software and your text analyses will be more productive.
- It provides you many PDF editing tool to edit, convert, create, secure, OCR and share PDF files.
- You can batch process multiple PDF files and do data extraction from PDF files.
Part 2. More Tips about Pages vs PDF
Both formats have their own use and therefore both are highly in demand. The pages are developed by Apple to ensure that the readability is enhanced. The pages were launched in February 2011 and the PDF format was released in June 1993. The best part about PDF is that it has been directly developed by ISO which means that all the standard related tasks are performed up to the mark. The Pages on the other hand needs to make sure that the ISO related certifications are provided. The Pages is iWork Productivity Suite whereas the PDF format is platform independent. The PDF can import the word files whereas the pages can only import some formats of word files and the others are not compatible.
The PDF format is widely used to export and transfer wide range of documents. The most sensitive places of the world including the US homeland security department also use this format to exchange sensitive information. The pages are however just limited to the Mac users as iWork productivity suite cannot be used on platform other than Mac. The pages interface is rich and allows the users to choose among the wide range of templates as soon as the application is launched. The PDF supports Open Document File Format while the pages does not.