PDF software changes quickly. Every new release adds features, which makes it hard to tell which tools are worth paying for and which just repackage what you already have. To save you the trouble, we compared the main options and picked five PDF editors worth a small business’s attention in 2018. These are the tools that regular PDF users, businesses included, should know about before committing to a subscription or a licence.
Before the list, one practical note. PDF editors have converged on a similar look, most of them borrow the ribbon layout from Microsoft Office, so the real differences show up in editing quality, format support, security tools, and price. Keep those four in mind as you read.
The five editors worth a look
1. PDFelement 6 ($59.95)
PDFelement 6 is a full-featured PDF editor that is easy to use and, for what it costs, hard to beat on value. It takes clear cues from Microsoft Office, so if you have used Office 2007 or later, you will find your way around within minutes.
The interface is clean and uncluttered. The app handles almost anything you would ask of a PDF: creating files, editing them properly, converting to and from other file types, processing forms in batch, annotating, and adding comments.
In unprotected documents, you press the Edit text button and start typing. Some editors make you white out the old text and overwrite it; PDFelement lets you select and change text the way you do in Word. You can also move images around, delete elements, and drop in new pictures.
As you would expect from a paid product, it protects documents, builds forms, and signs files.
At $59.95, PDFelement is much cheaper than other apps with the same features. If you need OCR to turn scanned pages into editable text, that version costs $99.95, and the OCR supports up to 23 languages.
2. Adobe Acrobat DC ($15 per month)
No list is complete without the PDF gold standard. Adobe introduced the format more than two decades ago, and Acrobat DC still bundles nearly every feature you could name. It leans hard on mobile use and can convert PDF files into multiple HTML pages on top of the usual Word, Excel, and PowerPoint exports. It turns scanned PDFs into editable ones and merges several documents into a single file. You also get Adobe’s cloud storage and its security features: e-signatures, redaction, and password protection. The subscription model spreads the cost out, which suits some budgets and irritates others.
3. Foxit Phantom 8 PDF Editor ($110+, $60 for the education version)
Foxit is a familiar name in PDF, and Phantom 8 has a sleek, well-organised interface with bundled video tutorials to get you going. It covers everything you need for creating and modifying PDFs: text and object editing, drag-and-drop page ordering, document merging and splitting, and page extraction. Its annotation tools are strong too, which helps when a team needs to leave feedback on the same document. That collaboration angle is where it earns its keep in a business setting.
4. Nitro Pro 11 ($160)
Nitro is another tool giving Adobe a genuine run for its money. Nitro Pro 11 is packed with features aimed at business use: content editing, review and markup, form filling and signing, and security tools including permissions, password protection, and data redaction. It supports fewer file formats than PDFelement and Adobe, but it covers the important ones. The interface follows the Office ribbon design, so moving between tasks is straightforward.
5. Nuance ($90+)
Nuance is another capable editor that adopts the Office ribbon layout in its interface, putting it alongside Nitro Pro and Foxit Phantom. The design makes it easy to find whatever feature you need, whether that is scanning documents into PDFs, building files from scratch, converting, annotating, or adding security. Its security tools are the standout: you can redact sensitive content and control access through permissions and password encryption, and you can even apply Microsoft Rights Management Service (RMS) security for tighter document control.
How to choose between them
The decision usually comes down to how you work rather than a feature checklist. If most of your work is editing existing documents, weigh how the editor handles text: point-and-type editing like PDFelement’s saves real time over white-out-and-overwrite methods. If you scan a lot of paper, OCR quality and language coverage matter more than anything else. If several people mark up the same files, prioritise annotation and review tools, which is where Foxit and Nitro do well. And if you handle contracts or client records, look hardest at security: redaction, permissions, and encryption are not optional once sensitive data is involved.
Price structure deserves a second thought too. A one-off licence like PDFelement or Nitro can work out cheaper over a few years than a monthly Acrobat subscription, but the subscription keeps you on the latest version and spreads the cost. Match the model to how your business budgets, not to which number looks smaller on the day.
Why the right tool pays off
Choosing well is not only about internal efficiency. Much of what a small business produces, quotes, brochures, signed agreements, ends up as a PDF that a prospect reads before deciding to trust you. That first document often does the same job a listing or a review does: it signals whether you are worth taking seriously. Deloitte’s Connected Small Businesses US study (2017) found that digitally advanced small firms, the ones making fullest use of websites and online tools, saw year-over-year revenue growth nearly four times higher than digitally basic peers and were roughly three times as likely to have added jobs the year before. The tools you pick to create, share, and secure documents are a small but real part of that gap.
There is also the question of how customers find you in the first place. A clean, well-formatted PDF is easy to share and easy to list in the directories and profiles where people go looking for suppliers. Being findable in curated, human-checked places still matters, and a polished document is one more thing that holds up under scrutiny once someone lands on your page.
The takeaway
More businesses are shifting core paperwork into PDF, and the leading editors will keep competing to hold their positions. You do not need the most expensive option to benefit. Pick the tool that matches your actual tasks, editing, scanning, collaboration, or security, and confirm it covers the file formats and language support you rely on. Get that match right and the software fades into the background, which is exactly what you want from it.
