$2.99 pay once
Add text to any PDF, sign a contract, fill out a form — everything you actually need to do with a PDF, on whichever device is in front of you. Scan paper with your iPhone, finish on your Mac. No subscription, no cloud, no learning curve. One purchase covers all three devices.
The handful of PDF tasks most people actually need. These four work the same way on Mac, iPhone and iPad; a few extras are platform-specific, and the table below says exactly which.
Click on any PDF and start typing — even over existing content. Text stays searchable and vector, never rasterized.
Draw, type, or upload your signature. Place it, resize it, done. Saved for reuse across documents.
Auto-detects existing form fields. Text inputs, checkboxes, dropdowns — just tap and fill.
Rotate, delete, reorder and add pages. Drag a thumbnail to move it; the result saves cleanly.
On the Mac
On iPhone and iPad
The two versions are not identical, and we would rather you knew that before you buy than after. The Mac app is the fuller document workshop; the iPhone and iPad app is built around a camera and a share sheet. One purchase gets you both.
| Feature | Mac | iPhone & iPad |
|---|---|---|
| Add text anywhere on a PDF | Yes | Yes |
| Sign — draw, type or reuse a signature | Yes | Yes |
| Fill existing form fields | Yes | Yes |
| Rotate, delete, reorder, add pages | Yes | Yes |
| Works fully offline | Yes | Yes |
| Scan paper with the camera | No | Yes |
| Receive a PDF from the share sheet, send it back | No | Yes |
| Merge separate PDFs into one | Yes | No |
| Split / export a page range | Yes | No |
| Insert images | Yes | Planned |
| Shapes to cover or highlight | Yes | Planned |
| Print via the system dialog | Yes | No |
| Edit the PDF's existing body text | No | No |
| OCR on scanned documents | No | No |
"Planned" means queued, not promised — shapes and image insertion are the next things we intend to bring to the iPhone and iPad app, with no date attached. Everything marked "No" is simply absent today and we are not committing to it. Editing existing body text and OCR are not on the roadmap at all; if you need those, a heavier editor is the right tool and our honest comparison guide says which one.
Editing a PDF on a Mac usually means a compromise. Here's where AddToPDF fits.
Preview is great for viewing, and it does more than people expect — it signs, and it moves pages around. Where it falls down is adding text to a flat PDF and filling interactive form fields reliably. AddToPDF does both, and keeps your text as real, searchable text. And Preview only exists on the Mac.
Both are genuinely more powerful — they edit existing PDF text, do OCR, convert to Word. Both are also sold by subscription. If you need that power, buy it. If you just need to sign, fill and add a line of text, AddToPDF is one purchase across Mac, iPhone and iPad, with no account and no recurring bill.
Browser-based editors upload your document to someone else's server to process it. That is fine for a flyer and a bad idea for a signed contract or a medical form. AddToPDF makes no network requests at all.
Plain-English walkthroughs for the PDF jobs people actually get stuck on — written to be useful whether or not you ever buy our app.
Acrobat, PDF Expert, PDFgear, Smallpdf, Preview, Skim, Foxit and ours — what each is genuinely best at, including where we lose.
Read the comparison ›Why Preview often can't do it, the free routes that work, and when a dedicated editor is worth it.
Read the guide ›Three ways to sign on iOS — Markup, Files, and a dedicated app — and how to send it straight back.
Read the guide ›The built-in scanner most people never find, what it can't do, and when a separate app earns its place.
Read the guide ›Real form fields vs. flat scans, why that distinction decides everything, and what to use for each.
Read the guide ›Why we built a pay-once app in a subscription world — and what is actually funding the free alternatives.
Free hides its business model; subscriptions rent you something you use twice a month. The option in between vanished for reasons that had nothing to do with what people wanted.
Read the note ›Six business models behind free software, how to tell which one you are using, and when free is simply the right answer.
Read the note ›Everything you might want to know before you download AddToPDF.
AddToPDF is a simple, native PDF editor for Mac, iPhone and iPad. It lets you add text to any PDF, sign documents and fill out forms. On the Mac it also merges and splits PDFs; on iPhone and iPad it can scan paper documents with the camera. Everything runs on your device — there is no cloud, no account, and no subscription.
AddToPDF is a one-time purchase of $2.99 on the App Store. There is no subscription, no monthly fee, and no "Pro" upgrade — you buy it once and own it. The single purchase covers Mac, iPhone and iPad.
No. AddToPDF is a single one-time purchase. There are no recurring charges of any kind.
Yes. AddToPDF works fully offline and makes no network requests at all. Your files never leave your device — there is no cloud upload, no account, and no telemetry. This is true on Mac, iPhone and iPad alike.
Yes. Click anywhere on any PDF and start typing — even over existing content. The text is saved as sharp, searchable vector text, not a flattened image.
Yes. Draw, type, or upload your signature, then place and resize it anywhere on the document. Signatures are saved for reuse.
Yes. AddToPDF automatically detects existing form fields — text inputs, checkboxes, and dropdowns — so you can just click and fill.
On the Mac, yes — combine multiple PDFs into one, or extract any page range into a new file, with no page limits and no watermarks. The iPhone and iPad version does not have standalone merge or split; there, scanning several pages in one pass produces a single combined PDF.
AddToPDF adds new text, signatures, shapes, and images on top of a PDF — it does not reflow or rewrite the original body text (that's why it's called AddToPDF). For adding, signing, filling, and covering content, it works anywhere on the page.
Apple's Preview can't reliably add text to a flat (non-form) PDF or fill interactive form fields. AddToPDF does both, keeps text as real vector text, and adds form detection, shapes, and clean merge/split — while staying just as simple.
Acrobat and PDF Expert are far more capable — they edit existing PDF text, do OCR and convert between formats, which AddToPDF does not. They are also sold by subscription (PDF Expert offers a Mac-only lifetime licence). AddToPDF is a one-time purchase covering Mac, iPhone and iPad, with no account and no cloud, and it deliberately covers only the handful of tasks most people actually need. Our honest comparison guide goes through this properly, including where they beat us.
On the Mac, AddToPDF requires macOS 11 (Big Sur) or later and runs natively on both Apple Silicon and Intel Macs. On iPhone and iPad it requires iOS or iPadOS 14 or later.
Yes. AddToPDF is available for iPhone and iPad as well as Mac. It is an Apple Universal Purchase, so a single $2.99 purchase covers all three — if you already bought the Mac app, the iPhone and iPad version costs nothing extra. The two versions are not identical; the table above shows exactly what differs.
On iPhone and iPad, yes. AddToPDF uses Apple's built-in document scanner, so it detects page edges and corrects perspective automatically. Scanning several pages in one pass produces a single multi-page PDF. The Mac version has no camera scanning.
Yes. From Mail, Messages, Files or any other app, tap Share and choose AddToPDF. The PDF opens in the app, and when you are finished you send it back out through the standard iOS share sheet.
Wherever you choose. On the Mac, AddToPDF uses the standard Save dialog. On iPhone and iPad it hands the finished PDF to the system share sheet, so you can save it to Files, mail it, or send it to any other app. Nothing is ever uploaded or synced to a server.
No, and it is not planned. AddToPDF does not perform OCR (text recognition on scanned images), so the words in a scan will not become selectable or searchable. You can still add text, sign and annotate a scanned PDF. If you need OCR, use PDFgear (free), Adobe Acrobat, PDF Expert or Foxit.
Yes — App Store purchases are covered by Apple's standard refund policy, which acts as a built-in try-it-risk-free safety net. Still stuck? Contact support.
Pay once. Use forever, on every device you own. Your files never leave them.