How to Edit PDF in Illustrator for Mac (macOS Sierra Included)

Adobe illustrator is one of the oldest yet most famous programs to create and edit graphical images such as fonts, posters and cards. If you have already created an image but it is saved in the PDF file, you can import the image to Adobe illustrator on Mac and can edit PDF in illustrator. Although the Adobe illustrator will not provide features of a PDF editing program, but it will still let you edit the text or images present in the particular poster or pamphlet. Here's the detailed guide on how to edit PDF in illustrator.

Part 1. How to Edit PDF with Illustrator for Mac Alternative
Part 2. How to Edit PDF with Adobe Illustrator (Mac)

Part 1How to Edit a PDF File without Illustrator for Mac

Before jumping into Adobe illustrator, there are tons of other programs which can help you to edit PDF on Mac OS X. A good PDF editor should let you edit any text or the image present in the PDF file and that’s what Wondershare PDFelement for Mac can do in frictions of seconds. With the minimalistic user-interface, this simple program provides plenty of features to read, edit or convert the PDF files to required formats.

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The powerful PDF editor will let you edit any text present in the PDF file and you can even change the styling of the text to match with the destination formatting.
You can even edit Images present in the PDF file. Looking for a way to add new comment, text or a particular shape on the PDF file, this can also be done.
In Addition to the basic level PDF editing, PDFelement for Mac also provides the professional PDF editing features such as OCR which is useful to edit any non-editable scanned PDF file on your computer.
It will force the text in the scanned PDF file to convert to the editable text which can either be changed in PDFelement or you can import the document to Doc, Docx to edit it on Microsoft Word on your computer.

For Mac user, here is a step by step tutorial to edit PDF with PDFelement for Mac. Editing PDF with this Illustrator for Mac alternative is quite easy and professional. For Windows users, you can visit the Wondershare PDFelement for Windows.

Step 1: Open PDF

Go to Launchpad and open PDFelement on your Mac. Press [Command + O] and select the PDF files that you want to edit. Alternatively, you can also click on the "Open File" button on the screen.

Step 2: Edit PDF Text and Images

Click on the "Edit" button and you will be able to edit any text or image on the PDF file. In order to edit text, double tap on the text and use the cursor to change the text.
Similarly, double tap on the image and you can resize the images. If you want to replace, extract, rotate or crop the Image in PDF file, you can double click the image and a window with options will open.

You can also click on other elements displayed in the "Edit" tab, including the font, font size, color etc.

Step 3: Edit PDF Pages

This option will let you perfectly re-arrange the PDF pages. You can delete the PDF pages, change their rotation, replace them with the new pages, extract them from the PDF file or can crop them.

All such options will be present on the right side of the screen. By clicking on an appropriate option, you will see a new window to perform functions on the PDF file.

Step 4: Edit PDF Annotations

Click on the "Markup" and the edit bar will be replaced by new functionalities, here you can add new links to PDF, edit existing links, add notes, highlight the text or add stamps to the PDF file.

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Part 2How to Edit a PDF in Adobe Illustrator for Mac

Open Adobe Illustrator on your computer and import the PDF file to edit. Once the PDF file is imported in the program, click on the "Advance Tools Palette" and select Text tool or Touchup Object tool.
The next step is editing the page, Double tap on the screen and the "Edit Page" option will pop-up on the screen. Make sure that you haven't selected any image or text on the PDF file.
Now, the whole PDF page will be divided into different blocks which will act like an image, you can edit individual block of the PDF file. You can also select the text and replace with the new text. Similarly, the images can be edited in the PDF file.

Limitations of Using Adobe Illustrator to Edit PDF:
As mentioned above, Adobe illustrator is not a proper PDF editor, so, it lacks a plenty of features to edit the PDF file.

First of all, if your PDF file has more than one page, all the pages will be opened in different layers which make it really hard to find the required page.
Secondly, you cannot perform the OCR feature on the PDF file to edit text in the scanned document.
Thirdly, the interface of the program is very complicated and the person without any prior knowledge will not be able to use Adobe illustrator.
Lastly, if your PDF file is locked or have certain permissions, you cannot add it in Adobe Illustrator.