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UPDF is a PDF editor by Superace Software Technology Co., Ltd available on iPadOS, iOS, Android, macOS, and Windows. At $29.99 per year or a one-time purchase of $49.99, it’s the most affordable PDF editor we’ve encountered. Even without discounts, it’s still the cheapest option. We’re always thrilled to find cost-effective tools that help reduce monthly expenses. With a single premium account, you can access the app on two desktops and two mobile devices. This review focuses on the macOS version.
UPDF is a minimalist PDF editor, which is refreshing. It avoids the clutter found in many PDF readers and editors. The app has two main functions: PDF reading (or annotation) and PDF editing. The intuitive user interface makes it easy to get started.
UPDF allows you to edit text in your PDFs by adding, removing, or modifying content. You can change the font, size, color, and alignment of the text, and even make it bold or italic. Depending on the document, you can also move text to different locations or adjust paragraph widths.
The app also lets you edit images within your PDFs. You can rotate, crop, resize, or replace images, and the same editing options apply to both newly added images and those already in the document. Additionally, UPDF allows you to extract images or add them from other PDFs, which is impressive.
One of the standout features is the ability to create hyperlinks, something not all note-taking apps or PDF readers offer. Initially, creating hyperlinks in UPDF can be tricky, as the app requires you to know the page number you want to link to. While this might seem cumbersome, especially with longer PDFs, you can quickly adapt by calculating the correct page numbers.
You can also link to websites and make your links either visible or invisible. For visible links, there are options to underline, add a rectangle around the link, or customize the link’s thickness and color. Navigating hyperlinks is straightforward, and the app allows easy return to the previous page, which is a feature we love.
UPDF also supports adding watermarks, either as text, images, or PDFs. You can customize your watermark’s orientation, font, alignment, color, and opacity, and you can place it in front of or behind the document’s content. Editing and removing watermarks is simple.
A unique feature in UPDF is the ability to change the background color of your PDFs, using either a solid color, an image, or another PDF as the background. You can adjust the background’s size and opacity, making your PDFs more visually appealing.
Headers and footers are also customizable, with options to add dates, page numbers, or custom text. You can place these in various locations on the page and customize their font, color, and size. Page numbers offer different style options, although adding these elements can sometimes cause the app to lag.
Annotation in UPDF adds to the document without altering its content. Accessing the table of contents can be tricky due to the icon’s placement and appearance. While bookmarks and outlines help navigate PDFs, the table of contents should be easier to locate. We also encountered a bug where navigating the contents page in large documents didn’t work properly, which we hope the developers will fix.
UPDF’s annotation tools allow you to highlight, strikeout, and underline text. The tools are easy to select, and you can choose from preset colors or customize your own. However, it would be more convenient if the tools remained selected for multiple uses.
The app offers two types of text boxes: one with a border and one without. Both allow you to change the text’s color, font, and size. UPDF supports custom fonts, though scrolling through them can be tedious. An option to search for fonts would be helpful.
Callouts, which are text boxes with arrows pointing to specific parts of your PDF, are easy to adjust and have similar features to regular text boxes. While border thickness options would be a welcome addition, the current features are still useful.
The app also includes a writing tool and eraser, which are more practical on tablets. You can add shapes like rectangles, ovals, and irregular shapes, with options to adjust border color, thickness, and opacity. The ability to auto-fill shapes and adjust their opacity adds versatility to your annotations.
UPDF includes a variety of stickers, although they can’t be rotated, and they may pixelate when enlarged. The app also has stamps, which are like customizable stickers, but they currently lack rotation options. You can create custom stamps by importing images or PDFs.
UPDF allows you to save up to four signatures. While we generally don’t recommend saving digital signatures for security reasons, the app provides options to create signatures by typing or handwriting. Editing existing signatures would be a nice feature to have.
Comments, which are labeled as sticky notes in the app, can be added to all your annotations. Unlike traditional sticky notes, these comments are indicated by a small icon and only appear when hovered over. This feature is great for recording thoughts or ideas without cluttering the document.
UPDF’s search engine is fast and can search through both native PDFs and scanned documents. The app highlights your search terms and provides previews in the right sidebar, making it easy to find what you’re looking for. The app also supports OCR, allowing you to interact with scanned documents as if they were native PDFs, though editing scanned PDFs is not supported on macOS.
The app offers robust page editing features, including inserting blank pages, replacing pages, and extracting pages. You can even split a document into smaller ones, with UPDF organizing the split documents into a single folder for easy management.
Security features in UPDF allow you to lock documents with a password and encrypt them with various options. You can also lock permissions to prevent changes to the document’s security settings. We tested this by trying to open a locked document in another PDF reader, and UPDF successfully restricted access to printing, inserting blank pages, and rotating the document.
UPDF offers several export options, including the ability to convert PDFs to nine different formats. The app’s conversion to Excel was particularly impressive, producing accurate results.
The app also allows you to share PDFs online, with options to set expiration dates and restrict copying, downloading, or printing. While UPDF doesn’t currently offer real-time collaboration, these features suggest that collaboration may be added in the future.
A standout feature in UPDF is the presentation mode, which eliminates the need for a separate app to present PDFs. In this mode, the user interface disappears, allowing your audience to focus on the presentation. The app includes a laser pointer and pens for highlighting, with a presenter view that shows elapsed time and the next slide.
UPDF supports batch processing, allowing you to work on multiple documents at once. You can convert, merge, or encrypt multiple documents, making it a powerful tool for managing large PDF collections.
The app syncs across all your devices via UPDF cloud, regardless of the operating system, which is great for users who work across different platforms. However, the lack of folders makes document organization difficult, especially as your collection grows.
Overall, UPDF offers excellent value for its price, with a wide range of features that make it our favorite PDF editor. While there are areas for improvement, such as the outline feature and the addition of true dark mode, UPDF is a solid choice for anyone looking for a reliable PDF editor. We also hope to see collaboration features added in the future, as they would make this already impressive app even better for team workflows.
