Acrobat Reader, Xodo, iLovePDF, Adobe Scan and Foxit compared for iPhone — annotate, sign, merge, scan, compress and convert PDFs, with the free limits mapped.
A contract arrives by email at 9 p.m., it is 4 MB too heavy to send back, and the printer has been offline since March. Phone PDF editing now handles the whole chain: highlight and annotate, merge two documents, compress the file, or convert it to Word in a few taps. What changes from app to app is how much of that chain is allowed before a subscription screen appears, and whether you are editing the original text or merely drawing on top of it. The five apps in this guide cover the format's reference reader, the most generous free editor, a conversion specialist, a scanner and a professional tool, so the right answer depends on which job repeats most often.
Xodo does free nearly everything Acrobat charges for — annotation, signing, forms, plus merge, split and page reordering — with a fast viewer.
It is the most generous free alternative to Acrobat: read, highlight, fill in forms and sign, then merge, split and reorder pages without being pushed to subscribe for the basics. The viewer stays responsive even with documents running to hundreds of pages, and it works offline, which matters for marking up on a flight. The limits are clear: editing the document's original text is only partially supported, the interface is less polished than Acrobat's, and a few advanced tools sit behind payment.
Acrobat Reader is the format's own reference — it opens practically any PDF, and reading, highlighting, form filling and signing are free; editing text costs.
The benchmark reader does for free what most people actually need: open odd documents reliably, comment, highlight, fill in forms and sign with a signature drawn once and reused. Changing the PDF's text or exporting it to Word requires a subscription. Beyond the paywall, the app itself is fairly heavy, and it promotes that subscription insistently on screens where you only wanted to read.
iLovePDF, from the Spanish company behind the website, dominates conversions — Word, compression, merge, split, JPG export — through a pick-a-tool flow.
It is the app version of the well-known service, and conversion is where it leads: PDF to Word, Word to PDF, compress, merge, split, export to JPG or add a watermark, with a camera scanner and document signing thrown in. The "pick a tool, drop the file" workflow is hard to beat for a one-off job, and compression shrinks heavy PDFs without wrecking image quality at the medium setting. Free use is capped per day, some conversions run on the company's servers rather than the phone, and premium tools require a subscription.
Adobe Scan turns phone photos of paperwork into clean, recognised PDFs — perspective correction, background cleanup and strong OCR, free without watermarks.
The best free document scanner in the group uses Adobe imaging technology to deliver top image quality and excellent OCR, turning photographed text into text that is editable and searchable. It corrects perspective, cleans the background, exports to PDF and connects into the Acrobat ecosystem, all without watermarks. A free Adobe account is mandatory, OCR needs an internet connection, and deeper editing afterwards still depends on Acrobat's paid features.
Foxit PDF Editor is one of few mobile apps that edits the document's original text, with page reordering, password protection and Office export in a light build.
The established professional alternative to Adobe offers a mobile editor that is noticeably lighter than Acrobat yet capable of direct text editing, page reordering, password protection, permissions and export to Office formats. It is popular in corporate settings for balancing professional features against a lower price. Full editing still requires a subscription, the interface is less intuitive on first contact, and some free features add a watermark to the result.
Pros
Edit text directly inside the PDF
Lighter than Acrobat
Password protection and permissions
Cons
Full editing requires a subscription
Interface is less intuitive at first
Watermark on some free features
Download price only. In-app purchases and subscriptions may cost extra.
Questions & answers
Can you edit the text of a PDF for free on a phone?
Changing the original text is the feature nearly every app keeps behind a paid plan, Adobe Acrobat included. What you can do for free is annotate, highlight, strike through, add text boxes on top, fill in forms and sign, which covers most real situations. Xodo is the most generous of the free options, and Foxit is the one to look at if genuine in-place editing is essential enough to justify a subscription.
How do I reduce the size of a PDF so I can send it?
iLovePDF offers the most practical compression: pick the file, choose the level and wait a few seconds for a much lighter version. Remember that aggressive compression lowers the quality of images inside the document, so if the PDF contains important photos or scans, the medium level is the safer choice — small enough to email, but still legible when someone zooms in.
How do I merge several PDFs into one on my phone?
Both Xodo and iLovePDF merge files for free: select them in the order you want and generate a new document. Xodo goes further with reordering, rotating and deleting individual pages, which is a genuine help when a scan has come out backwards or in the wrong order, and it all runs on the device rather than through an upload.
Are these PDFs processed on my phone or uploaded?
It depends on the tool. Annotation, signing and page reordering happen on the device itself. Heavier conversions, such as PDF to Word, are usually processed on the company's servers, which means uploading the file. If the document contains confidential information, check the app's privacy policy before running the conversion and prefer a local tool such as Xodo.
More related apps
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