What does Better PDF cost?

Reading, filling forms and signing with a certificate or USB token are free for good. Pro is one payment with no subscription: $9.99 for the first 100 buyers, $19.99 up to 500 and $29.99 after that.

Which Macs does it run on?

Better PDF needs macOS 26 or later and runs on Apple silicon and Intel Macs. The first launch gives you seven days of full Pro with no account and no card.

Does anything leave my Mac?

Your documents never do, and there is no account, no analytics and no crash upload. The direct download checks for updates once a day, which you can turn off, and time-stamps, if you turn them on, send only a hash.

Better PDF 1.0: read it, sign it, done

Most PDFs on a Mac need three things: to be read, to be filled in, and to be signed. The viewer that comes with a Mac does the first two well enough and stops short of signing with a certificate. The big suites do all of it, usually with a subscription and an account. Better PDF is the app in between: native, quiet, and free for the parts everybody needs.

The first release is out today, version 0.1.0. Here is what it does.

Read without glare

Documents open as tabs in one window. Find (⌘F) shows every match, bookmarks are written into the PDF’s own outline, and the sidebar keeps pages, bookmarks and comments one click away.

There are four ways to look at a page: light, dark, night reading (⇧⌘N), which darkens only the page and keeps its colours, and an e‑ink mode built for Boox, Dasung and Kindle Scribe screens. We wrote about why we built the e‑ink mode separately.

Fill any form

Real form fields fill themselves: type, go to the next field, and a progress bar counts the required ones. Flat, scanned forms have no fields at all, so in Fill & Sign you click where the answer goes and type. Nothing is drawn over the printed text, and what you typed stays movable and editable.

Scanned? Still searchable

Open a scan and Better PDF offers to recognise it. Apple Vision reads the pages on your Mac; nothing is uploaded. The text becomes selectable, copyable and searchable in seconds, and the original file is never modified. File › Save a Digital Copy… writes a new PDF with an invisible text layer, so Spotlight and other PDF apps see real text too. Recognition on the Mac is part of Pro.

Sign it

Drag a box where the signature goes, then draw or type your name, or pick a keychain certificate, smart card or USB token. Certificate signatures are written as PAdES in an incremental update. An RFC 3161 time-stamp is optional, in Settings › Signing.

When you open a signed PDF, Better PDF checks its signatures on your Mac and lists them in the Signatures panel. The details are in Certificate signing in Better PDF.

Free, and Pro

Reading, filling, signing and verifying, basic annotation and the page tools are free, for good. Pro is a single payment with no subscription: $9.99 for the first 100 buyers (the founder price), $19.99 up to 500, $29.99 after that. One purchase covers Mac, iPhone and iPad. It adds:

editing text and images in place, with the font matched and embedded on save,
signature styles, for how a signature looks: logos, text lines, fonts and date formats,
recognising scanned pages and saving a digital copy,
redaction, password protection and PDF to Word, which arrived after launch,
the Mineral and Gallery themes and every icon pack.

The first launch gives you seven days of full Pro, no account and no card.

Nothing leaves your Mac

There is no account, no analytics and no crash upload. The direct download checks betterpdf.co once a day for updates and sends no system profile; you can turn that off in Settings › General. Time-stamps, if you turn them on, send only a hash. When something goes wrong, Help › Diagnostics… builds a zip you read before you send it yourself.

Get it

Better PDF needs macOS 26 or later. Download it from betterpdf.co, or wait for the Mac App Store edition: same app, same price, with Family Sharing. The direct download also signs with USB tokens that need a PKCS#11 driver, such as the Watchdata ProxKey.

Since launch

Several things that were still on the list when this post first went up are in the app now. Scan mode uses your iPhone as the camera, or photos you drop in, and turns them into one searchable PDF. Redaction removes text and images from the file itself, not just from view. The Tools window converts a PDF to Word, images, text, Markdown or CSV on your Mac, with Word as part of Pro. Better PDF for iPhone and iPad is free, with Lens for scanning.

What is still coming: converting Word, PowerPoint and Excel files into PDF, and iOS Pro. Every change lands on the release notes page, and the steps for signing are in Help: Sign with a certificate or USB token.

Questions people ask

What does Better PDF cost?: Reading, filling forms and signing with a certificate or USB token are free for good. Pro is one payment with no subscription: $9.99 for the first 100 buyers, $19.99 up to 500 and $29.99 after that.
Which Macs does it run on?: Better PDF needs macOS 26 or later and runs on Apple silicon and Intel Macs. The first launch gives you seven days of full Pro with no account and no card.
Does anything leave my Mac?: Your documents never do, and there is no account, no analytics and no crash upload. The direct download checks for updates once a day, which you can turn off, and time-stamps, if you turn them on, send only a hash.