Working with PDFs on a Mac
Practical answers to the things people actually have to do with a PDF — reading it, marking it up, fixing the text, reordering the pages, filling the form, signing it, taking the sensitive part out and sending it on. Every one is written against Verso, and every step happens on your own Mac.
Start Here
How to open a PDF on Mac
Drag and drop, the File menu, recent documents or a double-click — and how Verso brings you back to the page you left.
How to set the default PDF app
Make a double-click in Finder open your PDFs in Verso, and change your mind again whenever you like.
What a PDF file is
Where the format came from, why a page looks identical everywhere, and why some PDFs can be searched while others cannot.
How to edit a PDF on Mac
The six things people mean by editing a PDF, what each one involves, and where to start with your document.
How to annotate a PDF on Mac
Highlights, notes, drawing, shapes, text boxes and images — plus the annotations list that lets you review your own pass.
Keyboard shortcuts
The shortcuts worth learning for reading, navigating, marking up and saving — all of them the standard Mac ones.
Settings
Light or dark, accent colour, the page layout you prefer, motion and transparency switches, and the default app setting.
Reading & Navigation
How to search inside a PDF
Find any word in a document, step through the matches, and fix the one case where a search comes back empty.
How to use tabs
One window, as many documents as you like — each keeping its own place, zoom and undo history.
How to use page thumbnails
See the shape of a document at a glance, jump anywhere in it, and act on pages straight from the sidebar.
How to use a PDF outline
Use a document's own table of contents to move around it, and know what to do when it does not have one.
How to bookmark a page
Mark the pages you keep returning to and get a list of them in the sidebar.
How to use the reading ruler
A clear band that follows your pointer and dims the rest of the page, so your eye cannot slide into the wrong line.
How to have a PDF read aloud
Verso reads the document to you, highlighting each word as it goes, with controls and a speed you set.
How to use Reading View
A distraction-free mode with a comfortable text size and a warm background, for reading rather than working.
How to change page layout and zoom
Continuous, single page, two-up, book spread and horizontal scroll — plus the zoom that suits each.
Marking Up
How to highlight text
Highlight in any colour, keep the swatches you use, and send the document on with the marks inside it.
How to underline and strike through
Emphasis that does not obscure the text, and the mark that says a line should be removed.
How to add a note
Drop a comment anywhere on a page, and know when a note is the right mark and when a text box is.
How to draw on a PDF
Three brushes in three weights, any colour and opacity, working on any page including scanned ones.
How to add shapes and arrows
Lines, arrows, rectangles and ovals in any colour and weight, for pointing at the thing you are talking about.
How to add a text box
Add a block of text anywhere on a page, including in forms that were never built to be filled in.
How to add an image
Drop a picture onto a page from a file or the clipboard, and place it where it belongs.
How to measure distances
Measure real-world distances on a drawing, with the scale set to match the document.
How to review annotations
See every mark in the document in one place, and step through your own review before sending it back.
How to delete an annotation
Remove one mark, a selection or every annotation — and understand when a mark can no longer be removed at all.
Editing Content
How to edit text in a PDF
Click into existing text and change it — the real words on the page, at a size that matches their neighbours.
How to fix a typo
Find the mistake, click into it, retype it, save. No conversion and no round trip to the original.
How to change the font
Restyle a document's text in one move — and the cases where you should not.
How to OCR a scanned PDF
Turn a scan into a document you can search, select, copy and edit — without the file leaving your machine.
What text recognition does
What recognition is, what it can and cannot do, and why the quality of the scan decides the quality of the result.
How to tell if a PDF is scanned
Three quick tests for whether a document contains real text or is a picture of a page.
How to extract text
Pull text from a region of a page onto the clipboard, or export the whole document as plain or rich text.
Organising Pages
How to organise PDF pages
The whole document as a grid of pages: drag to reorder, rotate, duplicate, extract or delete. All of it free.
How to reorder pages
Drag one page or a whole selection into place — the fastest fix for a document that came in out of order.
How to delete pages
Remove one page or a marked set of them, and the safe way to do it on a document that matters.
How to rotate pages
Turn a sideways page the right way up — for yourself, or permanently for everyone.
How to crop a PDF
Trim margins and scanner edges, on one page or the whole document, and know what cropping actually removes.
How to merge PDFs
Combine several documents into one, in the order you choose, entirely on your Mac.
How to split a PDF
Break one document into several — by page count, by range, at its own bookmarks, or into single pages.
How to extract pages
Pull the pages you need into a document of their own, leaving the original untouched.
How to insert pages
Add another document's pages at a chosen point, rather than merging whole documents end to end.
How to duplicate a page
Copy a page in place — for a repeated template, or a before-and-after pair.
How to flatten a PDF
Fix annotations permanently into the page, and understand exactly what that costs.
Forms & Signing
How to fill a PDF form
Complete a form and save it back filled — including the ones that have no real fields in them.
How to build a fillable form
Add fields other people can fill in, in a sensible order, and test it before sending it out.
How to sign a PDF
Place your signature exactly where it belongs, at the size it should be, without the document leaving your machine.
How to add a stamp
Drop Approved, Draft, Confidential or Received onto a page, exactly where you want it.
How to add a watermark
Put DRAFT or CONFIDENTIAL across every page, and know what a watermark actually achieves.
How to number pages
Add numbers to a document that has none — and get the position and starting point right.
How to add a link
Turn part of a page into a working link, to the web or to another page in the same document.
Privacy & Protection
How to redact a PDF
Remove sensitive content from a document properly, rather than drawing a rectangle over it.
What redaction removes
Why covering text does not remove it, and the four places sensitive content survives a careless redaction.
How to black out text
Black out text so that it is removed rather than hidden — and how to check.
How to remove metadata
Clear the title, author, keywords, comments and marks a document carries invisibly, before you share it.
How to password protect a PDF
Save an encrypted copy, and choose and share a password that is actually worth having.
How to keep a PDF private
What stays local, what to strip before sharing, and why uploading a document to process it is the problem rather than the solution.
Exporting & Converting
How to convert a PDF to Word
Get the content back into an editable document, with a realistic account of what survives the conversion.
How to convert a PDF to Excel
Get tabular data into a spreadsheet, and check it properly before you rely on it.
How to convert a PDF to PowerPoint
Turn a PDF back into editable slides, or into images when that is what you actually need.
How to export as images
Turn pages into pictures at the resolution you need, for slides, the web, or anywhere a PDF will not go.
How to export as text
Plain text for quoting and processing, Rich Text when a person has to read it.
How to compress a PDF
Make a document small enough to send, with control over how much quality you are prepared to lose.
How to print a PDF
Page ranges, double-sided, scaling and annotations — the print decisions that matter.
How to share a PDF
Hand a document to anything else on your Mac, after the four checks worth running first.
The Specialist Tools
How to compare two PDFs
See what actually changed between two versions, page by page, in the text and visually.
How to batch process PDFs
Set a job up once and run it across a whole folder, writing the results where you choose.
How to check accessibility
Review a document against what makes it usable with a screen reader, and find out what is missing.
How to summarise a PDF
Summarise a long document on your own machine, and know what to trust in the result.
How to ask a document a question
Ask a document a question and get an answer grounded in what it says — produced on your Mac.
Accessible PDF reading
The reading ruler, Reading View, Read Aloud and the appearance settings that make a long document manageable.
Saving & Versions
How to save a PDF
How saving works, what happens to unsaved work, and what Verso does when a file changes on disk behind your back.
How to undo changes
Undo, snapshots, and the operations that cannot be reversed — plus how to work so it never matters.
How to restore from a snapshot
Take a restore point before a big change, and go back to it when you need to.
What Premium includes
Exactly what is free forever, what Premium unlocks, and how the lock labelling works.
A short history of the PDF
Where the format came from, why it beat the alternatives, and why it has lasted.