[Latest] 3 Best Google Docs PDF Editors

PDF is a popular file format for sharing documents, as it effectively preserves the format and layout. However, there are occasions when we need to edit the content of PDFs. Since Google Docs is a feature-rich tool to create and edit text documents, many wonder how to edit PDFs with Google Docs. To help ease this hassle, this article is going to cover the top 3 Google Docs PDF Editors you can use to edit PDFs. So, let's get started right away.

Part 1. Does Google Docs Have a PDF Editing Tool?

Unfortunately, Google Docs does not have any built-in PDF editing tool. You cannot just simply upload a PDF to Google Docs and make the edits.

However, when you upload a PDF file to Google Drive and then open the uploaded PDF with Google Docs, it will convert your PDF into editable text format. But this process badly compromises the formatting, layout, and text style.

In short, you don't get a direct way to edit PDFs in Google Docs unless you use a third-party extension.

Part 2. 3 Best Google Docs PDF Editors You Can Try

Over the years, users have found different ways and tools to edit PDFs in Google Docs. So, we have shortlisted three PDF editors you can use to make the edits.

Since your purpose is to edit the content of the PDF, it is recommended to use a more powerful alternative to edit the PDF. UPDF is a comprehensive desktop PDF editor with numerous editing and annotating features. With UPDF, you can fulfill all your basic to advanced PDF editing needs under one roof. To learn more, read the next part or download UPDF immediately to test its powerful editing features.

Let's now shed light on the three best Google Docs PDF editors:

1. Google Docs via Google Drive

As mentioned earlier, Google Docs does not include a built-in PDF editing feature, but you can use Google Drive to make Google Docs edit the PDF. What you have to do is first upload the PDF to Google Drive and then open the PDF with Google Docs. The Google Docs will convert the PDF into an editable file, which you can edit right away. Once the editing is completed, you can download the file as a PDF again.

Although the Google Drive PDF editor approach looks simple and easy to use, there are some cons with this method:

Follow the below steps to use Google Docs PDF Editor:

1. Go to the Google Drive website through your browser and log in.
2. Click Upload > File upload and choose the PDF file you want to edit.

3. Once the PDF is uploaded, right-click the PDF and click Open with > Google Docs. Your PDF will open in Google Docs as an editable file.

4. Start doing the edits.
5. Once the editing is completed, click File > Download > PDF Document to download the file back as PDF.

This way, you can use the free PDF editor approach of Google Drive to edit PDFs.

2. pdfFiller Extension

The next Google Docs PDF editor in our list is pdfFiller. It is a well-known online PDF editor tool that provides all the essential PDF editing features you need. It also offers a Google Chrome extension, allowing you to open the PDF file from Google Drive directly in pdfFiller for editing.

Although pdfFiller extension is a much better PDF editor compared to editing the PDF directly through Google Docs, there are still some cons, as follows:

If you want to give pdfFiller extension a try, follow the below steps:

1. Install the pdfFiller extension on Chrome.
2. Open Google Drive, right-click the PDF you want to edit, and click Open with > pdfFiller.

3. Once the PDF opens in pdfFiller, use its editing features to make the edits.

4. After editing, click the "Download" button.

This way, you can edit a PDF easily with the pdfFiller extension.

3. DocHub Extension

Last in our list of Google Docs PDF editors is the DocHub tool. It is also an online tool that allows you to do basic edits, annotate, and sign PDFs. You can install its extension and use it to open the PDF file from Google Drive and make the edits. However, DocHub also comes with some limitations, as follows:

Follow the below steps to use DocHub Extension to edit PDF:

1. Install the DocHub extension on Chrome.

2. Open Google Drive, right-click the PDF you want to edit, and click Open with > DocHub.

3. Once the PDF opens in DocHub, use its editing and annotating features to make the edits.

4. After customizing the PDF, click the "Download" button.

This way, you can do basic edits on PDFs with the DocHub extension for Google Drive.

Part 3. The Best Alternative to Google Docs PDF Editor

All the above Google Drive PDF editors can help you in editing PDFs, but none of them offers a complete and powerful editing experience. That's why they are not helpful for deeper PDF editing. To address this concern, UPDF serves as the best alternative to Google Docs. Let's download it to access the edit feature for free now.

UPDF is a desktop-based, AI-powered PDF editor providing an all-in-one platform for basic to advanced PDF editing. With UPDF, you can edit text, images, links, headers/footers, backgrounds, and almost all other elements of PDFs. Below are the top-notch editing features you can get with UPDF:

• Edit Text: You can add or edit existing text, including properties like font, style, color, size, etc.
• Edit Images: You can add, remove, crop, rotate, or replace images in the PDF.
• Edit Background: You can change the background and headers/footers.
• Add Watermark: You can add watermarks to PDFs.
• Annotate: You can highlight, underline, draw, mark, add comments, insert stickers/stamps, and do other annotations.

All the above features of UPDF are accessible through its intuitive user interface, which is easy to use for non-technical users as well. Furthermore, it is compatible with Windows, Mac, Android, and iOS, which means no need to upload PDFs online. Below are the five simple steps to edit PDF with UPDF:

Step 1. Download, install, and launch UPDF and open the PDF to edit.

Step 2. Click the "Edit PDF" icon from the left sidebar.

Step 3. Click the text you want to edit and start customizing it. To add new text, click the "Text" icon from the top and add new text.

Step 4. Double-tap the image you want to edit and use the small pop-up window to make the changes.

Step 5. To highlight, draw, or do other annotations, click the "pencil" icon from the left sidebar and choose the relevant annotation option.

That's it! This way, UPDF provides comprehensive editing and annotating capabilities in one central place. Besides that, UPDF capabilities are not limited to just PDF editing. Below are some of the additional features you can get with UPDF:

• Convert PDFs: It can convert PDFs to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, RTF, image, text, CSV, and more.
• UPDF AI: It includes a ChatGPT-based AI assistant to interact with PDFs and ask it to summarize, translate, explain, etc.
• Compress PDFs: It can reduce the size of PDFs with one click.
• Merge PDFs: It can merge multiple PDFs and images into a single PDF file.
• Organize PDFs: It can rearrange, add, remove, crop, slip, and extract pages in a PDF.
• OCR: Its OCR technology can convert scanned PDFs into editable PDFs.

In short, UPDF is the most powerful and feature-rich PDF editor tool you need for almost any PDF-related needs. So, download UPDF and experience the advanced way of editing PDFs.

Part 4. Extended Reading: Why Google Docs Cannot Edit PDFs Without Altering the Formatting

One of the main reasons why Google Docs cannot edit PDFs without altering the formatting is that the file formats of Google Docs and PDFs are different.

PDF format is meant to preserve the document's format, fonts, and layout by preventing users from editing the file easily. On the other hand, Google Docs is meant to create and edit documents. So, when you upload a PDF to Google Docs, it converts the PDF format to make it editable. This conversion process alters the formatting, even changing the font, layouts, tables, etc.

Furthermore, some PDFs have used custom fonts, complex illustrations, or precise positioning of elements. So, Google Docs will be unable to retain those precise positions during the conversion process. In short, Google Docs does not have a built-in capability to edit PDF files within the PDF format, so the conversion process leads to altering the formatting.

Conclusion

Editing a PDF through Google Docs is a common question, considering the widespread use of Google Docs. Therefore, you can fulfill this request using the Google Docs PDF editors discussed above. However, most of them have some limitations and cons associated with them. So, the alternative and the recommended solution is to use the UPDF PDF editor.

As a desktop-based editor, UPDF provides extensive features for editing text, images, and other elements of the PDF. Besides that, you can also do annotations, conversions, compressions, and more. To wrap up, download UPDF and effectively make the required edits to your PDF.