Yes. Open the PDF in the Preview app on your iPhone. You can highlight, underline or strike through text, add text, shapes and signatures, and add, delete, rotate, move or crop pages. Apple’s guide lists no way to change text already printed in the PDF. For that you need a dedicated editor.

A PDF shows up and needs a few changes. A page has to go, a line needs highlighting, one scan came in sideways. None of that needs a subscription.

edit pdf on iphone

Edit a PDF on iPhone: What Preview Can and Can’t Do

What can Preview do to a PDF on iPhone?

At a glance

Cost
Free, forever
Account
None needed
App Store
No install
Runs on
iPhone, via Shortcuts

Apple’s Preview guide for iPhone covers iOS 26 and iOS 27. This table maps each job to where it lives, and to the longer guide when one exists.

You want to In Preview Longer guide
Highlight, underline, strike through Select text, tap Highlight Covered below
Add text, shapes, stickers Markup button Covered below
Sign Markup button, signature Sign a PDF on iPhone
Add, delete, rotate, move pages Page thumbnails Covered below
Crop a page Crop control on the page Crop a PDF on iPhone
Join several PDFs Not covered here Merge PDF files on iPhone
Make the file smaller Not covered here Compress a PDF on iPhone
Rewrite existing text Not in Apple’s guide Needs a full editor

How do I open a PDF in Preview?

  1. Open the Preview app.
  2. Use Recents, Shared or Browse to find the file.
  3. Tap the file.

If someone emails you a PDF form, tap the attachment in Mail and it opens in Preview. Apple’s guide says you can then reply to the sender and attach the completed form.

How do I highlight or annotate a PDF on iPhone?

  1. Touch and hold the first word, then drag the grab points to select text.
  2. Tap Highlight.
  3. Pick a color, or tap the underline or strikethrough button.

The same selection lets you tap Copy and paste the text into another app.

For text boxes, shapes and stickers, tap the markup button and choose one. On images you can also add a description or a loupe. To undo, tap the menu button, then Undo.

Signing has a few quirks of its own, so it has its own post: sign a PDF on iPhone with Markup.

How do I add or delete pages?

  1. Open the PDF and tap the page count to show thumbnails. If the count is missing, tap the PDF.
  2. Touch and hold a thumbnail.
  3. Choose Insert Blank Page, Insert from File, Scan Pages or Delete Page.

Scan Pages adds a paper page straight from the camera. It is a quick way to build one PDF from a printout and a file.

How do I rotate, move or crop a page?

Rotate: open the page menu and tap Rotate Left or Rotate Right.

Move: touch and hold a thumbnail until the menu appears, then drag it above or below another page.

Crop: scroll to the page, drag the blue handles around the area to keep, and tap Crop. If Crop does not appear, tap inside the selected area. The full walkthrough, with the other ways to trim a page, is in how to crop a PDF on iPhone.

What can’t Preview do?

Preview marks up a PDF and rearranges its pages. Apple’s guide for annotating and page edits does not include rewriting the text already on the page. For that you still need a full editor.

Two jobs tend to follow an edit. To join files, see merge PDF files on iPhone. To shrink a heavy one for an upload or an email, see compress a PDF on iPhone.

No PDF yet? Print to PDF on iPhone makes one from a web page or email, and converting a PNG to PDF does the same for an image.

Where does Grabio fit?

Grabio is a free Apple Shortcut, and it does not edit PDFs. Preview does that. Grabio picks up the jobs around the edit: its Compress PDF option runs on your phone with nothing uploaded, and its Merge PDFs option hands off to PDF24 in your browser because iOS cannot merge locally.

It is free, with no account. Get the Shortcut if you want those two.

Frequently asked questions

How do I edit a PDF on iPhone for free?

Open it in the Preview app. You can highlight text, add text, shapes and signatures, and add, delete, rotate, move or crop pages. Nothing to install or pay for.

Can I change the existing text in a PDF on iPhone?

Apple’s Preview guide covers annotating and page edits, not rewriting existing text. For that you need a dedicated PDF editor.

How do I delete a page from a PDF on iPhone?

Open the PDF in Preview, tap the page count to show thumbnails, touch and hold the page you want gone, and tap Delete Page.

How do I rotate a page in a PDF on iPhone?

Open the PDF in Preview and use the page menu to tap Rotate Left or Rotate Right.

I do not see Preview on my iPhone. What now?

Apple’s Preview guide covers iOS 26 and iOS 27, so check which version you run. Markup in the Files app still annotates a PDF. The steps are in sign a PDF on iPhone with Markup.