PDF Expert

If your PDF work is mostly reading, annotating, signing and the occasional bit of real text editing, PDF Expert is the app that makes Acrobat look slow and overbuilt. Big scanned documents scroll without stuttering, the annotation tools behave the way a Mac app should, and page management is drag-and-drop rather than a panel of dialogs. OCR and redaction are there when you need them, which for most people is a few times a year.

The licence needs reading carefully. Readdle wants you on a weekly or annual plan, and the one-time option sits at the end of the pricing page rather than in front of you. It is real, and it covers the Mac app forever, but the same card says new features may cost extra later. In practice you are buying today's app with today's feature set.

Two reasons to hold off. The one-time price bounces around so much that paying list is close to careless — it spends a lot of the year discounted by roughly half. And if you also want this on an iPad, the one-time licence does not stretch there, so the maths changes completely. For light annotation only, Preview is still free and already installed.