v6.0 — Edit opens PDFs and changes them as new copies

Edit opens PDFs, and changes them as new copies. A PDF opens in Edit through the same doors a
text file uses. Its pages and bookmarks are in the side column, its page number and zoom float over
the pages, it can be laid out as a book, and Find searches it. Its tools rotate, reorder, extract
and delete pages, compress the file, clean its metadata and add or remove a password, and Fill &
Sign fills in a form and signs it from a palette over the page. Each change is written to a new PDF
beside the original; the file you opened is never modified. Word, Excel, PowerPoint, RTF, Markdown
and .txt files can be saved as PDFs too. Around the PDFs, Edit's side column gets one control, its
filter searches inside files, its folder line becomes a menu, Unified becomes one box, the sidebar's
Recents can show the folders you come back to, and the accent colour you pick reaches the whole app.

Requires macOS 26, unchanged from the 5.x line.

PDFs open in Edit

• PDFs open in Edit. ⌘O, Open in Edit on a file's right-click menu and in the Info inspector,
  the preview's Edit button and a click in Edit's file pane all open a PDF now, as do Open in Edit
  on a PDF's row in Compare's list of differences and on a copy in Organize's duplicates. The file
  you opened is never modified: rotating, reordering or deleting pages, compressing, filling and
  signing each write a new PDF beside it, so there is no Autosave switch or format bar. ⌘P prints
  its own pages. Finder's Open With does not offer SyncCloud for PDFs.
• The Text Files list is now Files, the folder's text files and its PDFs each under a heading of
  their own.
• A PDF's header has a text file's two rows. The first holds the name, then Find, Fill &
  Sign and Tools, then Expand and Close; the second says what the file is — "PDF · Letter, 8.5
  × 11 in · 42 KB · Text selectable", the paper of the page you are on. Point at "PDF" for its
  version, and right-click the name for Reveal in Browse. In a narrow column the buttons drop their
  words together before the name is cut.
• Locked and damaged PDFs say so. A PDF that needs a password asks for it — This PDF needs a
  password — and SyncCloud uses it only to open the file and doesn’t save it. One PDFKit cannot
  read says Couldn’t read this PDF., with Quick Look and Open in Preview under it, and
  one still in the cloud says it is not downloaded, with a Download button.

Reading a PDF

• Pages and Outline. With a PDF open the side column gains a Pages tab of thumbnails — click
  one to go to that page — with a Grid / List switch, kept across launches. Grid adds a
  column as the side column is dragged wider; List puts one page under another at the column's
  width, drawn sharp at that size. A PDF with two or more bookmarks gains an Outline tab that
  lists them; a click goes to the bookmark's own place on its page.
• The page number and the zoom float over the pages, in a capsule at the bottom: ‹ and › turn
  the page, − and + step through 50, 75, 100, 125, 150, 200 and 400%, and the zoom opens a menu with
  those steps and Fit Page, Fit Width and Actual Size. Every PDF opens at Fit Page. Drag the capsule
  by its grip to a corner or the middle of any edge, or right-click the grip for Move To, and it
  stays there for every PDF until you move it again; double-click the grip to put it back. In a
  narrow column it drops − and + first, then ‹ and ›, but never the page number or the zoom.
• Page layouts. Page Layout, at the foot of the zoom menu, offers Single Page, Continuous,
  Two Pages and Two Pages, Continuous, and Cover Page Separately for the two-page layouts, which
  pairs pages 2–3, 4–5 as a printed book does. In two pages the page number reads as the spread,
  "6–7", and ⌥← and ⌥→ turn a whole spread. The layout is remembered.
• The keys follow the pages. Click into the pages and ⌘+, ⌘− and ⌘0 zoom the PDF — View ▸
  Text Size reads Zoom then — and go back to the app's text size once you click into the file pane
  or the sidebar. With a PDF open, the Text menu's ⌃⌘1, ⌃⌘2 and ⌃⌘3 are Fit Page, Fit Width
  and Actual Size, with Zoom In and Zoom Out under them, and ⌃⌘L is Go to Page…. ⌘C copies
  the text you have selected, and ⌘A selects the text of the page on screen — the spread, in a
  two-page layout.
• Find in a PDF. ⌘F, or Find in the header, opens a find card in the top-right corner of the
  pages; the capsule steps aside if it is there. Matches are tinted on the pages, a phrase broken
  across two lines is still found, and so is a word hyphenated at a line end, and case and accents
  are ignored. ⌘G and ⇧⌘G step through them, ⌘E searches for what you have selected, and Esc
  puts the card away. A PDF is searched a page at a time, so a long one's count says "so far" until
  every page has been read, and Waiting for other PDF work… while a duplicate scan or other PDF
  work is ahead of it. A scanned PDF says This PDF has no text to search.

PDF Tools: every one writes a new copy

• A Tools menu over the PDF, and the same items in File ▸ PDF Tools: rotate the selected
  pages or all of them, Extract Pages…, Delete Pages…, Compress…, Clean Metadata…,
  and Protect with Password… or Remove Password…. Compress offers Best Quality, Balanced and
  Smallest File, or a size to come in under, and redraws every page as a picture, so the copy's
  text can't be selected.
• The original is never written to. Each tool writes a copy beside it that says what was done —
  "Statement (compressed).pdf", "(rotated)", "(pages removed)", "(metadata cleaned)", "(protected)",
  "(unlocked)", and for Extract the pages taken, "(pages 2–4)" — and never replaces a file already
  there. A banner says what was written, with Open in Edit and Reveal in Browse. A PDF
  locked with a password offers only Remove Password. A copy keeps the file's page labels, attached
  files and the way it opens; most tools leave out its tags for screen readers, layers and colour
  output intent, and their sheets say so when the file has any.
• Pick pages, and put them in a new order. In the Pages tab, click, ⌘-click and ⇧-click select
  pages and ⌘A selects them all; right-click a selection to rotate, delete or extract just those
  pages. Drag a page to a new place, and nothing is written until Save Reordered Copy; Reset
  Page Order puts them back. Rotating or deleting with a new order pending writes one copy that
  does both — "(reordered, rotated)". Closing the PDF, opening another file or quitting with an
  unsaved order or a tool still running asks first.
• PDF Tools in every file pane. Right-click a PDF in Browse, either Compare pane, Organize's
  pane or Edit's own for a PDF Tools submenu: Rotate All Pages, Compress…, Clean Metadata…, and
  Protect with Password… or Remove Password…, with the same sheets and copy names. Select several
  PDFs to rotate, compress or clean them as a batch: one sheet sets the options, the files go one at
  a time, a file that cannot be done is skipped with its reason, Cancel keeps the copies already
  written, and Reveal in Browse selects the new copies. File ▸ PDF Tools holds the same submenu
  for the focused pane's selection — "PDF Tools · 3 files" for several — whenever Edit is not
  showing a PDF.
• Save as PDF from a file's right-click menu. A Word, Excel or PowerPoint file, an RTF, a
  Markdown note or a .txt gets Save as PDF, where a PDF gets PDF Tools: the PDF is written
  beside it under its name — "Lease.docx" becomes "Lease.pdf", or "Lease 2.pdf" when that is taken —
  and the file itself is never changed. Markdown and text come out as the pages Edit's Print makes;
  Word, Excel and PowerPoint as macOS draws them in Quick Look, every sheet in turn and each slide
  on a page of its own, with their text selectable. A slide that is a picture has its words read by
  text recognition, so it can be searched too — every slide of a deck or only some — and the banner
  says so, and that a word may be misread. Select several for Save as PDF · 3 files: one at a
  time, with Stop, and a file that cannot be read is named in the banner. A folder you can't write
  to asks where. File ▸ Save as PDF does the same for the focused pane's selection.

Fill & Sign

• Fill & Sign, in the PDF's header, floats a palette of tools at the left of the page, and the
  page stays where it was: Select, Text, Replace, Date — today, in your Mac's short
  format with a four-digit year — Marks for ✓, ✗ and •, Signature and Initials, then
  Aa, Text Size and Ink. A tool with a small triangle opens its choices beside it. The
  palette moves like the page capsule: drag its grip to any edge or corner, or right-click its grip
  for Move To, and it stays where you put it. Drag what you placed to move it, pull its corner
  handle to resize it, press Delete to remove it, and double-click text to change it; Aa, Text Size
  and Ink change the selected item, and ⌘Z undoes. Aa sets text's font — Sans, Serif, Rounded,
  Mono or Handwritten, each shown in itself — a typed signature's face or a drawn one's pen;
  right-click an item for the same choices.
• Signatures stay on this Mac. Add Signature… types one in one of seven of the Mac's
  handwriting faces, each shown in your own name, or draws one with the trackpad or mouse — Fine,
  Medium or Bold, with Smooth out wobble, on to begin with, evening out the trackpad's jitter,
  and Undo Stroke (⌘Z) taking back the last stroke.
  Blue or Black ink is chosen in the sheet, on a pad that stays paper-white in Dark Mode. Typing a
  signature while no initials are saved can save matching initials with it. Restyling a saved
  signature on the page changes the saved one too. It is a picture of your signature, not a
  certificate-based digital one, and a saved one is kept on this Mac only — never synced, never
  written to the log.
• A PDF's own form fields. A form with fields — a W-9, a visa form — opens Fill & Sign on Form
  Fields: type into text fields, set checkboxes and radio buttons, choose from pop-ups and lists,
  and Tab and ⇧Tab move through them in the form's own order. Click a signature field to sign it,
  and the signature fits the field. A field that takes no value is tinted grey and says why when you
  point at it. Text, dates, marks and signatures are still there for what the form has no field for.
• Save Filled Copy writes a new copy — "Lease (signed).pdf", or "(filled)" with no signature or
  initials, or "(corrected)" with only corrections — and leaves the original as it was. A form stays
  fillable in the copy, in Preview, Chrome or Acrobat, with what you placed kept as annotations.
  Until you save, a pill at the top of the page counts what is unsaved, beside Discard, Save
  Filled Copy and Done, which puts Fill & Sign away, as Esc does with nothing chosen; closing
  the PDF, opening another file or quitting asks first. A form's caveats, and anything Save would
  refuse, sit in a note under the pill. File ▸ Fill & Sign and File ▸ Save Filled Copy do
  the same from the menu bar.
• Fill & Sign by keyboard alone, and with VoiceOver. File ▸ Fill & Sign Tool holds the
  palette's tools, all but Aa. With one chosen, Return places its item in the middle of the page you
  can see, selected, for the arrow keys; text takes your typing at once, and Return again places
  another just below. Tab and ⇧Tab move through what you placed, after a form's fields, signature
  fields among them, where Space or Return opens the Signature menu, or Add Signature… with none
  saved. VoiceOver reads every placed item and every field — a field by its form's own description —
  presses each one that takes a value, and tells saved drawn signatures apart by number and pen.
  Add Signature… opens on Type, and deleting a saved signature asks first.
• Replace retypes a few words on a page. Choose Replace in the palette and click a line of
  words, or drag across some, or select words and right-click for Replace Text…. A box opens
  over them, holding them, in their size and colour, and in their own font when your Mac has it; the
  line under it says "Same font" or names the stand-in. Return places the correction, Esc leaves the
  page as it was. Save Corrected Copy writes "(corrected)": the new words are drawn over a patch in
  the page's colour. The old words are still in the copy under the patch, where search and copy find
  them; the note under the pill says so and offers to make that page a picture, which takes them
  out, with the rest of that page's text. Replace says why when it can't: a page with no text, words
  on two lines, words that don't run across the page, a page whose text doesn't sit where it is
  printed, and any PDF with a fillable form.
• A PDF whose owner allows no comments, and that has no form field you may fill, gets no Fill &
  Sign, and says why — File ▸ Fill & Sign is greyed with This PDF doesn’t allow filling under
  it, and the Fill & Sign button gives the reason, with Remove Password… to write a copy without
  the restrictions. A form that allows filling but not adding to its pages fills its fields only.

The rest of Edit

• Recent files and New Note. Once you have opened a file in Edit, its page with nothing open
  lists the last ten files you opened there — text files and PDFs, through any door — with each
  one's folder and when you opened it, and a New Note button that does what ⌘N does. A click
  opens a file again and takes the file pane to its folder; right-click a row for Remove from
  Recents. A file that was deleted, or is on a disk that is not connected, is left off until it is
  back, and a file moved while open is followed. File ▸ Open Recent holds the same list in every
  workspace, with Clear Menu. A file dragged from Finder onto that page opens as Finder's Open With
  opens it; before, the drop did nothing.
• One strip for Edit's side column. The Files list can now fold on its own, into the strip at
  the left edge, and starts folded; before, it went only when the file pane took its place, or under
  Expand, which hid the sidebar too. The strip has a button for the file pane and one for each tab
  the list shows — Files, and Outline for a Markdown note; Files, Pages and, with two or more
  bookmarks, Outline for a PDF — and each opens its column or folds it, lit while it shows. View ▸
  File List (⌃⌘T) does the same.
• The file pane and the list share one width, dragged at the column's edge, from 232 to 480
  points. At its default width the file pane shows one column at a time, with a back button.
• The folder line is a menu. The folder's name, on the line under the Files list's tabs, opens a
  menu: the folders inside it on top, then each folder above it up to the top of the source, in
  Finder's path-menu order. A pick takes the file pane there, and the list follows. It lists up to
  40 subfolders, then Show All, with the folder's count — "Show All 52 in the File Pane" —
  which opens the pane on that folder.
• Search inside files. The Files list's filter gains Names | Contents under its field.
  On Contents, type a word of two letters or more: the text files in the folder and the folders
  inside it list their matching lines, each with the word lit, and below them Spotlight lists the
  PDFs, Word and PowerPoint files that contain it — whole words and the starts of words. Click a
  line and the file opens with the word selected there and Find holding it, so ⌘G goes on to the
  next; a PDF opens with its find searching for the word, and a Word or PowerPoint file opens in
  Quick Look. A file not downloaded is never downloaded to be searched; it and files over 4.2 MB
  are skipped, and the line above the results counts them. Hidden files and folders, packages and
  binary files are passed over too.
• Edit's sidebar has a switch of its own, off to begin with: ⌃⌘S in Edit no longer shows or
  hides the sidebar in Browse, Compare and Organize.
• Find Previous. Text ▸ Find Previous (⇧⌘G) steps back through the find bar's matches, in
  a text file as in a PDF.
• Typewriter Scrolling. Text ▸ Typewriter Scrolling, off to begin with, keeps the line you
  are typing at mid-height in Source — arrow keys, Return, Go to Line and the end of the file too. A
  click, the trackpad and a Find match scroll as before.
• Paper. A switch beside Autosave under the file name, and Text ▸ Paper Background, put
  Source's text on paper — white in Light Mode, dark grey in Dark Mode — and leave the window around
  it as it was. With Readable Line Length on, the paper is only the centred column and its margins;
  with Typewriter Scrolling on, it runs on into the room below the last line. Off to begin with,
  remembered, and greyed in Preview, which keeps its own look. In a column too narrow for it, the
  switch steps aside and Text ▸ Paper Background is the way to it.
• Words on Edit's header buttons. A text file's ＋, magnifying glass and × now read New Text
  File, Find and Close, and in a narrow column they drop their words together, before the
  name is cut. The "…" in the folder line under the name opens the whole path, the file's own
  folder first and ticked; before, it listed only the folders it hid. The save words on that line
  act too: "unsaved — ⌘S" saves, "not saving — couldn’t write" tries again and gives its reason
  when you point at it, and "not saving — no longer on disk" is Save Again; before, only "not
  saving — changed on disk" did anything. VoiceOver reads each by its words.
• Tooltips name their keys. Point at Find, Source, Preview, Split, Go to Line, the find card's
  arrows or the PDF capsule's page and zoom buttons, and the tooltip gives the shortcut too.
• The Files list by keyboard and menu. Tab into the Files or Outline list and the arrow keys
  move through it, Return opens and Space Quick Looks a file; Esc there, or in the Pages tab with no
  page selected, gives the keys back to the document. Return in the filter opens the first match,
  and a new folder clears the filter. A row's right-click menu adds Download for a file still in
  the cloud, and Rename and Delete, and the file name above the document offers the same
  menu. Under the reason Edit gives for a file it can't open are Quick Look and Reveal in
  Finder, after Download for a file still in the cloud and Try Again for one that kept
  changing while it was read. Reveal in Browse is greyed, saying why, for a file outside the source
  Browse shows.
• Edit in its own words. A file Edit won't open says why in Edit's words — This isn’t a text
  file, so Edit can’t open it. — and the first change to a Windows (CRLF) file says Converted to
  LF line endings — ⌘Z undoes. A typed name such as "Notes v1.2" gets .md, Markup's Link… is
  Link, Undo after a Markup verb in Source names it — "Undo Bold" — and File ▸ Export as
  PDF… names the file it exports. A save that was written but couldn't be read back to check it
  is a warning now, not a failure.
• One set of answers when a file changed on disk. The banner and the ⌘S alert both offer
  Compare…, Use Disk Version and Keep Mine…, in that order, and the comparison Compare…
  opens ends with the last two. Keep Mine… always asks before replacing the version on disk; the
  comparison's Save Anyway used to write without asking. Its column for your version is headed "In
  Edit". For a file that is gone, the ⌘S alert offers the banner's Save Again in place of Save
  Anyway: it makes the file's folder again if that went too, and writes nothing over a file that
  turned up there meanwhile, which Save Anyway did not do.
• Leaving a deleted file asks first, even with nothing typed, since the text on screen may be
  the only copy; before, it was dropped without a word. Closing it, opening another file or ⌘N
  asks Save “Notes.md” again?, and quitting asks before it goes. A file still in the Trash is not
  asked about. The question about unsaved changes reads Save your changes to “Notes.md”? wherever
  it comes from — no longer "before closing it" — and it and the quit alert say in a line why they
  ask; its Don't Save is marked as destructive.
• ⌘S on an unchanged file writes nothing. It used to write the file again, giving it a new
  date and a sync client a reason to upload it.
• Smaller fixes in Edit. With the file pane folded, ⌘X, ⌘C, ⌘V and ⌘A outside the text
  no longer act on the hidden pane — ⌘C copied the open file. Double-click Split's divider to put
  it back in the middle. The Outline scrolls to keep the heading you are in in sight, and the status
  line's Show Outline in File List opens it from any layout. An image dropped or pasted into a note
  says, on the status line, what was saved and where. A save the disk refuses gives the reason —
  "No space left on device" — not the name of a hidden staging file. A link to a file still in the
  cloud is treated as that file: Edit and the preview say it isn't downloaded and offer Download,
  where both downloaded it unasked, and PDF Tools doesn't download it either. A link to a text file
  over Edit's limit is refused as too large.
• Help, menus and keys catch up with Edit. ⌘? opens Help at the page for the workspace you
  are in, not at setup — and, with a PDF open, at a new page, Read, fill and sign a PDF, which
  holds what Edit's page said about PDFs. Holding ⌥ shows the keys on the format bar, Source,
  Preview and Split, Go to Line, the PDF's page, zoom and find buttons, the empty page's buttons and
  the comparison's Cancel. View ▸ Preview is now View ▸ File Preview, so Text ▸ Preview is the
  only Preview. ⌘K finds Edit by "pdf", "sign" or "fill"; Voice Control answers to "Click Find",
  "Click Tools" and "Click Close"; and Help's search finds "doesn’t" when you type "doesn't".
• Ticking a box in Preview is quick in a long note. With Edit in Preview off, or in a note over
  256 KB, a tick rewrote and compared the whole note; it now changes only its own line. The last
  task in a 200 KB note went from 35 ms to 0.2 ms, and in a 4 MiB note from 808 ms to 3.7 ms.

Unified is one box

• One outline round the window. Unified — Settings ▸ Appearance ▸ Content surface — drew each
  area as its own box, a gutter apart, so it read as Cards drawn with hairlines. It now draws one
  outlined region round everything under the toolbar, with a hairline wherever two areas meet: the
  sidebar, the inspector, the panes, Compare's Differences, and Edit's strip, list and document.
  Cards is unchanged.
• Organize and Compare's Differences follow the same rule. Every Organize section, Storage
  included, and Compare's Differences area kept their Cards shape in Unified — a header box and a
  content box a gutter apart — so switching styles changed the panes and not the area beside them.
  Each column with a header over content now draws it one way: a card per section in Cards, a
  hairline under the header in Unified.
• Organize's header lines up with the pane's. With the pane showing a tab strip — two tabs, or
  View ▸ Tab Bar — the header of the Organize section beside it sat one strip higher than the
  pane's. It now lines up, in both styles and at every text size.

Your accent colour, everywhere

• The accent colour reaches the whole app. With an Accent color other than None in Settings ▸
  Appearance, Settings' text-size tiles, Help, the guided setup, hover highlights, the Go to list's
  selected row, Compare Copies' swipe divider and every filled button draw in it; before, they kept
  the Mac's own accent. Filled buttons and Edit's lit controls use a deeper shade of it, so a white
  label on them stays readable — filled buttons at None too.

Recents, Revisited, Frequent

• Recents can show the folders you come back to, or the ones you use most. Point at the Recents
  heading in the sidebar and an icon appears beside the arrow; each click moves the heading on —
  Recents, then Revisited, folders you spent a few seconds in on two or more different days,
  newest first, then Frequent, the folders you have stayed in most often, most first. Folders
  you only clicked through, or passed with Back and Forward, do not count, and coming back within
  five minutes is the same visit. Both look back 90 days and count older visits for less, so a
  folder you have stopped using drops off. At most eight rows. The icon stays lit in the accent
  outside plain Recents, and the choice is remembered across launches. Both lists start empty and
  fill from visits made after the update. Recents lists the same folders as before, now each with
  its source's name, and the folders ⌘K offers are unchanged.

Around the app

• Tooltips come sooner, and more controls have one. A tooltip now shows after 0.3 seconds
  rather than the Mac's 1.5, and controls that had none — a search field's ✕ and a banner's ✕ among
  them — now say what they do.
• The document survey's Resume now and Start over do what they say. Resume now, offered while
  reading waits on a scan, a file copy, a Mac running hot or Low Power Mode, left the survey paused
  until that cleared by itself; it now reads on past what was holding it, and anything new still
  pauses it. Start over resumed instead of starting over; it now asks first, then reads every
  document again. The line on every Organize lens no longer offers a Stop that did nothing for an
  interrupted survey — it offers Resume, and says Resume now where the card does.