Okular
Close matchFreeThe best free match for marking up PDFs. Highlights, sticky notes, stamps, shapes and form filling, with a comments sidebar.
Your files: Opens any PDF and reads annotations made in PDF-XChange.
Does PDF-XChange Editor run on Linux?
Verdict: No
No. PDF-XChange Editor is built for Windows 10 and later, with no Linux version. Free Linux readers cover the annotating, and Master PDF Editor is the paid program for real editing.
Tracker Software lists Windows 10 and later as the requirement for PDF-XChange Editor. There is no Linux build and no Mac one either.
On Windows this is a favourite because the free version already does a lot: highlighting, comments, measuring, filling forms and OCR on scanned pages. Linux splits that across a couple of programs. Okular is the closest free match for the annotation side, with highlights, notes, stamps and form filling, and its sidebar of comments works much the same way.
Editing the text inside an existing PDF is where the free tools stop. Master PDF Editor is the Linux program that does that job properly. It is paid, and its trial adds a watermark to anything you save.
Scanned page OCR is thinner on Linux than PDF-XChange makes it on Windows. That is one genuine loss and worth weighing if you work with scans every week.
Your PDFs and any annotations already saved into them open fine in the Linux readers, because those comments are stored in the file in the standard way.
What to use instead of PDF-XChange Editor
Master PDF Editor
Different way of workingPaidPaid, and the one Linux program that reliably edits the text and images already inside a PDF. The trial watermarks saved files.
Your files: Opens, edits and saves standard PDFs and interactive forms.
Xournal++
Different way of workingFreeMade for writing on PDFs by hand, which suits a graphics tablet or a touchscreen. Not a general editor.
Your files: Annotates a PDF and exports a new one with your marks baked in.
This doesn't have to stop you
One stubborn program doesn't have to decide the whole question. You can keep Windows on the same PC and restart into it only when you need PDF-XChange Editor. Everything else you do can move.
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