Make PDFpen Your Default PDF Editor on Mac

Imagine navigating life with no obstacles, no hindrances, no friction: all green lights. While that’s hard to accomplish in the real world, we can attempt to eliminate friction in the systems we use every day.

Productive people understand the value of a smooth workflow, which is why they teach their systems to work better for them. Doing so helps them stay focused and efficient as they go about their day.

How annoying is it to use Firefox but have Safari as your default browser, for example? Each time you click on a link, you have to close Safari, find Firefox, open Firefox, and copy and paste your link. That’s a whole bunch of extra steps and unnecessary hassle. 

Likewise, if you have PDFpen, you likely want to open PDF files with PDFpen and not Preview. After all, PDFpen has a bunch of features that Preview doesn’t have, and you might want to use them once you open your PDF. 

If you don’t set PDFpen as your default PDF viewer, however, you’re going to need to undo your Mac’s default action, which is opening PDFs with Preview, every single time. That’s disruptive, distracting, and inefficient.

Here’s how to make PDFpen your default app for opening PDFs.

1. Select a PDF file on your desktop or in Finder.
2. Once the file is selected, choose File > Get Info.
3. Locate the "Open With" section in the resulting window and change it to PDFpen.
4. Click the "Change All" button that appears below.

That’s it! From then on, PDFpen will be the default PDF viewer on Mac.

You might be tempted to leave changing your default PDF viewer on Mac for another day when you’re less busy. But trust us: If you don’t do this now, you might never do it. And opening PDFs will forever remain an awkward, annoying experience for you. 

So we challenge you to take action right now.

And while you’re at it, tell your Mac what your favorite browser is in case it isn’t Safari. It’s time your Mac understands your preferences. After all, tech works for you and not the other way around.