Free PDF Editor Software Roundup Discussion

The price tag on Adobe Acrobat is onerous at best and highway robbery at worst, but we shouldn't let that stop us from enjoying the benefits of the PDF format. In fact, we're so keen on getting the most out of the flexible filetype, we're rounding up five free software options for editing your own PDF files.

Read the full content of this Article: Free PDF Editor Software Roundup

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There's nothing the beat the full Acrobat package if working a lot with PDF files. Insert / delete/ replace / crop/ etc. and, one of my most used features, OCR.

However, for PDF creation another software package should be mentioned: pdfFactory. One can use this to build a PDF file of mixed content by printing to it from different applications although there's no facility to edit a PDF file once it is created. I find it easier than Acrobat for printing from graphics sources because it some simple to use image resampling and compression options. The trial version of pdfFactory is fully functional and not time-bombed but puts a small banner at the bottom of each page.

John

 

Greetings Dustin,

I write on behalf of PDFescape.

First, I would like to thank you for including PDFescape in your review of free PDF editors.

Second, I would like to challenge some of the conclusions which you've drawn:

(1) Foxit and NitroPDF's products aren't free. They are DEMO versions and with the "watermark" they leave on output PDF files, can they really be considered in a battle of free PDF editors? (PDF Hammer does allow free PDF editing without watermarks, however this is limited to page deletion, movement, and encrypting of documents, all things PDFescape can do)

(2) I'm not sure why PDF creation is being used as a metric in a comparison of PDF editors. Regardless, there are countless free PDF creators out there. This was deliberately not a focus of PDFescape. Given that it's the only product that requires no installation, I'm not sure this is really something which should be held against PDFescape.

(3) Why are the PDF specific features (and editing of them) absent from this review? No, PDFescape doesn't allow you to modify the underlying text / graphics in a PDF (but doing this isn't something that was originally intended by the PDF standard and is a pretty involved task technically, let alone in a web application). In our experience, this is a fraction of PDF editing that users need. Things like form field filling, modifying of form fields, manipulation of annotations, and addition of new content are all just as important (and available in PDFescape), if not more so, for day to day PDF use.

(4) I can understand your frustration with an area of software which has few good, free tools. We're certainly working hard to change that (and given that 3 of the other 4 pieces of software you've pitted PDFescape against are closer to evaluation versions than truly free software), we believe PDFescape is at the forefront of that.

Thank you for your review of PDFescape, we certainly hope to meet more of our customers' needs and desires.

Chris
On behalf of the creators of PDFescape

 

I had Adobe Writer 5.0 on my last laptop. I also kept up-to-date on Adobe Reader as new versions came out. However, at some point (after a few years), updating the Reader crippled my Writer. I solved this by no longer updating the Reader. But eventually the newest version was not compatible with my version and I could no longer open newer PDFs. This was very frustrating and I vowed to find a way around paying Adobe for a new version when I got a new laptop. I understand that Adobe isn't going to support old programs, but deliberately crippling them goes over the line.

My solution involves 2 programs.

The first is CutePDF which installs and functions as a printer (writer). After installation you will see CutePDF as a printer option in any program. MS Office and AutoCAD are the primarily programs for which need PDFs. Both of those programs allow you save any file as a PDF directly, but I've found printing a PDF through CutePDF to be more reliable at getting out what I put in. Additionally I can print PDFs from programs which do not have similar functionality as well.

I needed a second program because I often need to merger PDFs (a memo typed in Word plus a drawing from AutoCAD). Since CutePDF is only a printer (as far I can tell anyway) I found PDF Sam which is a simple way to merge my separate PDFs into one.

Now that I have both programs installed, they work together just as well Adobe Writer worked for me in the past. And of course both programs are free.

 

I have been using Tracker Software Products :: PDF-XChange Viewer, Free PDF Reader for some time and it works well. The portable is handy as I don't have admin privileges at work.

 

Thank you for taking the time to respond.

NitroPDF does have genuinely free, watermark free software available. The problem is that it's just a bunch of tiny, mediocre utilities instead of an actual suite.

My essential issue with so many of these programs is that in my opinion, creation and editing should be bundled together. I can't fathom why these would be separate applications yet they almost always are. Adobe's original solution is comprehensive, period.

I don't disagree, but I still think the underlying manipulation of the PDF itself - something some other solutions CAN do - should be available. Whether or not this is a difficult feature to implement isn't relevant; the end user isn't concerned with that, they're just going to look at whether one solution has it and the other does not.

I don't think it's worth arguing semantics over evaluation vs. free; if software has some limitations but can essentially be used indefinitely without paying for it, I just don't see how that's relevant. I use Avast for antiviral software on my machines; it's the "free" home version. Same with Trillian. You could argue these are evaluation versions, but it doesn't really change the fact that they work.

I'm glad that you're reaching out and willing to engage in a dialogue about your software because that speaks well of your commitment to meeting the needs of your users. I absolutely think PDFescape has potential and would like to see it live up to that potential. I just don't think it's there yet.

 

Dustin,

Did you know that there is an Open Office Extension that allows one to import and edit some types of PDF documents in Open Office Draw?

Details here:

Sun PDF Import Extension | OpenOffice.org repository for Extensions

Regards,

akadoublej

 

I use PDFedit, a great free app for my PDF editing needs but you have to be running the superior Linux operating system.

 

Your superior Linux operating system has substantially poorer gaming performance and doesn't have a single useful video editing suite. Linux may be superior...for you.

There's no need to co-opt this review/thread into a chance to evangelize your operating system of choice.

 

He shouldn't have said "superior" OS but I also don't see the need to retaliate with "substantially poorer" gaming performance.

In any case, I second that PDFedit is good. For people that only need the most basic editing capabilities, pdftk is a great choice (because it has a simple command line interface, making it ideal for use in scripts).

 

I second Tracker's products. The free pdfxchangeviewer lets you type, annotate, stamp, etc., pdfs. Not full editing but enough for many needs. They have the full range of products including an editor (not free).

Tracker Software Products :: PDF Creation Software, Free PDF Viewer

 

If you're not opposed to using multiple tools to get the job done, there are a ton of totally free and open source PDF utilities, but not typically unified in a single suite. For instance, there are many viewers from the simple SumatraPDF to Okular and whatnot that are MUCH more full featured and lower on resources and without the bloated nagging of the Adobe or other pay software viewers.

For creation/editing, there are many different tools like PDFCreator. If you have a specialized need, you many need a specialized tool and it may take some digging - for instance, importing a locked down Adobe PDF file for editing likely isn't going to be something that you can do in two clicks due to the FOSS developers unwillingness to be sued for "cracking" Adobe's copy protection, but if you time is worth the $299 for you, you can find and install a plugin to do just that. (Much like how most Linux distros come without certain proprietary drivers or software installed, like MP3 codecs, but can easily be added back in at the user's behest)

 

First off, I should have said "superior OS IMHO". It's just that I'm so amazed at the flexibility,customizability,performance,stability,security, software (FOSS) of the linux OS.

As for substantially poorer gaming performance, some windows programs that run in WINE (an emulator) actually perform better than they do running natively in windows. I agree the amount of games available in linux is poor in comparison but then you can always dual-boot if you're a gamer.

As for "video editing suite" I don't know what you mean by "suite" exactly but Linux has excellent FOSS video editing programs: I use "kdenlive", but there's also kino,cinelerra,pitivi and numerous command line tools that each perform a certain function very well.

Back to PDF editing, as mentioned, there are many command lines tools to work with PDF files (in fedora just type 'yum info *pdf* ' ) as well as plugins for OpenOffice. However the GUI app "PDFedit" is sufficient for my needs.

 

So what do you guys think would be the best free JPG/JPEG to PDF converter?

 

ctdeveloping has some good points. A watermark in a trial version may be okay if you do plan to buy the paid version if the product meets your needs, but I wouldn't consider that acceptable for a "free" product. Who is going to want to read my PDFs with a big logo in the background?

Foxit Reader does allow some basic additions to PDFs, for example form-filling and typing in comments in e-books (though I'm not sure it does proper annotations). And I know its form-filled PDFs can be read by Adobe's Reader. Certainly not a full-fledged editor, but better than their actual editor if your price must be free.

edit/kobe_24: Does OpenOffice work ok with creating PDFs that include pictures? I just did a test with Word 2010 Beta, and it can export documents with images to PDFs. I don't know how good of PDFs it will produce with highly complex documents, but if all you want to do is have your JPG contained within a PDF, Office will do the trick.

 

Dustin I agree wholeheartedly with your conclusion that: "Unfortunately, until someone steps up and produces a clean, basic, easy-to-use PDF editor, it's Adobe's market to lose."

Still, thank you for taking the time to review these products. Good work.