PDF Alternatives to Adobe

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PDF Alternatives to Adobe

Postby jon » Fri Apr 29, 2011 9:50 pm

Win7News
Editor's Corner

Dumping Adobe: What's the best alternative PDF utility?

Adobe Reader (the program formerly known as Adobe Acrobat Reader) is by the far the most popular software for reading PDF files. And why wouldn't it be? The Portable Document Format (PDF) was originally created by Adobe way back in 1993, and for a long time their reader was the only one available for viewing these files. It doesn't cost anything; unlike its "big brother," Adobe Acrobat (which is used for creating and editing PDFs), it's distributed free on Adobe's web site.

Over the years, PDF became a wildly popular format, and many web sites provide downloadable documents in PDF format. PDFs are useful because they provide a fixed layout for documents. With word processing files such as Word .doc or docx files, documents may render differently on different computers, even running the same word processing software. PDFs will always display the same every time, regardless of what operating system you're running or what PDF reading software you're using to view them.

For a long time, Adobe Reader was installed on almost every computer, but the many security vulnerabilities that have been discovered in the Reader software causes many computer users to be concerned about the risks of using the program. It seems as if almost every week brings another report of a new security flaw in Adobe's software. And there are now many alternatives to Adobe for viewing PDF files. Although PDF was originally a proprietary format, Adobe released it as an open standard a few years ago. Although Adobe owns the patent, they license them royalty-free so anyone can create software to read or edit PDFs without paying Adobe.

One of the first alternative PDF tools to become popular was Foxit Reader, which has been around for many years. Like Adobe's Reader, the viewer-only version is a free download. Perhaps playing on Adobe's reputation for ongoing vulnerabilities, Foxit offers a number of security options, including a security warning dialog box to warn you if a PDF tries to run an external command, a safe mode operation that blocks suspicious external commands from being run, verification of digital signatures, the ability to disable JavaScript, and support for ASLR ad DEP.

One advantage of Foxit, especially on netbooks and other low powered machines, is that it is less of a resource hog than Adobe Reader. It uses less memory and starts up more quickly, and may also respond faster in use (which might not be noticeable on a powerful machine but will be on low-end systems). Foxit is probably the best known of the PDF reader alternatives. You can get it at
http://www.win7news.net/3T4K9H/110429-Foxit

But what if you not only want to view PDFs, but also need to be able to make your own, or edit those created by others? At one time, that meant you had to buy the "full Acrobat" software from Adobe, which was frighteningly expensive. The current Acrobat X suite costs $799 (or $199 to upgrade if you've purchased an earlier version). Foxit's Editor goes for a more reasonable $99, or $49 for the upgrade version. But you don't even have to pay that much if you only want to do simple editing.

My favorite PDF utility is PDF Xchange by Tracker Software, and I've been using it on all my computers for the last couple of year. It's free, and unlike some programs, the free version can legally be used for commercial purposes as well as private/personal use. It runs on Windows systems from Windows 2000 to Windows 7 (including 64 bit), and it allows you the limited ability to modify and manipulate existing PDF files, annotate/add comments, type text into documents, highlight text, add shapes and objects to a page, add images and signatures, add hyperlinks and fill in and save PDF forms. It has a nice tabbed interface so you can quickly see what PDF documents you have open.

If that's not enough, the Pro version lets you convert images and text directly to PDF without a third party solution, lets you extract content from PDFs to text and image formats, supports digital signatures, lets you add and modify bookmarks, and more. Its cost is only $34.50. Progressively more expensive versions add additional functionality, such as Office integration, but the most expensive of them is only $74 per license - still less than Foxit Editor and far, far less than Acrobat. You can find out more about PDF-XChange here:
http://www.win7news.net/3T4K9H/110429-P ... nge-Viewer

Of course, if you have Office 2010, you can save your Word documents as PDFs directly within Word, without using a PDF editor (however, you can't directly make changes to them once they're PDFs). You just choose PDF from the drop down list in the "Save As" dialog box. There was a plug-in for Office 2007 that you could manually install to provide this same functionality. And there are a number of third party programs that will allow you to go in the opposite direction; that is, you can convert PDFs to Word documents so you can edit them in Word. An example is deskUNPDF, which you can find out more about here:
http://www.win7news.net/3T4K9H/110429-DocuDesk

What software do you use to work with PDFs on your Windows 7 computer? Do you go with the old standard from Adobe? If so, do you worry about its propensity for security vulnerabilities, and keep it updated? If you use an alternative, which one do you like and why? Is a reader all you need, or do you also have to create and edit PDF files? Have you laid out the big bucks for Adobe Acrobat? If so, what makes it worth the extra cost to you? If you use a lower-cost or free editor, which one? What do you like about it? Do you love or hate PDFs themselves, or are you indifferent? We invite you to discuss this topic in our forum at
http://www.win7news.net/3T4K9H/110429-Forum

ref. - http://www.win7news.net/?id=85
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Re: PDF Alternatives to Adobe

Postby PMC » Sat Apr 30, 2011 12:57 pm

The above story is full of hot air and bias.... how much did Microsoft pay to get it written .... it is tagged Win7 news !!!

Adobe is the PDF format and it works for many, especially for users of Linux. As for the cost of the full program, rather than the free reader, it is comparable to Microsoft Word, and their other products.

I use Adobe product for many things, and like what they do etc.
PMC
 

Re: PDF Alternatives to Adobe

Postby jon » Sat Apr 30, 2011 1:46 pm

Personally, I still use Adobe Reader (free). But I also find myself wanting to be able to create .PDF files.

Now that Adobe has placed PDF in the Open Source arena, it is now possible (and has been for a number of years) to create PDF files for free. I use OpenOffice as a free alternative to Microsoft Office, and OpenOffice has allowed you to create PDF files since before Microsoft Office added that functionality.

What most intrigued me about this Editorial was that it opened my eyes to a new possibility: free software to modify an existing PDF. Which is extremely important to me since so many government and corporate organizations that I deal with give you PDF versions of their forms which you have to fill out either with a pen, or you can fill out in Adobe Reader and print, but cannot save (what you have filled out). A few more enlightened organizations license software that lets them give you PDF forms that you can fill out and save on your hard drive.

I have no "hate on" for Adobe, but I do think they charge a lot of money for some of their products. Adobe Audition is what I hear the most complaints about. Before Adobe owned it, and it was Cool Edit, you could get it on sale for $49. It immediately went up to $169 when Adobe bought it.
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Re: PDF Alternatives to Adobe

Postby PMC » Sat Apr 30, 2011 2:27 pm

I agree the price increase of Adobe Audition is higher, however if you previously owned it, then upgrades are less etc.

Here is a link that lets you create PDF files in a very simple way. It is so simple it kind of makes you wonder why other product doesn't exist

http://www.pdfforge.org/pdfcreator

The basic idea is, set up a printer device driver, and what ever document that you have, simply print it. The receiving device driver, then writes it to a file in PDF format. You can then read the file in a PDF reader. This says that documents or images can be converted easily into the PDF format... if you change your document, then print it to the device driver, and you have a new PDF document.

The PDF device driver can be selected, as you would select a printer to use.
PMC
 

PDFCreator

Postby jon » Sat Apr 30, 2011 4:50 pm

I really appreciate this link to PDFCreator. For 64-bit Windows 7 users like myself, it solves what is a huge annoyance: Staples and UPS do not have 64-bit drivers that allow you to use their on-line print services.

For those of you who aren't aware of what Staples and UPS offer, it is really quite clever. You install their (32-bit) printer driver and suddenly, Staples or UPS looks like any other printer on your computer. Any program that prints to a printer suddenly can print at Staples or UPS.

For example, when I was still working, I always found myself wanting to make 11" x 17" pictures, diagrams, spreadsheets, etc. But none of the printers around could handle paper that big. Staples and UPS can.

Without those 64-bit printer drivers, you have to create a PDF and upload it to Staples or UPS. Another couple of steps. Annoying.
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Re: PDF Alternatives to Adobe

Postby PMC » Sat Apr 30, 2011 7:44 pm

You are welcome on the pointer to PDFCreator... they do good stuff.

If anyone does download and use this, send them a couple of dollars via paypal. As a software developer myself, I know the developers of PDFCreator could use it, because it is expensive and time consuming to make great software.
PMC
 

Staples

Postby jon » Wed May 04, 2011 12:33 pm

jon wrote:For 64-bit Windows 7 users like myself, it solves what is a huge annoyance: Staples and UPS do not have 64-bit drivers that allow you to use their on-line print services.

I hadn't checked in a while, but I see that Staples now offers Version 3.0 of the Adobe software/drivers for their on-line print services. And it works with 64-bit Windows 7.
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Re: PDF Alternatives to Adobe

Postby jon » Sun May 08, 2011 8:58 am

A week later, there is a followup to the original article:

Follow-up: Alternative PDF tools

In last week's editorial, I noted that Adobe's products have suffered from frequent security vulnerabilities, causing an increasing number of computer users to look for alternatives. When it comes to viewing and even editing PDF files, there are several options and I discussed some of my favorites. I didn't expect quite so many responses on such a tame subject, but we got three pages of discussion on the forum and plenty of email on this subject.

A number of readers are using Foxit, but others sang the praises of Nitro, SumatraPDF, Nuance, PDFfactory, PDF Creator, Expert PDF, CutePDF, my own personal favorite, PDF-Xchange, and - for creating PDFs - their word processing programs such as Microsoft Office, Open Office and WordPerfect. And some are sticking with Adobe Reader and Acrobat, either for specific features such as Flash integration, because they believe a large company like Adobe has more resources for patching security vulnerabilities more quickly, or simply because it's "the devil you know." It's always fascinating to read the diversity of opinions that a topic like this stirs up.

As always, thank you to everyone who participated in the discussion.

'Til next week,
Deb Shinder, Editor
feedback@win7news.net
ref. - http://www.win7news.net/?id=86
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Re: PDF Alternatives to Adobe

Postby RationalKeith » Mon Sep 12, 2011 5:15 pm

I like CutePDFWriter, n/c, very quick compared to Acrobat (though it does not show you what it just did).

There’s a related product “Pro”, which has much editing capability, license $50, probably well worth that. UI takes some learning (what SW product doesn’t, I suppose?) if you are used to Acrobat but not bad.

I got those for a second computer rather than paying Adobe’s bloated prices for buggy bloated insecure software from a company whose CEO peddles a weak version of the “We can supplant Microsoft.” fool’s game instead of producing good product.
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