LULU Software continues to carve out their place in the competitive PDF software market with their Soda PDF Anywhere solution. This PDF application provides excellent flexibility with scalable user packages that allow for a high degree of customization. Its interface is clean and user-friendly, and it comes with a broad range of basic and advanced features that make it a great choice for both individual and business use. With decent OCR, Bates numbering, batch conversion and full cloud compatibility, Soda PDF Anywhere is a great choice for those looking for good value in a PDF solution – it covers many bases at a decent price point.
Foxit are a trusted company when it comes to PDF software. Their PhantomPDF software continues that trend, offering excellent usability and stability with a wide range of features. With PhantomPDF you can create, convert, merge and edit documents with a host of basic and advanced functions. The interface is familiar and intuitive, and it comes with some great security and collaboration features. PhantomPDF is fully cloud-enabled with Box, Dropbox, Google Drive and OneDrive compatibility, and easily integrates into your workflow with added features like ConnectedPDF and SharePoint integration. It’s also got professional level features like OCR and can easily integrate multimedia files into your documents.
“Smarter, faster” seems to be the motto with Nitro Pro 11, the latest version of the Nitro PDF software line. Faster certainly seems to be the focus here, with performance and speed at the forefront. Nitro Pro is also quite user-friendly and easy to learn, increasing the speed at which you can get things done. When it comes to “smarter” there’s not much to say other than the fact that the OCR feature is quite accurate and performs well. Its standard and business versions span the range of PDF conversion, editing, creation and collaboration functions, with the standard version covering much of the spectrum. It’s also a reasonably priced piece of software, making Nitro Pro 11 a decent choice for those looking for value.
PDF Architect is a unique entry into the Top 10 PDF Software list since it’s one of the most customizable applications out there. Its modular design means that you can pick and choose each function that you need to build your own custom PDF solution. Of course, you can also choose ready made packages and save yourself some time and money. With all its different modules, PDF Architect covers the standard range of functions you might want from a PDF application, including document conversion, editing, creation and collaboration. If you’re prone to spending a lot of time choosing only the specific modules you need, you can potentially extract great value out of PDF Architect.
The most popular PDF software’s latest incarnation is Acrobat DC from Adobe, the inventors of the PDF format. As you might expect, this is a high-end piece of software that offers an extensive range of tools for everything you might need when it comes to manipulating PDFs. It’s a trusted brand with a great community and support resources, so even if the application is complex you can get the hang of it relatively easily. Acrobat DC shines when it comes to security and collaboration, and offers a great interface that can be customized to your liking. It’s a huge program, but it really doesn’t leave anything out in terms of functionality.
Nuance Power PDF is an interesting entry into the Top 10 PDF Software list, boasting a few unique features that make it stand out from the pack. While it covers the standard range of conversion, editing, creation and collaboration tools, Nuance Power PDF also features a dictation function so you can simply speak any notes or annotations you want to add to your documents. It’s also great for creating interactive forms, as you can use JavaScript to add custom features. It allows for easy adding of multimedia files into your documents, and you can optimize them for display on mobile platforms. While it has a few limitations, Nuance Power PDF is worth looking into for its strong range of features for standard and business users.
PDF Suite is a streamlined, user-friendly PDF application that covers all the basics for viewing, creating, converting and editing PDF documents. Its focus is on balancing usability and flexibility with power and performance, and to a certain extent it succeeds. It comes in essentially two versions, Standard and Professional, with the option of adding OCR functionality to the Professional version. As a professional-level PDF solution, it lacks some key features such as Bates numbering, although that might not be a deal breaker for some users. The Professional version has robust security features that the Standard version lacks, but overall it’s a somewhat limited – but easy-to-use – application.
PDFsam does what its name implies (split and merge) and more. It’s a lightweight, free open-source PDF converter application that is platform-agnostic (it works on Windows, Mac and Linux machines) but requires Java to run. When it comes to document manipulation, PDFsam covers the bases in a very intuitive and easy-to-use way. You can merge, split, rotate and re-order documents visually, which is nice, and you can of course convert to and from a variety of document formats. Other than that, you can try the Enhanced version for an expanded list of functions including OCR. For what it does, PDFsam is a great choice for those looking for a free and flexible PDF application for everyday use.
Sejda is a PDF converter tool that works entirely online. It’s essentially an online PDF service, and it’s a pleasure to use. It works with your browser, allowing you to simply drag and drop documents for conversion, merging, splitting, rotating, and more. It works on all platforms – even on phones and tablets, albeit in a limited way. Sejda is a great solution for those looking to perform a few PDF-related functions without the hassle of dealing with downloading and installing a desktop client on a specific machine. Since it’s entirely cloud based, its features are limited, but it presents enough functionality and security to make it an intriguing choice for a variety of users.
Smallpdf is an online PDF converter that focuses on user experience. The company behind it seems to be committed to develop a great relationship with its users, and has made their free web-based PDF converter to reflect this. The basic version’s features are limited to merging, splitting, rotating and compressing PDFs, but if that’s all you need, you’ll love using Smallpdf. It’s very user-friendly, lightweight and intuitive. Best of all, there’s no catch to the free version – you won’t have to pay down the line or spam your friends with invites. If you need a bit more, you can check out their Pro and Business plans that unlock some security features such as 256-bit encryption and better workflow management.