Best Free PDF Tools

Mon, 11/03/2008 - 10:46 — Jojoyee

In a Hurry?

Go straight to the Quick Selection Guide

Introduction

A PDF tool comes handy when you need to do PDF documents for any of the following:

To merge, split or reorder pages of a PDF document;
To rotate or crop pages;
To add a header and footer
To add page numbers
To add watermark;
To encrypt or decrypt;
To highlight text or annotate;
To tweak viewer preference or change metadata;
To convert PDF to images, or vice versa;
To convert PDF to text, or vice versa;
To convert PostScript to PDF
Other functions.

In this review, those free applications designed for merging, splitting PDF documents complete with other various functions are grouped under General Tools, and those designed for a specific function are grouped under Specific Tools.

General Tools

PDFill PDF Tools is my favorite for its clean and nice user interface with most of the functions covered, such as merge, split, reorder or rotate pages, add headers and footers complete with page numbers, etc.

Watermark can be added by typing in any text such as ‘DRAFT’ for documents to be reviewed, or can be added by a background image in PDF format.

Some additional features are supported such as encrypt and decrypt with security options; reformat multiple pages into one page; delete, flatten or list of PDF form fields; convert PDF to images or vice versa; and convert PostScript file to PDF.

However, converting PDF to text, making annotations, changing document metadata, such as title and author, or some other functions are not supported in this free software. Instead, they are available to Specific Tools listed in the next section.

PDFTK Builder may be used as an alternative. It can merge or reorder selected pages of PDF files at one go. This is a better idea to have merging and reordering of pages done at the same time.

It also supports split, rotate, background/stamp and encrypt features. Besides these, it has no other additional features.

It also lacks a basic function, as available to PDFill PDF Tools, for adding a background text as a watermark to PDF documents. This function is much needed when we need to mark a PDF document as 'Confidential', 'Draft' or in any other text in the background of the pages.

If you just need more features, jPDF Tweak will be a good choice but its user interface will not be better than any of the above two applications. Its merge, split and reorder functions are available under ‘input’ tab with a new filename to be entered under ‘output’ tab.

jPDF Tweak offers rotate, crop, watermark and format multiple pages, change page numbers and chapter bookmarks, and encrypt functions.

It allows adding attachments to PDF documents, setting viewer preference and document properties including title, author, subject and keywords.

Specific Tools

The following free applications are helpful for their specific functions not covered by the General Tools PDFill PDF Tools.

To convert PDF to text, my choice is Some PDF to Word Converter, which allows removing line breaks and preserves paragraphs with soft returns. It also keeps images but does not preserve hyperlinks for the version under review.

Online conversion from PDF to text through emails is also available free with kool Converter, which preserves paragraphs and hyperlinks in converted PDF files.

Sun PDF Import Extension to OpenOffice.org allows PDF documents imported in Draw and Impress to preserve layout and edit small portion of text. PDF import in Writer is to be developed.

FreeOCR.net, which is a scan and OCR (Optical Character Recognition) program, is a good choice to extract text from scanned PDF documents. Moreover, images from scanned PDF documents can be selected and placed on the clipboard.

To convert text and images to PDF, OpenOffice and Jarte are good freeware to export text and images to PDF. If you are using Microsoft Office 2007, it allows a free add-in for saving the documents as PDF. Another freeware Sticky PDF Creator is worth a try as it serves nearly the same purpose. By doing all these, hyperlinks or bookmarks are preserved in exported PDF files.

To get almost the same good result, kool Converter or Document Converter eXPress offers online conversion to PDF as well.

Alternatively you may install a virtual PDF printer, such as Bullzip, to create a PDF file by printing text or other contents via the PDF printer. By doing so, hyperlinks and bookmarks are usually not preserved in the resulting PDF file.

To annotate PDF documents, most of the tools do not support it, but PDF-XChange Viewer does it. PDF-XChange Viewer also allows highlighting, crossing or underlining text; drawing shapes; stamping and filling up PDF forms with a built-in typewriter. It is surprisingly more than a viewer!

To make fillable PDF forms, PDFescape is available free via online editing. Other features such as adding text, whiteout or basic symbols are included.

To set viewer preference and metadata, BeCyPDFMetaEdit is a good find. It allows editing most metadata, customizing viewer preferences, page transitions for slide shows, etc.

To do other functions such as to add attachments to PDF, try PDF Bundle; to compress or decompress a PDF file, try Free PDF Compressor; and to convert PDF versions, try PDF Version Converter.

Others

The following free applications offer some functions basically available to PDFill PDF Tools. They were brought up in comments here or noted from other sources. I am listing them here with brief descriptions and links to their sites for ease of reference.

Gios PDF Splitter And Merger allows merging and splitting of documents with drag and drop features.
PDF Watermark Creater adds a text as watermark.
SpeedPDF Stamp adds an image as watermark.
SpeedPDF Page Numberer allows adding page numbers with variable formats.

PDF-XChange Viewer

, unfortunately this

does leave marks when annotating documents

(highlighting text, etc). So, the only advantage over

foxit

seems a slightly more clear view.

#6Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 01/08/2009 - 15:23.

PDF-XChange Viewer does NOT leave marks when annotating documents. I'm using latest version, but to be true I don't remember PDF-XChange Viewer leaving marks when annotating documents, EVER. Shareware functions, that's a whole other story...

#7Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 01/01/2009 - 14:52.

I just want a small low resourse simple viewer that can handle a 2-300mb file without crashing. How about you? Asus eeepc 4gb 512 XP is what I am running and why I need it. Please make a "tiny and fast" section for us flashy semi-portable people.

#8Submitted by Jojoyee on Fri, 01/02/2009 - 03:08.

I think a small and light PDF viewer is available at Best Free Non-Adobe PDF Reader. Have a good try.

#9Submitted by Anonymous on Tue, 12/23/2008 - 18:34.

These all seem like valuable tools for their particular functions. However, I am still searching for an application, free or otherwise, that converts a PDF file to a PowerPoint file. Any suggestions. Thanks.

#10Submitted by Quantoson on Mon, 12/22/2008 - 12:13.

I found the easiest PDF creator and cost nothing. http://stickypdf.com/

I wrote it about here http://hubpages.com/hub/Creating-PDF-files-the-easy-way

#11Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 01/07/2009 - 06:54.

Stickypdf required NET framewrok

Ravi

ravi883k@gmail.com

#12Submitted by Jojoyee on Mon, 12/22/2008 - 15:04.

This is new and interesting to me. A smaller file of about 10Mb but could do nearly what OpenOffice Writer does in respect of saving documents as PDF. Added in the review and thanks for good comments.

#13Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 12/18/2008 - 19:30.

Wow, a plethora of free PDF tools here. But these seem to be all specialized PDF tools, whereas I guess most users want a freeware PDF viewer/editor that can do some simplistic things like: saving to another format, splitting/merging, or watermarking.

One info which I found was missing here and I am sure many users would love to learn about is that Microsoft Office 2007 has an official freeware Addin called "Microsoft Save as PDF or XPS", that easily allows saving Word (and few other Office) documents directly as PDF documents!

This means that you can do all your editing and tweaking in your favorite Office app, and simply save the document as PDF. Seems to work with a few documents that I tried randomly, so if you are stuck with MS-Office and are not supposed to install new apps on your corporate PC/Laptop, why not give this a official MS-Office addin a try? :-)

More info:
"2007 Microsoft Office Add-in: Microsoft Save as PDF or XPS" allows you to export and save to the PDF and XPS formats in eight 2007 Microsoft Office programs. It also allows you to send as e-mail attachment in the PDF and XPS formats in a subset of these programs.

* Supported Operating Systems: Windows Server 2003; Windows Vista; Windows XP Service Pack 2

* This download works with the following Office programs:
o Microsoft Office Access 2007
o Microsoft Office Excel 2007
o Microsoft Office InfoPath 2007
o Microsoft Office OneNote 2007
o Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007
o Microsoft Office Publisher 2007
o Microsoft Office Visio 2007
o Microsoft Office Word 2007

Direct official link:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=4D951911-3E7E-4...

Hope this helps.
~ Vivek.

#14Submitted by Jojoyee on Mon, 12/22/2008 - 14:52.

Thanks for the comments. I have added a few lines in the review to fill up the gap. By the way, I have been using this add-in to MS Office 2007 since it was introduced, though its add-in to earlier versions of Office has not been available. I also keep an eye on its XPS format, which popularity has yet to be seen.

#15Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 12/18/2008 - 23:15.

OpenOffice does that since... the last century!

#16Submitted by Anonymous on Tue, 11/18/2008 - 22:00.

I tried Some PDF to Word Converter. It did a poor job of converting some test PDF files. The layout was off and the text was essentially uneditable. In one case, lines were repeated at random, etc. Not recommended.

#17Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 11/19/2008 - 02:07.

From some PDFs, I converted using Some PDF to Word Converter, it looks ok, but from some other PDFs, the layout is not perfect after conversion as what you mentioned. It would be of interest to keep an eye on 'Sun PDF Import Extension' to Writer and see what OpenOffice can develop and deliver in the near future.

#18Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 11/13/2008 - 21:34.

another good PDF reader is FOXIT
Check this out!
Shameem

#19Submitted by Jojoyee on Fri, 11/14/2008 - 04:52.

Foxit Reader does not provide editing functions (without stamps), such as to annotate PDF documents, which are available to PDF-XChange Viewer.

#20Submitted by Anonymous on Sat, 12/06/2008 - 16:46.

Au contraire mon ami.

Foxit reader does permit editing but at the cost of a stamp on each page edited. Often that makes it intolerable but it's sometimes acceptable.

#21Submitted by Anonymous on Sat, 12/06/2008 - 19:56.

Why on earth would you want to use it for that purpose if you know it has that problem ? PDF-XChange Viewer rocks, for me is better than Foxit in just about everything !

#22Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 12/11/2008 - 10:18.

Not only that, Foxit uses all kind of cheap tricks to earn money of of you. Like a confusing toolbar download in the install (therefore almost forcing you to download their toolbar). They make it look like the toolbar is part of the license agreement of the program. The annotation tool is only available if you let them force their updates on you (and again they try to press all sorts of crap in the update like ebay integration links and the toolbar).

On their website they say that they are an program with no spyware what so ever, but their whole program feels like a spyware infested heap of crap. Eat that FoxIT marketing department!

#23Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 11/13/2008 - 16:58.

Hi,

You've stated at the first place that there's a PDf to image converter, but you didn't seem to list it down.

Any freeware that can do that?

#24Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 11/13/2008 - 23:59.

See Bullzip.

#25Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 11/13/2008 - 18:43.

Under PDFill PDF Tools it's stated "convert PDF to images or vice versa".

#26Submitted by Anonymous on Sat, 11/08/2008 - 23:02.

Just find out that PDF-X Viewer (neither Acrobat, Foxit or OpenOffice have this option) can also be used for some sort of reverse engeniering, e.g., to convert a searchable PDF into non-searchable PDF. Because PDF encryption sucks, because it's very easy to bypass PDF security these days. The problem is that my original PDF, with 90 pages, had 0,4 MB and the final PDF 30 MB... not the perfect solution for large documents I would say, I'm thinking to deliever the this specific job in plain paper... as a virtual PDF printer I used Bulzip, with 150 dpi dept, a bit slow IMHO.

#27Submitted by Anonymous on Sun, 11/09/2008 - 15:04.

Updating my previous post, the best way to create a non-searchable PDF seems to be to print original document as image (using Bullzip I choose a .png monochrome output with 150x150 dpi) and than create one PDF from the generated images. My non-searchable PDF with 90 pages now has 1.8 MB without any quality loss, that's reasonable !

PS.: seems like Adobe Reader also has this capability, however like PDF-X Viewer the output file is too large. PDF export dialog in OpenOffice 3.0 seems to be unchanged since 2.4, and it doesn't provide this feature.

#28Submitted by Anonymous on Mon, 11/10/2008 - 15:18.

If you are printing a document from a word processor via Bullzip printer, the resulting PDF file is searchable, but open up this PDF file from PDF XChanger Viewer, print it another time via Bullzip printer, the second resulting PDF file will become non-searchable. This way will keep the file size relatively small.

Any conversion from PDF file to an image file will result in much bigger file size, but I don't see a conversion from an image file to a PDF file can make the file size much smaller.

In anyway, remember that any non-searchable PDF file can still be 'searchable' by using FreeOCR to convert and search.

#29Submitted by Anonymous on Mon, 11/10/2008 - 17:42.

I have tried your procedure "open up this PDF file from PDF XChanger Viewer, print it another time via Bullzip printer", but the second resulting PDF is searchable. The only way I can create a non-searchable PDF with PDF XChanger Viewer is to select "print as image", but the final PDF, will be very large (even with a low resolution), like I have noticed before. I suspect PDF XChanger Viewer works with *.tiff. Conversion to *.png via Bullzip produces best results for a text document. I'm aware of that risk, that nevertheless is minor.

#30Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 11/05/2008 - 12:25.

I might also add the following free open source tool:

PDF Split and Merge (www.pdfsam.org)

It is very simple to use and it can:
- Split pdf documents
- Merge pdf documents
- Exctract sections of a pdf document

Navigation

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Best Free PDF Tools

PDFill PDF Tools

PDFTK Builder

jPDF Tweak

Some PDF to Word Converter

FreeOCR.net

PDF-XChange Viewer

PDF-XChange Viewer

does leave marks when annotating documents

foxit

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