Best Free PDF Tools

New:	Help keep this site independent and ad-free by buying a Gizmo Cap or T-shirt or by Donating
Hot:	Get free personalized security suggestions from Gizmo's Security Wizard
Help:	Like freeware? Then why not become a reviewer or site moderator for Gizmo's Freeware

Last Update: Wed, 01/06/2010 - 04:00 — Jojoyee

In a Hurry?

Go straight to the Quick Selection Guide

Introduction

A PDF tool comes in handy when you need to:

Merge, split or reorder pages of a PDF document;
Rotate or crop pages
Add a header and footer
Add page numbers
Add a watermark
Encrypt or decrypt
Highlight text or annotate
Tweak viewer preference or change metadata
Convert PDF to images, or vice versa
Convert PDF to text, or vice versa
Convert PostScript to PDF
Do other functions

In this review, programs designed to combine merging, splitting and other capabilities in a single application are discussed under General Tools. Those designed for a more specific task 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 pdf files, split or reorder pages, rotate or crop pdf 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 a PostScript file to PDF.

The installer bundles with PDFill PDF Editor which is not free, but PDFill PDF Tools can run on its own after installation. The free software does not support other functions such as converting PDF to text, making annotations, etc. 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, 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.

General PDF Tools for Linux:

Re-arranging pages in a pdf document, or merging and splitting pdf files, would be much easier with PDF Shuffler.

After importing one or more pdf files to PDF Shuffer, you are presented with the pages of files in thumbnails so that you can easily merge, re-order or delete the pages, or right-click a thumbnail to rotate or crop a page before exporting to a new pdf file.

This program is a small application running on Linux. Some distros, such as Ubuntu 9.10, include this program in the repository for ease of download and setup.

Specific Tools

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

To edit a PDF file, try Sun PDF Import Extension to OpenOffice.org. It allows PDF documents imported in Draw to preserve layout and edit small portion of text. This extension works further to allow you to import and modify PDF documents in OpenOffice from a PDF/ODF hybrid file with 100% layout accuracy. The hybrid pdf file is a pdf file containing an embedded odf source file. It can be viewed with a normal pdf viewer and can be opened with OpenOffice for full editing. See A PDF File Allows Editing in 100% Layout Accuracy for details.

To convert PDF to text, my choice is Some PDF to TXT Converter which preserves text and layout, supports drag and drop, batch conversion and encrypted pdf files. Alternatively, try the latest version of Adobe Reader which allows the user to save a copy of PDF as text.

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. Try also Free-OCR.com for an online OCR solution.

To convert PDF to Word/Excel, Some PDF to Word Converter allows removing line breaks and preserves paragraphs with soft returns. It supports batch conversion and encrypted pdf files, keeps images but does not preserve hyperlinks for the version under review.

Free online conversion is available from Nitro PDF for PDF-to-Word Converter and PDF-to-Excel Converter. Choose the file you need, click the "Convert" button and check your inbox for the converted files.
To convert various formats to PDF, 7-PDF Maker is a powerful tool to convert a wide range of formats to PDF. It is not ony able to convert files generated by Word, Excel, Powerpoint, OpenOffice, StarOffice, Maths and AutoCad, but also convert images, text or web based files to PDF. The setup comes with a Command line version or a Windows Explorer integration and the program supports user interface both in English and German even though the website is currently only available in German.

If you are using office applications such as OpenOffice and Jarte, they come with a feature to export files to PDF. Microsoft Office 2007 also allows a free add-in for saving documents as PDF.

Using either 7-PDF Maker or the above office applications, hyperlinks or bookmarks are nicely preserved in the converted or exported PDF files.

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. However by doing so, hyperlinks and bookmarks are usually not preserved in the resulting PDF file.

If you are only converting various image files to PDF, my favorite goes to i2pdf. It works even better than the tool "Convert Images to PDF" included in PDFill PDF Tools. Download and unzip i2pdf, run the executable directly and no installation is required. This program is portable and user friendly -- just drag and drop the images on the program window, click "Build PDF" button and it's done. In setting the page output, "paperless" format is helpful for converting portrait and landscape images to the PDF file and view it on the screen without blank paper margins.

How about converting files to PDF online? 7-PDF Web Portal and many other websites such as kool Converter or Document Converter eXPress offers an online conversion to PDF as well.

To extract images from PDF, Some PDF Images Extract is a good choice. You can extract all images from several PDF files by batch or pull images from selected pages in a PDF file. Images can be saved in jpg, bmp, png, tiff, gif or tga formats.

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!

For Linux users, Okular is a good choice. It allows for annotations, highlighting, drawing lines and shapes, adding textboxes and stamps, selecting and saving a part of documents as text or in an image format.

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, slide show, page labels, etc. Tweak PDF is another choice with a simple user interface but without slideshow setting and some other features.

To recover forgotten password, try PDFCrak which runs on Linux or DOS (the version for DOS is available for download here). The only supported usage of this software is to recover passwords and/or content that you own but have lost access to as stated in the FAQ.

To do other functions such as to add attachments to PDF, try PDF Bundle; to compress a PDF file, try Free PDF Compressor or follow this method mentioned in our Freeware Forum.

Others

The following free applications offer certain functions and some of which are available to those reviewed. They were brought up in comments here or noted from other sources. I am listing them here with brief descriptions and links to the related sites for ease of reference.

pdfsam (basic) provides separate plugins for merge/extract, rotate, split, visual reorder (of one file), etc.
Sheel Khanna's PDFTools allows for users to join multiple PDFs, split or re-arrange a PDF, encrypt or decrypt and stamp a pdf. It includes a tool to convert XML to PDF file as well.
Gios PDF Splitter And Merger allows merging and splitting of documents with drag and drop features.
GUI for PDFTK Another GUI for the multi-platform PDFTK for merging, splitting pdf files together with other various functions.
PdfMerge allows merging and splitting of documents with bookmark import.
Free PDF to Word Doc Converter converts pdf to doc.
Free PDF to Word Converter converts pdf to doc or rtf.
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.
Freeware pdf Unlocker allows for removing PDF restrictions on printing, editing and copying text.

Have Your Say

You are invited to share and discuss your views in our freeware forum. To post in the forum you need to register first but that's quick and immediate. Alternatively, anyone can leave a comment at the bottom of this page.

Please help us by rating this review

Tags

pdf tools, free pdf tools, freeware, edit pdf, pdf editor, convert pdf, encrypt pdf, pdf format, merge pdf, split pdf, pdf slideshow

Bookmark/Search this post with:

Delicious
Digg
StumbleUpon

Please rate this article

#1Submitted by Anonymous on Mon, 01/04/2010 - 14:46.

How about merging files online - http://www.pdfmerge.com for example? Or adding password protection to them, also online - http://www.pdfprotect.net .. There are many free and useful online PDF tools available these days, a new article that compares them specifically would be nice

#2Submitted by jamblebee on Wed, 01/06/2010 - 09:39.

i just discovered that you can install PDFill and afte you installed it, click on PDFill pdf tools (FREE) you can still delete pages by using "Split"

#3Submitted by Anonymous on Mon, 01/04/2010 - 07:17.

"Freeware pdf Unlocker" is a useful portable program which I think deserves a mention:
http://freeware-pdf-unlocker.en.softonic.com/

I see there are now also some online services to let you unlock pdf files:
http://www.pdfunlock.com/
http://www.ensode.net/pdf-crack.jsf

(As far as I know, unlocking pdfs is legal, and it can be very useful for a number of purposes... even if plagiary isn't your thing at all!)

#4Submitted by Anonymous on Mon, 12/14/2009 - 17:20.

The version of PDFill PDF Editor that is available for download as of today (December 14th, 2009) is version 7.0. It leaves a watermark on your edited PDF docs unless you pay. No longer worth it if you want free editing of PDF's.

#5Submitted by Jojoyee on Tue, 12/15/2009 - 03:57.

Appreciated your feedback on the new version.

Yes, you are right that PDFill PDF Editor will leave watermarks in the saved files with the evaluation version. This program is not free as described in this article. But the subject covered here is PDFill PDF Tools which is free and has no watermark in the saved files. It can be run separately without starting the Editor.

Should you need other editing features not available to the PDFill PDF Tools, try other free alternatives in the section of Specific Tools, which I think could be helpful.

#6Submitted by Anonymous on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 23:06.

I can find no crop functions in jPDFtweak, though it does seem to be otherwise very useful. What I want is something along the lines of PDFCrop (http://www.noliturbare.com/pdf-tools/pdf-cropper), which automatically can crop the blank space surrounding an image. Such an image may not be centered, so the crop tools offered elsewhere are not precise enough and so far I have found none with a preview. As for PDFCrop, it worked beautifully (!!!), but only the first time I ran it. Now when I run it, nothing happens, though Task Manager shows it running. I've tried reboot and re-download. Mine is a Vista machine, 64 bit, of recent vintage.

#7Submitted by Jojoyee on Mon, 12/14/2009 - 04:44.

Thanks for pointing out. BTW, PDF Shuffler has a crop function with good GUI. You might want to try it out if you happen to run a multi-boot system with Linux.

#8Submitted by Anupam on Fri, 11/27/2009 - 09:27.

I recently visited coolpdf.com and saw that the softwares have turned commercial. TweakPdf, Pdf Watermark Creator, Pdf Bundle all have now prices against them.

There are some other softwares that can be added to the list like :

Guipdftk : http://www.paehl.de/pdf/gui_pdftk.html

PdfMerge : http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfmerge/

Pdf Split and Merge : http://www.pdfsam.org/

There are more choices available to convert Pdf to Word :

Pdf2Word : www.hellopdf.com

Also from :
http://www.free-pdf-to-word.com/

#9Submitted by Anonymous on Sat, 12/05/2009 - 23:34.

For basic annotating (e.g., highlighting, underlining, adding comments), try Foxit Reader 3.1. The annotated PDF may be saved, and the annotations are viewable in Adobe Reader. Foxit Reader also allows users to complete and save fillable PDF files. It's an excellent replacement for Adobe Reader.

Here is the link: http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/reader/

#10Submitted by Jojoyee on Sun, 12/06/2009 - 04:29.

Some 'basic' annotations such as adding text are not supported in Foxit Reader free edition though, while PDF-XChange Viewer supports for more.

#11Submitted by Jojoyee on Fri, 11/27/2009 - 16:17.

Thanks for the many choices. Some of them had been tried out before but not as good. Will try the others though.

#12Submitted by Anupam on Fri, 11/27/2009 - 18:40.

Welcome :). The list of softwares put up on this article is awesome. I came across a blog, which mentions this article on top of list for Pdf Tools. Here is the link to the blog article :

http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/pdf-software-more.html

Look for link to our article under the heading "More reading & additional tools".

This blog also has Gizmo's Freeware amongst the most useful sites on the net, according to the author.

#13Submitted by jpjarosz on Wed, 10/28/2009 - 19:54.

Here's a nice reference for all kinds of PDF manipulation.

Also, here two useful references I found to help with decrypting PDFs:
http://lifehacker.com/396534/freeware-pdf-unlocker-enables-copypaste-fun...
http://www.mydigitallife.info/2008/01/07/recover-pdf-password-with-pdfcr...

#14Submitted by Anonymous on Tue, 11/24/2009 - 03:42.

i also found a useful but free pdf tool.
simpo PDF to Text is free .
http://www.simpopdf.com/pdf-to-text.html

#15Submitted by Jojoyee on Thu, 10/29/2009 - 13:00.

Thanks for mentioning PDFCrack. I've tried it on my PDF file encrypted with a password. It takes about 2 minutes or so to recover the password in length of 5 aphabets.

Added in the article as a useful tool meant for users who lost their passwords to open PDF files.

#16Submitted by Anonymous on Tue, 08/18/2009 - 19:24.

Adobe Reader 9 for function pdf to txt.When make click on Save like.

#17Submitted by Anonymous on Mon, 08/17/2009 - 19:43.

I tried Graphics2pdf took two jpgs, total of 416K and created a PDF of 11mb. i2pdf took the same two images and made a pdf of 600K. Easy choice.

#18Submitted by Anonymous on Sun, 08/16/2009 - 12:27.

Question:How to put video in pdf for free?Comercial is with Adobe Acrobat Pro 9.But i want with free soft.

#19Submitted by Jojoyee on Mon, 08/17/2009 - 03:51.

Embedding video in a pdf document will usually require a pdf editor. Sadly I don't see any pdf editor with more complete features is freeware so far.

Great to know if there's one.

#20Submitted by Anonymous on Fri, 08/14/2009 - 20:15.

Here are a lot of free tools for pdf: http://www.freesoft411.com/freeware/pdf-powerpoint-conversion.html

#21Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 08/06/2009 - 07:00.

Good soft for pdf that i have on computer:
A-Pdf Number,A-Pdf text extractor,Atomic pdf password recovery,pdf text extractor Master,Tomahawk v.3,Cib pdf brewer,EBook to images,Free Pdf converter,Free pdf to word document converter,Office convert pdf to doc,pdf bundle,pdf creator,pdf bullzip,Pdf owner guard personal,rtf2txt20,text to pdf converter,Some pdf image extractor,Some pdf to html convertor,Some pdf to txt convertor,Some pdf to word convertor,Some text to pdf convertor,Primo pdf,Free pdf editor,Free pdf to word convertor,Pdfsam,Graphics2PDF,pdfmark,PDFTK Builder.Everything will find using Google browser.

#22Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 08/06/2009 - 06:35.

pdf2swf open sorce-i try and work very good but for make visible and functional you need :Total video player.Gom player don't work.This Swf format have advantage that save ~1/2 space in comparation with pdf.I try this with an translated manual of Adobe Acrobat.I don't know if work with more complex pdf(link,comments,video in pdf).

#23Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 08/06/2009 - 06:27.

Forget Tomahawk version 3(free).You can insert hyperlink and after that you can put an rtf,etc document and save as pdf.Document and link will be visible ,functional and convertid good in pdf format.I think that work for word to pdf?and sure for txt to pdf.

#24Submitted by Anonymous on Sat, 07/11/2009 - 18:03.

This article really needs a refresh and greater focus on PDF conversion to other formats. The only one listed - Some PDF to Word Converter - is not good and there have started to be some alternatives in this area (finally!).

#25Submitted by Jojoyee on Sun, 07/12/2009 - 03:32.

Thanks for valuable comments. I admit that this article focuses on PDF tools which cover many angles while PDF conversion is just a part of it.

Probably a stub for Best Free PDF Converter could be helpful. :>)

#26Submitted by Anonymous on Tue, 05/26/2009 - 13:27.

Bullzip http://www.bullzip.com and PrimoPDF http://www.primopdf.com/ both do a fine job converting any word processing format that prints to PDF.

#27Submitted by Jojoyee on Fri, 06/12/2009 - 13:07.

As having mentioned in this article, a virtual PDF printer, such as Bullzip, can be used 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.

#28Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 05/21/2009 - 15:50.

I'm amazed that you haven't brought up the fact that you HAVE to also install the trial-ware PDFill PDF Editor in order to use PDFill PDF Tools. What's more you cant uninstall any PDFill modules individually.

This is pretty cheeky behaviour, given that there appears to be no mention of this at their site. A lot of people would just presume that you would be presented with the option to install what you want during the installation process, instead they would end up with extra software they didn't want.

#29Submitted by Jojoyee on Fri, 05/22/2009 - 02:35.

Thanks for highlighting this. It's sad news that now the installer is bundled with the non-free Editor. The good news is the Tools still can run separately via:

Start Menu -> Programs -> PDFill -> PDFill PDF Tools (Free).

#30Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 05/21/2009 - 15:14.

What about PDFill FREE PDF Writer!? http://www.pdfill.com/freewriter_pdf.html

#31Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 05/21/2009 - 15:16.

oops, sorry wrong thread!

#32Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 05/20/2009 - 16:31.

PDFill PDF Tools is not really 'Unrestricted freeware' because it places a watermark on the saved file

#33Submitted by Jojoyee on Thu, 05/21/2009 - 14:20.

Thanks for the feedback. PDFill PDF Tools contains 12 functions, I've tried each of them but none of them creates any undesired watermark on the saved file. Further it's clearly highlighted on its homepage like this: "No Watermarks! No Pop-up Advertisements! FREE for Personal or Commercial! FREE Distribution!".

I would appreciate it if you can be more specific on which function or which feature which results in an undesired watermark so that I can personally verify it and counter check with the producer.

#34Submitted by Anonymous on Tue, 05/19/2009 - 22:10.

To make little brocures from scaned images(permit 12 images)i use very simply,Graphics2PDF where only drag and drop images and save as pdf,next i read with Pdf x change viewer because i see orizontal like a book.
To split and merge i use:pdfsam open source program,work only with netframework(dotnet 3,5)must to be in preliminary instaled and work excelent.
For conversion office documents the most simply is Oppen Office.
For OCR i use software from my HP Deskjet F2280 All in one and you can make pdf from scanner.

#35Submitted by Bob on Fri, 05/08/2009 - 19:33.

To convert PDF to Excel there's this new free online service:
http://www.pdftoexcelonline.com/default.aspx
Reviewed here: http://www.freewaregenius.com/2009/05/07/pdf-to-excel-free-free-pdf-to-e...

#36Submitted by Jojoyee on Wed, 05/20/2009 - 06:07.

Thanks Bob. Got your comments days ago but was wondering where to update in the article. Now I've added a new paragraph for online conversion to word/excel followed by a link to Gizmo's How-To Article.

#37Submitted by Bob on Thu, 05/21/2009 - 06:12.

How about this one? http://lifehacker.com/5262494/zilla-pdf-to-txt-converter-plain+texts-you... The free version of this program (Zilla PDF to Text Converter) offers batch conversion from pdf to text.

#38Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 04/23/2009 - 22:43.

I have been using PDF Split and Merge 2.0 for a while (per review on freewaregenius.com). It has the distinction of being the only VISUAL, well, split and merge utility other than the Adobe products. Although in alpha it has performed without flaw. Requires java. Besides visual page reorder, also has basic (file level) split and merge function.

#39Submitted by Jojoyee on Fri, 04/24/2009 - 02:52.

Thanks for the feedback. I note that it’s still a test version and load/save environment functions don’t work yet. Good to see when it has come out from the test version.

#40Submitted by Anonymous on Fri, 04/17/2009 - 23:26.

PDF-XChange Viewer is not actually freeware. Places a huge watermark (which is not easily removed) on your PDFs after a certain number of uses.

#41Submitted by Jojoyee on Sat, 04/18/2009 - 01:14.

As specified by the producer, it is freeware. Perhaps you might want to give us more details such as after how many times of uses, which functions you use, viewing only? or doing a certain editing functions? so that we can verify the product and report back to the producer.

#42Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 05/06/2009 - 16:55.

I just installed PDFXchange Viewer. As noted by "Anonymous", it puts large watermark on corners of pages that have been modified by "pro" features (including inserting pages, which I take to be a pretty basic function).

#43Submitted by Anonymous on Sat, 04/18/2009 - 11:37.

Shareware functions do leave a Watermark. Go to Preferences>Registration> place a checkmark in 'Hide PRO functions'.

#44Submitted by Anonymous on Fri, 04/17/2009 - 11:35.

PDFill PDF Tools is bloatware ! Installs Trials and needs Ghostscript (not Ghostscript Lite like Bullzip), better is the low-cost PDF-X Viewer Pro, also with portable version available.

#45Submitted by Jojoyee on Sat, 04/18/2009 - 01:20.

Just as you've mentioned, the Pro version is 'low cost', so it's not freeware. We're comparing Best Free :>)

#46Submitted by Anonymous on Sat, 04/18/2009 - 11:44.

There's no comparison with Adobe Acrobat is there ? PDF-X Pro is the BEST CHOICE in this category.

#47Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 04/08/2009 - 15:54.

FreeOCR.net is discontinued (no free replacement also). URL no longer works.

#48Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 04/08/2009 - 15:58.

Ah, it's now available here: http://www.freeocr.co.uk/ .

#49Submitted by Anonymous on Sun, 03/22/2009 - 12:13.

Man PDF-XChange Viewer is fantastic!!!

I need to sign pdf documents very often for my work!!!
I first print/sign/scan/make pdf with open office!

now with PDF-XChange i made a stamp with my signature and it takes only some seconds to do the job!!! Fantastic!!

Also i got the portable version so no rubish in my system!!!
Thanks very much!! I love your site!!!

#50Submitted by Anonymous on Sun, 09/27/2009 - 11:20.

I never knew one could create a stamp using PDF X Change for Signatures! Now I know and I am so happy!!! Thanks Buddy!

Registered Members:	13826
Users now online:	354
Total Forum Threads:	2638
Total Forum Posts:	20954

Get our latest freeware finds

Gizmo's Security Advice Wizard

Navigation

Our Website

Statistics

User login

Best Free PDF Tools

PDFill PDF Tools

PDFTK Builder

jPDF Tweak

PDF Shuffler

Some PDF to Word Converter

FreeOCR.net

7-PDF Maker

i2pdf

PDF-XChange Viewer

Post new comment