Best Free PDF Tools

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Last Update: Sat, 07/04/2009 - 01:47 — Jojoyee

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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, 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.

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, changing document metadata, 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, 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 TXT Converter which preserves text and layout, supports drag and drop files and batch conversion. Online conversion from PDF to text through emails is 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 PDF to Word/Excel, Some PDF to Word Converter allows removing line breaks and preserves paragraphs with soft returns. It supports batch conversion, 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. See also other online converters mentioned in this article How to Convert PDF Files to Word Doc Files for Free.
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.

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.

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Tags

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

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#1Submitted 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.

#2Submitted 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.

#3Submitted 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.

#4Submitted 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).

#5Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 05/21/2009 - 15:14.

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

#6Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 05/21/2009 - 15:16.

oops, sorry wrong thread!

#7Submitted 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

#8Submitted 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.

#9Submitted 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.

#10Submitted 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...

#11Submitted 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.

#12Submitted 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.

#13Submitted 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.

#14Submitted 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.

#15Submitted 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.

#16Submitted 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.

#17Submitted 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).

#18Submitted 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'.

#19Submitted 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.

#20Submitted 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 :>)

#21Submitted 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.

#22Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 04/08/2009 - 15:54.

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

#23Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 04/08/2009 - 15:58.

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

#24Submitted 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!!!

#25Submitted by Anonymous on Fri, 02/20/2009 - 13:46.

There is an excellent freeware Microsoft Reader "LIT" to PDF converter called "ABC Amber LIT Converter".

http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

#26Submitted by Anonymous on Mon, 02/02/2009 - 10:47.

This is a cool little program for tweaking PDF files. It's small and does not install, just run it.

Tweak PDF 1.33 316 KB (Freeware)
http://www.coolpdf.com/tweakpdf.html

#27Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 01/07/2009 - 06:52.

Is there any freeware combination of pdf viewer and printer(prints pdf)

b'coz there are lost of freeware software for pdf
but all are either pdf viwer or pdf pinter(prints pdf from any app.)

but I could not find any combination of pdf viewer and printer

Ravi

ravi883k@gmail.com

#28Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 01/08/2009 - 04:11.

Yet to be seen if there's one. But they serve different purposes though.

#29Submitted by mjt328 on Thu, 01/08/2009 - 05:30.

Foxit Reader 3.0 has a pdf printer add-in utility that you can download and use like any other pdf printer. I've used it infrequently myself, but it does seem to do the job adequately.

#30Submitted by Jojoyee on Fri, 01/09/2009 - 02:04.

Just like other PDF writers, Foxit PDF Creator serves as an add-on to install a virtual printer onto the system.

It adds an evaluation watermark to every page in the created PDF file unless a license key is purchased. There are many others without this limitation, check out Best Free PDF Writer in Related Products and Links.

#31Submitted by Anonymous on Tue, 01/06/2009 - 00:26.

On,

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.

#32Submitted 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...

#33Submitted 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.

#34Submitted 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.

#35Submitted 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.

#36Submitted 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

#37Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 01/07/2009 - 06:54.

Stickypdf required NET framewrok

Ravi

ravi883k@gmail.com

#38Submitted 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.

#39Submitted 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.

#40Submitted 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.

#41Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 12/18/2008 - 23:15.

OpenOffice does that since... the last century!

#42Submitted 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.

#43Submitted 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.

#44Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 11/13/2008 - 21:34.

another good PDF reader is FOXIT
Check this out!
Shameem

#45Submitted 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.

#46Submitted 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.

#47Submitted 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 !

#48Submitted 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!

#49Submitted 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?

#50Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 11/13/2008 - 23:59.

See Bullzip.

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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