Download.it search icon
Advertisement

This is a powerful piece of freeware that can easily edit and convert PDF files for home or business use

This is a powerful piece of freeware that can easily edit and convert PDF files for home or business use

Vote: (66 votes)

Program license: Trial version

Developer: wondershare-it

Version: 9.1.1

Works under: Windows

Also available for Mac

Vote:

Program license

(66 votes)

Trial version

Developer

Version

wondershare-it

9.1.1

Works under:

Also available for

Windows

Mac

Pros

  • Cross-compatibility across desktop and mobile platforms
  • Editing services scaled to meet the needs of enterprises

Cons

  • Can take a while to figure out higher level functions

PDFElement is one of the best platforms around for working with PDF documents. It's scaled to meet the demands of enterprise level businesses, but it works perfectly well for individuals and smaller businesses around. Its interface is clean and easy to understand, but that doesn't mean the options here are overly simplified. There's a huge array of features you can use to accomplish practically any task you'd need done with a PDF document, and you can pick it up practically immediately without having to learn the ins and outs of a new program.

This is effectively an all in one tool kit. At the heart of the experience is an optical character reader. The OCR allows you to scan in the contents of a PDF and translate them into a format that's both readable and writable. While PDF documents come with a lot of advantages, notably the high level of readability and their compatibility among most devices and operating systems, they aren't designed to be natively written in. The OCR in PDFElement will automatically convert your document without losing any of the design or layout elements. It's a lot more than a simple text scraper, and that allows users to save a lot of time by not having to reformat from the ground up. Additionally, the OCR can accomplish the same results with physical texts. Whether you're scanning in legal briefs or taking pictures of a menu for later editing, you can get the results you need without having to rely on labor intensive and financially expensive transcription services like you once did.

The second major component of the PFDElement suite is the ability for file conversion. Whether this means converting a Word file into a dynamic PDF or vice versa, you have plenty of options available to you. Static documents like those created in Word can even be turned into fillable forms, a huge advantage when you're a service based business trying to get feedback from your clients or staff. There are a number of options available as well. PDFs can be translated into other members of the Microsoft Office suite like Powerpoint presentations and Excel spreadsheets. This is a product built from the ground up to work with enterprise level businesses, and that's why they offer batch editing that can scale to the highest level needs. Over 500 PDF files can be converted at a time, meaning this platform can digitize all of your physical archives in almost no time at all.

You have a lot of granular control over how you want to edit your PDF documents as well. Comments in the form of sticky notes, text boxes, and hand drawn annotation are possible, and you can redact sensitive information while still leaving it available in your source document. Documents can even be extracted, cut, merged, and split.

Pros

  • Cross-compatibility across desktop and mobile platforms
  • Editing services scaled to meet the needs of enterprises

Cons

  • Can take a while to figure out higher level functions