Better alternatives to adobe reader

However, the PDF was standardized in , and since then many other companies have emerged to offer rival services for users looking to work with PDF files. Like Adobe, Foxit has been offering PDF tools for decades, and users can take confidence from the many high-profile endorsements proudly listed on the Foxit site, with the likes of Amazon, Google, Dell, and Intel among them.

This includes watermarking, adding headers and footers, tailoring password permissions, creating templates, and converting other documents to PDFs. Its Standard 10 version is tailored to Windows devices, with its Mac 4 version designed for Apple. And so, in addition to sophisticated tools that allow users to create, convert, annotate, edit, and combine PDFs, Nitro's impressive Pro PDF software also comes with e-signature functionality. Users can implement signing workflows that can be engaged with on any device.

What's more, Nitro Pro can be integrated with leading workspace tools, from top cloud storage options including Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox, and Box, to a Microsoft Office plugin that gives users the ability to use Nitro Pro directly within any Word, Excel, or PowerPoint document.

For those with a need to edit PDFs but without the desire or budget to pay for the privilege, the good news is that Sejda offers a free version that might just do the trick. Available as a desktop version that saves files locally to your computer or an online version that uses cloud storage, the no-cost offering does, however, come with some restrictions.

You'll be restricted to three tasks per day, you can only work on one document at a time, and file sizes cannot exceed pages or 50MB. But as a useful option for infrequent PDF editing, Sejda offers an excellent no-cost or low-cost alternative. Available for Apple users only, with a Mac version and another for use with iPhone and iPad, PDF Expert offers users a no-obligation seven-day free trial. Nitro Pro is another Acrobat Reader alternative for Windows. The tool is gaining popularity when it comes to the handling of documents, editing documents, and sharing them with others, both on and offline.

The documents created by this program can be opened on any PDF reader or any mobile device. The program also has a Cloud feature that lets users sign and share documents with different users. It has a dictation option, which makes it useful for sight-impaired users. This program helps you dictate notes using Dragon Notes. Instead of typing the notes out, the tool does everything for you. The disadvantage of this application is that you can only open one PDF file at a time.

It does not support the opening of multiple PDF files. You can browse for PDF documents, perform simple annotations, use text and drawing tools, and place text where you want using the typewriter tool. PDF-Xchange is a portable application that includes many more features such as OCR, image recognition, and security support. You can also use this Adobe Reader alternative to apply custom stamps and markups to your document. This program also supports more than 30 languages when viewing and reading documents.

However, the special features such as text extraction and reorganizing pages are only accessible through the PRO upgrade. PDF Studio is a user-friendly Adobe reader alternative which comes at a lower price. PDF has been the de facto standard for document exchange since the mids, but it wasn't an official ISO standard until Unfortunately, the ubiquity of Adobe Reader and other PDF software has made the format a target for malware perpetrators. I wrote about the importance of keeping your apps updated in a post from last April.

So when I heard last week about an important security update for Adobe Reader 9, I hurried to the Adobe site to download the new version 9. But the 45MB download included a separate program: Acrobat.

This is a Web service for sharing and collaborating on documents. I hadn't signed up for Acrobat. I couldn't find it offered on Adobe's site minus the Acrobat. I contacted Adobe to ask them about this. Adobe spokesperson John Cristofano told me the following via e-mail:.