PDF Editing & Creation: 50+ open source/free alternatives to Adobe Acrobat

Adobe Acrobat is expensive, but that doesn’t mean you have to live a life without portable documents. What many people don’t realize is that PDF is a Federal Information Processing Standard, which means the specifications behind the format are widely published. Numerous developers take advantage of this fact and create programs that offer effective alternatives to Acrobat. Check out our list of these programs and take advantage of these tools that are full of some of the best PDF features and functions.

Downloadable/Online PDF Creators

These simply and emminently usable programs will allow you to quickly create your own PDFs.

  1. CutePDF: Create a PDF file from almost any printable document. CutePDF has an open SDK and doesn’t bog down their software with popups or watermarks.
  2. Adobe Online PDF Creator: The online version of the popular Adobe Acrobat.
  3. PDF reDirect: The freeware PDF reDirect offers loads of robust features, including PDF creation, previews, encryption, and more, that go a long way to replacing Adobe.
  4. CC (Free) PDF Converter: This printer driver can be used to create a PDF file from any printable Windows application.
  5. PDFCreator: Use PDFCreator to create PDFs from any printable program, as well as encrypt and autosave files based on predefined terms.
  6. Open Office: Open Office has a PDF export feature that allows you to define compression levels as well as handle thumbnails and hyperlinks.
  7. Scribus: Use this desktop publishing program to create interactive PDF presentations and forms.
  8. HylaFAX: HylaFAX is an open source fax server that can be configured to deliver in PDF.

Online and Desktop PDF Editors

PDF manipulation is easy and free with these tools.

  1. PDFescape: This online PDF solution is a reader, editor, form filler, and form designer. All you need to use it is a JavaScript enabled web browser.
  2. PDFedit: Use this editor to manipulate PDF documents, with an option to do your own scripting and plugins.
  3. Multivalent browser: Although not a pure editor, this browser allows for minimal editing in the form of creating annotations. In addition, it includes several command-line PDF specific tools which allow for things like merging, compression, and extraction.

PDF Converters

  1. PDF to Excel: This Windows app allows you to quickly and easily convert PDF files to Excel. It comes with a free trial and also supports scanned PDF files.

Viewers

If you need a simple way to open and read PDFs, look no further than these lightweight viewers.

  1. Sumatra PDF: This Windows PDF viewer is light and minimalistic. It’s even designed for portable use, so you can run it from a USB drive.
  2. FoxIt Reader: The Foxit PDF viewer is an all time favorite (especially of Digg users). And has a strong set of features (with a very competitive price :) )
  3. PalmPDF: Use this PDF viewer for Palm OS devices.
  4. Evince: Gnome users can take advantage of Evince, a document viewer that supports both PDF and PostScript documents.
  5. Preview: Mac OS X comes with Preview, an application that displays images and PDFs.
  6. ePDFView: This lightweight PDF viewer uses the GTK+ and Poppler libraries.
  7. Okular: This document viewer for KDE 4 supports PDF, PostScript, and lots more.
  8. Xpdf: Xpdf, available for nearly any Unix OS, is a PDF viewer that allows you to read encrypted PDFs, extract images, and more.

Compatability

Make the PDF format compatible with HTML, XML, non-proprietary formats, and more using these tools.

  1. PythonPoint: Use this tool to create presentations that can be opened with any PDF viewer.
  2. AxPoint: Create PDF slideshows from XML using AxPoint.
  3. DocBook XSL Stylesheets: Create and store documents in a presentation-neutral form that can be published in HTML, PDF, and more.
  4. Unipage: Unipage turns any page, online or local, into an HTML file that can function as a portable document. Although Unipage is currently only available on Windows, additional OS and browser support is coming soon.
  5. KWord: KWord is a word processor for KOffice, and it offers a PDF import function.
  6. PDFlib: The PDFlib development tool offers a way for developers to PDF-enable software and create PDFs on their own server.
  7. Ghostscript: The Ghostscript software can interpret PostScript language and PDFs interchangeably and convert them to faster formats.
  8. Mozilla Archive Format: This extension can save pages in MHTML format, which creates a portable document of the page.
  9. Pstoedit: This program converts PostScript or PDF files to other output formats such as WOMF/EMF, PDF, DXF, CGM, and HTML.

Command Line Manipulation and Editing

These editors won’t be used on your desktop as you would use Acrobat or any other PDF application. Rather, you can use these offerings to build into your own apps so that you can automate the PDF creation and manipulation process.

  1. PJ: Etymon’s PJ, the parent of PJX, is one of the earliest open source attempts to make PDF’s more accessible. PJ is a class library in Java that allows parsing, manipulation, and generation of PDF files.
  2. PDFlib: The PDFlib development tool offers a way for developers to PDF-enable software and create PDFs on their own server.
  3. mbtPdfAsm: The mbtPdfAsm application is an in line tool for assembling and merging PDF files, extracting information from them, and updating PDF metadata.
  4. PDF::API2: PDF::API2 offers a “next generation” tool for creating and manipulating PDF files.
  5. PDF Clown: The PDF Clown is an open source library which includes capabilities such as document splitting, merging, and more.
  6. iText: iText is an ideal library for developers seeking to automate PDF creation and manipulation.
  7. FreeDist: This freeware distiller can convert files into PDF as well as compose multiple files to one PDF in a specific order.
  8. Pdftk: This toolkit offers command-line functionality for lots of features, like merging, form filling, and encryption.

PDF Creation Libraries, Scripts and Systems

If you’re a developer and you want to move beyond the capabilities of a desktop PDF creator, these libraries, scripts, and systems will help you incorporate PDF creation into your own applications.

  1. CUPS: The Common Unix Printing System (CUPS) is primarily a system for enabling a computer to act as a print server, but which has a robust feature that allows PDF exporting.
  2. Lout: This document formatting system, the implementation of which is referred to as Basser Lout, can be outputted in PDF, plain text, and more.
  3. Indexed PDF Creator: This tool automatically generates a keyword index for PDF documents which allows readers to quickly locate specific words and phrases in a document.
  4. Cairo: Cairo, a vector drawing library, allows creation of PDF documents.
  5. LyX: This document processor which is particularly popular amongst the scientific community offers PDF exporting.
  6. Fly2PDF: You can create PDF documents directly using this ActiveX library.
  7. PDF Creator Pilot: Use this library to create PDF files from popular programming languages like Visual Basic and ASP.
  8. XeTex: XeTex is a typesetting program that offers PDF creation.
  9. FPDF: Use FPDF to create PDF files with PHP. You don’t need PDFlib to use it.
  10. Inkscape: Inkscape is an open source vector drawing program that offers support for PDF exports.
  11. PdfTeX: This typesetting program can output PDF files and allows a number of features like links and tables of contents.
  12. ReportLab: This library offers a PDF generation solution specifically suited for web publishers, developers, and creative designers who are looking for a high-speed automated PDF generation.
  13. Tiny RML2PDF: You can create a PDF document from RML with this tool, giving it the appearance of a printed document.
  14. HTML_ToPDF: This PHP class allows users to convert HTML to PDF files quickly and easily.

Other Tools

Get even more function from your PDFs using these tools.

  1. Skim: For OS X, Skim is a PDF reader with features that allow you to take notes and highlight on any PDF file.
  2. Notepad Generator: This tool makes it easy to create a PDF notepad, and it’s fully customizable.
  3. PDFmap: PDFmap offers automated generation of interactive PDF maps.

With these tools, you should be able to go way beyond Adobe. Even better, you can do it for free and have the option to customize your experience using their open source status.





Posted on December 19, 2007 by Yoav Ezer 
Filed Under Adobe, PDF, Productivity, Series

Comments

148 Responses to “PDF Editing & Creation: 50+ open source/free alternatives to Adobe Acrobat”

  1. Yet Another Blog from Luar » Open source/free alternatives to Adobe Acrobat on December 20th, 2007 7:24 am

    [...] to view and create PDF file, including desktop software, server command line, code library. Check it! [...]

  2. luca mezzalira on December 20th, 2007 11:17 am

    Very cool post!
    Don’t forget AIR!! :-D

    that’s a joke

  3. Yoav Ezer on December 20th, 2007 11:41 am

    Thanks Luca :)

    And everyone who’s reading this…If I forgot something/someone please drop a link in the comments

  4. Helen White on December 20th, 2007 12:47 pm

    Great work done! I suppose we all like “going beyond” … :)
    This page definitely goes to my bookmarks, thanks.
    Dugg

  5. Yoav Ezer on December 20th, 2007 12:49 pm

    Thanks Helen :)

  6. jackson on December 20th, 2007 3:30 pm

    i have also come across online pdf viewers such as viewer in zoho.com site…its cool

  7. Fabiano Caruso on December 20th, 2007 4:26 pm

    A good one downloadable pdf creator with no annoying pop-up ads and no registration requirement:

    http://primopdf.com

  8. emptythevoid on December 20th, 2007 5:23 pm

    What about the Foxit PDF reader?

    http://www.foxitsoftware.com/

  9. Yoav Ezer on December 20th, 2007 5:26 pm

    Hi Fabiano, emptythevoid

    Both Primo and FoxIt are great tools. Thanks for adding them.

  10. Suketu Vyas’s Blog » 50+ open source/free alternatives to Adobe Acrobat on December 20th, 2007 5:27 pm

    [...] Related Link: PDF Editing & Creation: 50+ open source/free alternatives to Adobe Acrobat [...]

  11. rss2pdf on December 20th, 2007 5:40 pm

    Please don’t forget RSS2PDF:
    http://rss2pdf.com

  12. Yoav Ezer on December 20th, 2007 5:41 pm

    Thanks rss2pdf :)

  13. Laurent on December 20th, 2007 5:46 pm

    How about Apache FOP? Great tool to go from XML to PDF
    http://xmlgraphics.apache.org/fop/

  14. brent.bourgoine.net :: Free/OSS PDF Software :: December :: 2007 on December 20th, 2007 6:13 pm

    [...] Nice listing of Free/OSS PDF Software. ( b3 @ 11:15 am ) [...]

  15. willem mulder on December 20th, 2007 6:20 pm

    that’s a comprehensive list!

    thanks for sharing and taking the effort to compile it :)

    WM.

  16. Raffaele on December 20th, 2007 6:20 pm

    Any PDF organizer? I’ve found a guide telling how to use iTunes to organize PDFs, but I’d like to find something more specific. Please help!

  17. Yoav Ezer on December 20th, 2007 6:33 pm

    @Laurent – Thanks for the tip

    @Willem – Thanks for the compliment :)

    @Raffaele – It sounds like you are looking for a personal knowledge management solution. Try looking for one of those.

  18. charles on December 20th, 2007 6:35 pm

    Why no mention of LaTeX. It does PDF and a whole lot of other stuff.

  19. Yoav Ezer on December 20th, 2007 6:39 pm

    Hey Charles,

    What about a link?

  20. Rebecca on December 20th, 2007 6:48 pm

    Thank you so much!
    I was just about to buy acrobat pro-Until your article.

    I think scribus will do everything I need-And its 400 smackers cheaper.

    Dugg & Stumbled!

  21. Yoav Ezer on December 20th, 2007 6:58 pm

    Hi Rebecca

    You are Welcome :)

  22. Chris on December 20th, 2007 7:06 pm

    Great for merging and extracting pages.

    http://www.pdfsam.org/

  23. My Linux Box » 50+ Open Source/Free Alternatives to Adobe Acrobat & PDF on December 20th, 2007 7:13 pm

    [...] to Acrobat. Check out our list of these programs and take advantage of these tools…read more | digg [...]

  24. Laurent on December 20th, 2007 7:25 pm

    I love the sheer simplicity of FreePDF XP (freepdf-xp.en.softonic.com) – check it out !

  25. TechnoEsq » Free Adobe Acrobat Alternatives on December 20th, 2007 8:02 pm

    [...] about are some opensource/free alternatives to Adobe Acrobat. Don’t get us wrong, we love Acrobat 8.0 and are impressed with all of the new features designed specifically for lawyers such as true [...]

  26. pbros on December 20th, 2007 8:02 pm

    Gotta give some props to domPDF. Converts HTML to PDF using PHP…

  27. Referências do dia < mário nogueira on December 20th, 2007 8:39 pm

    [...] PDF editing and creation – Ferramentas para criar e editar PDFs. [...]

  28. Blogerko on December 20th, 2007 9:24 pm

    Yes, foxit reader rulez!

  29. Renan on December 20th, 2007 9:26 pm

    CUPS, together with CUPS-PDF, is the best way to generate PDFs, IMHO. Simple, efficient, works with any Linux application, and works over a LAN too.

  30. Teddy on December 20th, 2007 9:45 pm

    Thank you for the huge list!
    I’ve been looking for months for a program capable to convert rgb pdf to cmyk pdfs.
    It’s the only feature of adobe acrobat pro that I’m missing in other softwares…

  31. Jeton on December 20th, 2007 10:46 pm

    PrimoPDF all the way.

    It even worked with a 50MB Corel Draw file, the result was excellent.
    I’ve tried a lot, but PrimoPDF is really Primo for the job.

  32. mt on December 20th, 2007 11:35 pm

    PDF-XChange Viewer: tabbed PDF-ing!

    http://www.docu-track.com/downloads/users/

  33. Jskilla on December 21st, 2007 12:25 am

    deskUNPDF from Docudesk blows away most of these… PDF to Everything AND the fomatting looks RIGHT!

  34. Bob on December 21st, 2007 2:16 am

    Despite the long list, it is disappointing that it appears that only Acrobat and OpenOffice are capable of retaining the source file’s table of contents links and hyperlinks.

  35. links for 2007-12-20 « toonz on December 21st, 2007 2:23 am

    [...] PDF Editing & Creation: 50+ open source/free alternatives to Adobe Acrobat : Codswallop (tags: pdf tools opensource freeware list) [...]

  36. Diego on December 21st, 2007 3:14 am

    Excellent work, thanks.

    Other systems that produce PDFs are Apache Cocoon and Apache Forrest, using the XSL-FO language.

  37. links for 2007-12-21 at DeStructUred Blog on December 21st, 2007 5:17 am

    [...] PDF Editing & Creation: 50+ open source/free alternatives to Adobe Acrobat : Codswallop (tags: PDF Blog Tools Freeware) [...]

  38. links for 2007-12-21 « My Weblog on December 21st, 2007 7:14 am

    [...] PDF Editing & Creation: 50+ open source/free alternatives to Adobe Acrobat : Codswallop (tags: productivity linux) [...]

  39. PDF Editing & Creation: 50+ Open Source/Free Alternatives « Linux and Open Source Blog on December 21st, 2007 9:00 am

    [...] Check out the complete list [...]

  40. Skylog » Blog Archive » links for 2007-12-21 on December 21st, 2007 9:15 am

    [...] PDF Editing & Creation: 50+ open source/free alternatives to Adobe Acrobat (tags: software) [...]

  41. Prolific Programmer on December 21st, 2007 11:44 am

    It seems you lot missed pdfbox at http://pdfbox.org, a Java-based library for manipulating PDF used by nutch.

  42. Opções Gratuitas para Gerar PDFs on December 21st, 2007 11:56 am

    [...] com o Adobe Acrobat Pro (US$ 449) pode utilizar um dos programas gratuitos selecionados pelo site Codswallop. A lista contém mais de 50 programas [...]

  43. Security Roadmap » PDF software does not have to be expensive on December 21st, 2007 12:41 pm

    [...] Source [Cogni View] [...]

  44. Eric Bruhn » 50 Free Alternatives to Adobe Reader on December 21st, 2007 5:05 pm

    [...] Everywhere that you look, there is a PDF file. It used to be that Adobe reader was your only choice, but that is no longer true. There are 50 alternatives to Adobe. One of the favorite ones is FoxIt Reader for both Windows and Linux. via Congiview PDF Editing & Creation: 50+ open source/free alternatives to Adobe Acrobat [...]

  45. PDF tools « Brave Dave’s Musings on December 21st, 2007 7:42 pm

    [...] See this blogpost for 50+ open source/free alternatives to Adobe Acrobat for PDF creation & [...]

  46. Suramya’s Blog » PDF Editing & Creation: Open source alternatives to Adobe Acrobat : Welcome to my crazy life… on December 21st, 2007 7:44 pm

    [...] I personally don’t like using PDF files. They are bulky and need extra software for me to view them. Plus they are a pain to export into html (which I like). But they are a necessary evil especially if you are dealing with the corporate world/goverment where most of the forms etc are in PDF format maybe because they allow the creator to choose the layout/content and make it hard for others to modify without spending a lot of money. Atleast that used to be the case, now there are most than 50 alternatives to Adobe Acrobat that you can try out and use for free. The following site has a listing of all the tools with a brief description of each: 50+ open source/free alternatives to Adobe Acrobat. [...]

  47. Lista de otras alternativas a Adobe Acrobat gratuitas on December 21st, 2007 9:13 pm

    [...] DIGIZEN han referenciado el sitio Codswallop donde describen en una lista más de 50 herramientas gratuitas para convertir a PDF, para [...]

  48. Pauline Wallin on December 21st, 2007 11:47 pm

    What a great resource! Hope your blog doesn’t crash from the people I’m going to sent to it.
    Pauline
    http://blog.teachmeinternet.com

  49. PDF Editing & Creation: 50+ open source/free alternatives to Adobe Acrobat : Codswallop « Hotware: Dirk’s Software Blog on December 22nd, 2007 1:21 am

    [...] December 22, 2007 PDF Editing & Creation: 50+ open source/free alternatives to Adobe Acrobat : Codswallop [...]

  50. Kathie on December 22nd, 2007 2:03 am

    For searching and collecting infos on the Web and printing the results have a look at:

    http://select-arrange.com

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  52. B!n@ry-z0ne » أرشيف المدونة » 50 بديل لبرامج الـ Adobe الخاصة بالـ PDF on December 22nd, 2007 2:00 pm

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  53. W.ordPress » Alternativas gratuitas a Adobe Acrobat on December 23rd, 2007 11:53 pm

    [...] Codswallop  se describen más de 50 herramientas gratuitas  para convertir a PDF, para visualizar [...]

  54. links for 2007-12-24 on December 24th, 2007 3:17 pm

    [...] PDF Editing & Creation: 50+ open source/free alternatives to Adobe Acrobat : Codswallop Adobe Acrobat is expensive, but that doesn’t mean you have to live a life without portable documents. What many people don’t realize is that PDF is a Federal Information Processing Standard, which means the specifications behind the format are widely (tags: freeware pdf) buscapeads_afiliado = “20002″;buscapeads_tipo_cliente = “2″;buscapeads_vitrine_local = “BR”;buscapeads_site_origem = “1331189″;buscapeads_vitrine_vers = “1.23″;buscapeads_formato = “468×60″;buscapeads_id_keyword = “50360″;buscapeads_txt_keyword = “”;buscapeads_tipo_canal = “22″;buscapeads_categorias = “3482″;buscapeads_excluir = “0″;buscapeads_idioma = “pt”;buscapeads_pais = “BR”;buscapeads_area = “”;buscapeads_estado = “”;buscapeads_cidade = “”;buscapeads_cep = “”; [...]

  55. Programas Gratuitos Para Editar y Crear Documentos PDF on December 24th, 2007 9:46 pm

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  56. Denis au fil du web » PDF Editing & Creation: 50+ open source/free alternatives to Adobe Acrobat on December 26th, 2007 1:41 am

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  57. Jason on December 27th, 2007 6:31 pm

    This is a great list… unfortunately for you, it looks like spammers think so too…

    I too am not a big fan of PDF files… big and bulky. And I certainly don’t want to pay for Adobe’s software. Thanks.

  58. » Le migliori 54 alternative gratuite ad Adobe Reader Geekissimo on December 28th, 2007 1:58 pm

    [...] Fonte: Codswallop [...]

  59. Programas Gratuitos Para Editar y Crear Documentos PDF « www.luischedy.uni.cc on December 29th, 2007 6:04 pm

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  60. Tom on December 31st, 2007 2:33 pm

    nice list!

    have you tried PDF-XChange viewer (windows)
    http://www.snapfiles.com/get/pdfxchangeviewer.html
    “enables you to view and annotate PDF files. You can add text, sticky notes, and other annotations and save them to the file, which will be compatible with the standard Adobe PDF reader”

    also reviewed (along with a bunch of other viewers) at donationcoder:
    http://www.donationcoder.com/Forums/bb/index.php?topic=8268.0

  61. SoloSmallTech.com » 50 free and open source PDF tools | Samuel J. Glover & Associates, LLC on December 31st, 2007 3:31 pm

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  62. Creazione e modifica di file PDF: 50+ open source/free alternative a Adobe Acrobat : technorati.it on January 1st, 2008 4:57 pm

    [...] La lista completa : http://www.cogniview.com/ [...]

  63. Eight top blog resources from the Aussie Bloggers Forum at On Blogging Australia on January 8th, 2008 6:46 am

    [...] PDF Editing & Creation: 50+ open source/free alternatives to Adobe Acrobat: usable or not, PDF has become a defacto standard for electronic documents – and Acrobat is expensive for what most of us need it to do (that is, simply take a word processing document and turn it into a PDF file every now and then). This post lists some useful free alternatives to Adobe Acrobat. [...]

  64. 50 opções gratuitas (open source/free) ao Adobe Acrobat « Black Cow on January 10th, 2008 10:01 pm

    [...] nós, mas porque pagar caro no Adobe Acrobat se você tem mais de 50 opções gratuitas ? Neste link, o pessoal da Codswallop lista muitas aplicações, dividas em categorias como: Criadores de [...]

  65. Howard Ray on January 11th, 2008 12:58 am

    Another great site is PDF Hammer. It’s an online PDF editor that lets you edit from the browser

    http://www.pdfhammer.com

  66. Alternatives to PDF Editing and Creation Tools : Computer Learning Center on January 21st, 2008 5:33 am

    [...] to open or edit PDF file. Amongst the softwares are the Free and Open source. Just check the list of alternatives to PDF Editing and Creation Tools. It’s noteworthy [...]

  67. ernie villanueva on January 22nd, 2008 8:02 am

    Is there a free software (command line for windows) that can merge multiple pdf or tif files into a single pdf with option to add bookmarks on the result.

  68. k.s.reddy on January 23rd, 2008 12:42 pm

    An excellent article on PDF Editing & Creation. You forgotten one Free PDF Online Conversion website. It is http://www.pdfonline.com/

  69. Denis au fil du web » PDF éditing et création: 50 outils on January 30th, 2008 3:24 am

    [...] PDF éditing et création: 50 outils [...]

  70. Tumblelog #7 « harmless chatter….. on January 31st, 2008 12:25 pm

    [...] For the software geeks, I have 50+ open source/free alternatives to Adobe Acrobat. The people on the other side might enjoy this list of best hacking softwares. Its a neat little [...]

  71. Richard on February 1st, 2008 4:18 am

    How about the free ‘PDF Download’ extension for handling PDF files in Firefox?

  72. r2d2 on February 16th, 2008 1:15 am

    Looks like someone else liked this post so much he replicated it on his own blog:

    http://www.suketuvyas.com/2007/12/20/50-open-sourcefree-alternatives-to-adobe-acrobat/

  73. www.mobile2fun.com on February 29th, 2008 1:00 am

    I hope the Irish Language broadcaster sees this and considers doing something similar with our home produced documentaries.

  74. H2Fooko on March 20th, 2008 3:15 pm

    Thanks for this pdf summary.

    I would had a great tool (free) to export from a ‘word doc’ towards a ‘pdf’
    – preserving the links (external or internal)but also
    – exporting ‘word doc’ titles as bookmarks:

    http://ghostword.sourceforge.net/

  75. H2Fooko on March 20th, 2008 3:36 pm

    I forgot to mention this application running under a UNIX like emulator under windows that explains the internal structure of a ‘pdf’ file and allows you to make modifications in it.
    The advantage is to see the relation ship between an object and its visual effect.

    http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfedit

  76. H2Fooko on March 20th, 2008 7:04 pm

    Here is a genious one (totally free) allowing:
    - meta data modifications among with:
    - bookmarks (included colors)

    Really great:

    http://www.becyhome.de/becypdfmetaedit/description_eng.htm

  77. Don Leske on March 21st, 2008 5:04 pm

    I have been trying out several freeware and shareware PDF Editors, as I am writing a book about Real Estate and wish to publish it online as an eBook – Thank you to H2Fooko for all the good tips, I am about to try out the becyhome.de program.

    For some reason some of the other programs mentioned eariler like GhostWord did not play well with my Vista, not sure why. I really wanted to try that one out. Last update 2005? –

    Anyway.., Thanks again and this forum is a good place to get ideas!
    -Don

  78. Abhinaba Basu on April 4th, 2008 3:12 pm

    Anybody know a free activeX control to create PDF.

  79. Ravi on April 8th, 2008 5:22 am

    Any suggestions for a PDF editor in the OS X environment?

  80. Avenger on April 9th, 2008 6:48 pm

    you have been copypasted, did you know that?

    http://www.suketuvyas.com/2007/12/20/50-open-sourcefree-alternatives-to-adobe-acrobat/

  81. touchpdf on April 17th, 2008 9:24 am

    online PDF editor, beta version, support editing/concatenation/split… more features: compose/stamp/annotaion/batch generation under active development…

  82. Mi Blog on April 21st, 2008 5:36 am

    Hi, Thank you for this great information.

    Greetings

    Khaos

  83. nadie007 on April 21st, 2008 5:45 am

    A lot of thanks!
    great links and options for Adobe acrobat!
    :)

  84. vak on April 27th, 2008 8:00 pm

    Hi,

    great overview!

    by the way, to find the alternatives you can try http://dooblet.com

    it is quite a new service, but it usually manages to give a hint about alternatives to all things that make sense :)

    have a nice day!

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  86. Ibod Catooga on May 29th, 2008 9:38 pm

    For my PDF creation, I engrave my PDFs on stone in binary format. Then I climb up a cave and then store them there so that future archaeologists can find them and then read them to me.

    This is the most efficient backup solution I have been able to find so far. It works wonders, and only costs me $5 for a chisel. It rocks. All you should do this. I love PDF.

  87. Yoav Ezer on May 29th, 2008 9:42 pm

    Ibod (if that is your real name)

    LOL

  88. Nass on June 5th, 2008 2:22 am

    on Downloadable PDF creators:
    please add a comparative of each software compression techniques. to us not-so techi ones, some create huge and massive PDF files in a size multiple of the original format. at least that is my experience with CutePDF.

  89. Barbara Irwin on June 6th, 2008 2:17 am

    Thanks for putting together this list. I’ve included it on my Loads of Linux Links under Software Applications–PDF / PostScript.

    Barbara in Victoria, B.C.

  90. Aaron Trainor on June 26th, 2008 9:44 pm

    I wish for a free PDF maker that can make pdf’s via a right-click context menu like Adobe does, because using the printing option seems to cause confusion with my printer. I’m always having to change which printer is the default.

  91. Aaron Trainor on June 26th, 2008 9:47 pm

    To the webmaster: Thank you for once for being able to comment without signing up and all that red tape. Appreciate it!

  92. Green Guy on July 1st, 2008 10:19 am

    One of my favourite pdf converters is <a href=”http://www.pdffactory.com.au”pdfFactory. Seems to compress better than many of the others.

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  95. H2Fooko on August 8th, 2008 8:30 pm

    Hi

    I have gathered my free pdf tools I enjoy on my website. I know it is in french but links are international.

    Enjoy too

  96. anonymous on August 26th, 2008 10:07 pm

    I have a PDF template which i populate with data using iText classes. But there is a little error with the pdf template. The size of one of the text boxes is too big and overlaps an image file. So i want to move this text box away from the image but I do not want to recreate the template. Is it possible to move around text boxes in a pdf template using any of the above tools. Thanks in advance for help

  97. Dietrich Hauser on August 27th, 2008 10:56 pm

    I wonder if there is an open source program that has a tool like acrobat’s measuring toolset with changable scale and whatnot. Any ideas?

  98. sarpras on September 6th, 2008 9:47 am

    Hi,

    Thank you for this great information.

    Thanks

  99. Pewit on September 9th, 2008 12:32 pm

    Does anyone know of a program that convert MS Word Forms to Acrobat Forms, apart from Adobe Acrobat?

  100. Piers on September 16th, 2008 3:56 pm

    For windows cutepdf for simplicity and dopdf if you want to be able to adjust quality/file size. Mac OS X built in and Ubuntu CUPS.

  101. Leigh on September 30th, 2008 5:48 pm

    While we’re on the subject, does anyone know of any free PDF software that allows you to create bookmarks and not leave watermarks on your page? Thanks.

  102. Acerca de… alternativas al Adobe Acrobat « Acerca de… on November 8th, 2008 9:18 pm

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  103. Sergej Klein on November 25th, 2008 4:20 pm

    Here you find all German alternatives:

    http://www.alternative-zu.de/q/Acrobat+Reader

  104. Hallie on November 27th, 2008 3:29 pm

    It is healthy, I shall come on your site more often, thank.,

  105. Jools on November 27th, 2008 7:12 pm

    im nuts with big nuts, i love saying that XD,

  106. Callista on November 28th, 2008 12:15 am

    I’ve just been sitting around waiting for something to happen.,

  107. Acrobat form - Apex Community Forums on December 4th, 2008 7:38 pm

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  108. Riverbony on January 21st, 2009 8:40 pm

    i develop with PdfSharp
    also include functions for charts and codbars

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  110. Chamila on February 12th, 2009 5:40 pm

    Hi,
    Is there an open source tool that can convert a PDF to a web ready PDF [a low resolution version].

    Regards
    Chamila

  111. peter on February 14th, 2009 4:13 am

    nice stuff in here

  112. ebookey on March 7th, 2009 11:14 pm

    Great list, thanks! FoxIt reader is my favourite.

  113. Andrew P. on April 1st, 2009 7:32 am

    This article would have been a bit more useful if it had identified the programs capable of producing PDF/A files. There are a number of variants of PDF files, many of which are incompatible with older software, and which probably won’t be retrievable within five years of their creation due to hardware and software obsolescence. Now that an archiving standard exists, anything I care about and store as PDF should be in PDF/A.

  114. Alex on May 4th, 2009 10:17 am

    PDF to Text Conversion tools: Simpo PDF to Text
    http://www.simpopdf.com/pdf-to-text.html

  115. blreber.net | on May 29th, 2009 10:36 am

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  116. gunsmith on June 25th, 2009 12:18 pm

    Great list

    http://www.investintech.com/prod_a2e.htm

    Able2extract is excellent too.

  117. hipotecario on June 25th, 2009 5:55 pm

    I am using Open Office since many years to create PDF-documents.

  118. cristiann on July 4th, 2009 8:27 am

    A lot of these files actually are no more than some engines to print something to pdf and more, they are crippled versions of commercial versions. They don’t include pdf editing/management, indexing, OCR, bookmarking inside pdf’s, etc. COOL!!!

  119. Simon Heaps on July 8th, 2009 10:04 am

    Check out the free PDF-XChange Viewer – way more free features than any of the other’s – fast and a slick interface – no extra downloads to enable features after the intial install – truly awesome – portable version available too.

  120. jonesp on July 10th, 2009 7:37 am

    How to convert a TXT document into PDF format?

  121. albert.s on July 10th, 2009 7:40 am

    Yes, you can convert a TXT document into PDF format with simple software called Magic PDF. If you want to check it out, go to http://www.magic-PDF.com. Good luck, albert.s

  122. Free PDF Editor - Please suggest - TechEnclave on July 28th, 2009 1:35 pm

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  123. Rob Couty on July 29th, 2009 10:42 pm

    Just have a simple question. I need to check the dpi of the pictures imbeded in my book when it’s in the pdf format. I was told by Amazon I could do that through Adobe Acrobat. But when I went to download that program it’s a windows only platform.

    So naturally I’m looking a program that will allow me to do that. Do this make sense and do you know of a program on your site or otherwise that will allow me to do that?

    And great site:o)
    RC

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  125. Bec on August 24th, 2009 6:14 am

    Please can anyone suggest a free download (preferably not just a trial) that will allow me to plot AutoCAD drawings (.DWG files) to PDF format without watermarks. If it has capabilities to edit PDFs too (add, move & extract pages if nothing else) then that would be truly marvellous!
    Thank you.

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  129. PDF editor - on November 9th, 2009 8:47 pm

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  130. xiaoming on November 10th, 2009 9:12 am

    1234555

  131. Luke on November 19th, 2009 8:42 am

    interesting. You seem very knowledgeable in da field.

  132. Adrienne on December 3rd, 2009 1:41 am

    All these are great FREE tools but all of them have limited functionality of course… In my opinion, the best deal available these days on the market is PDF Studio:

    PDF Studio

    It’s not pretending to be free like all these others tool but it’s an excellent alternative to Adobe Acrobat that supports ALL PDF functions. And best of all it works on all platforms: Windows, Mac and Linux!

  133. Carputers News and Computer Tips » Blog Archive » More .pdf Resources (+ edit) on December 12th, 2009 7:12 pm

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  135. educational consultants chennai on December 21st, 2009 1:28 pm

    Great Post. I am searching for a long time, a software that will extract images from pdf and finally i came to know xpdf from your post. Really Thanks.

  136. Sam on January 6th, 2010 10:00 pm

    Can someone tell me if they know of an api or website that uses a visual display of pdfs…to clarify I saw this website (that I can’t remember the name) that displayed rows of pdf books, and after you clicked one, it opened up in the browser. The nice thing is that there was no acrobat program start in the browser and it was seamless and fairly quick. It was like Schmooz or something but now I can’t locate – ugh. Help would be appreciated. Thanks.

  137. Frank on January 7th, 2010 9:07 pm

    Please add pdfsam to your list! It’s one of the only open source programs that can easily edit pdfs.

  138. jiju on February 13th, 2010 10:02 am

    how we can conver the pdf to excell with with a righ click on file /or/ how we can convert multiple pdf file to excell at a sigle command

  139. I cant open PDF documents in Adobe anymore, it used to work fine. Is there an alternate program that will work? | yomo on February 15th, 2010 3:59 pm

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  141. TOO MUCH INFO FOR A SIMPLE PROBLEM on March 16th, 2010 5:59 am

    Sheesh! All we need is to open a .pdf to EDIT a few lines and we already have Adobe’s Acrobat 4.0 (old version) but are scared to install such an older product on a Vista machine. So where can we find a FREE download to JUST EDIT a few lines in the pdf file, WITHOUT ADDING UNWANTED WATERMARKS TO OUR PAGES and WITHOUT a bunch of fol-derol in order to do a free trial (like having to install .NET or some other kludgey junk first)???

    Is this feature (editing a pdf file) really so complex & difficult that there is not a SIMPLE, FREE (REALLY FREE-no gimmicks) pdf EDITOR somewhere online???

    Thanks for any suggestions. (Otherwise, we’ll have to rely on ancient old Acrobat 4.!)

  142. Cost Cutting Tips; Viewers and Free Alternatives | The ITAM Review on March 23rd, 2010 8:43 pm

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  144. Subhankar Pradhan on July 1st, 2010 4:29 pm

    Can you help me………

    I want to make .NET application for PDF crop.So can you help me how can i do this.

    Thanks.

  145. Installing MikTex Portable | Medical Statistics in SPSS, SAS, R (CRAN) on July 2nd, 2010 11:38 pm

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  147. James Smith on August 19th, 2010 3:02 pm

    Another PDF Editor for the Mac is the Proview PDF Editor. It supports merging and splitting of PDF files, and many editing functions.

  148. alex duvot on August 31st, 2010 6:29 pm

    great post with great info. converting and editing PDF’s just got easy

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