Productivity #1: And the best free PDF software is...
Stop wasting your money on Adobe Acrobat Pro
"Productivity" is a series of articles that share how to "do more with less" in today's fast-paced lifestyle.
Save money on PDF solutions
I've been paying for Adobe Acrobat Pro subscriptions for several years (the prepaid annual plan costs about $240 US dollars) because I need to manage PDF documents like scholarly journal articles, contracts, and forms.
Even though I don't use it very often.
I want to gradually exit the Adobe ecosystem because the subscription is becoming prohibitively expensive without adding much value. Take Adobe Premiere Pro as an example. I spent countless hours learning this extremely complex software, and it remains difficult to use. I can complete the same video editing task with a different software that is easier, faster, cheaper, and more enjoyable.
Adobe Acrobat Pro is fortunately not as complicated as Adobe Premier Pro, but it requires users to pay for these so-called PDF "premium features":
In this article, I'd like to show you a free PDF software (PDFgear) that I've been using for quite some time. It handles those "premium features" reliably. And, best of all, it's free!
I'd also like to compare it to iLovePDF, another popular free PDF editor.
Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with PDFgear or iLovePDF. I'm sharing this because I wish someone had told me earlier: stop paying for Adobe Acrobat Pro! There is better, and free, software. Save money! (Spend your money on something else...maybe... like another new cat toy?)
Popular Free PDF Editors
Before you uninstall Adobe Acrobat Reader (the free PDF viewer), keep in mind that it is perfectly fine to keep it. Reading PDF documents is free.
Adobe only charges you when you want to do more, such as edit, convert, or create PDFs. For those functions, consider the two free options:
PDFgear
https://www.pdfgear.com/
PDFgear provides lots of PDF tools for both desktop (offline) and online.
According to its website, it is an entirely free PDF editor. (However, they did not completely rule out the possibility of charging for AI-driven features in the feature). Read here.
iLovePDF
https://www.ilovepdf.com
Like PDFgear, it provides many free online PDF features. I tried the majority of them, and they worked as expected.
The main difference is that iLovePDF charges $48 per year for its desktop tools.
PDFgear is zero-cost PDF solution
I assume people do not want to upload PDF documents containing sensitive personal information to third-party websites. It is acceptable if the PDF document is a peer-reviewed journal article. However, if the PDF document is your bank statement or personal health record and must be uploaded to a PDF tool website, you may reconsider. So, that is a concern for online PDF solutions.
That leaves us with desktop PDF tools. PDFgear is free. iLovePDF costs $48. Both provide more or less similar features. So what else to choose? PDFgear, of course.
I downloaded a journal article and edited the PDF (changed the text), converted it to a Word file, split it into pages, added a signature (signed), compiled images into a PDF, added a comment, highlighted text, reordered the page, etc. --> Everything works as expected.
PDFgear also includes the AI feature (Copilot), which allows you to chat and interact with your document. The AI chat feature is adequate for basic chat. For more in-depth analyses, I prefer Perplexity or ChatGPT, which offer more tools and features.
I also ask..
Sorry Copilot bot, we can’t be friends. Not today.
PDFgear User Guide: https://www.pdfgear.com/windows-user-guide/chat-with-pdf.htm
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Key takeaways
Adobe Acrobat Pro's subscription ($240/year) is unnecessarily expensive for basic PDF management, as free alternatives like PDFgear offer similar premium features, including editing, converting, and creating PDFs.
PDFgear emerges as the better free alternative because it:
Provides both desktop (offline) and online tools at no cost
Offers similar functionality to paid solutions
Allows secure handling of sensitive documents through its desktop version
Includes basic AI features
I hope you liked this article!
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