All the latest UK technology news, reviews and analysis
|
|
|
17 Mar 2010
Nuance’s reader is fast and easy to use and offers some distinct advantages over Adobe Reader. Limited editing features and questionable image quality on conversions means it may not suit those who want more control in producing professional-quality documents, but for most it will be an essential upgrade to Adobe’s free alternative.
Pros:
Fast and accurate conversion, supports most modern PDF standards, quick and easy to use, free.
Cons:
Image conversion could be better, no direct PDF creation, document conversion must be done online, limited editing features.
Price: Free
Manufacturer: Nuance
Whether you’re a home user or a small or large business, there’s no escaping the fact that the ubiquitous PDF format is an essential part of modern document distribution. It’s so common and so widely used that it almost seems wrong to have to shell out so much for the full Adobe package, and luckily a range of powerful alternatives are available far more cheaply.
Nuance has now taken things a step further with its new PDF reader, which bundles in a range of popular features and best of all is available for free download.
Nuance PDF Reader allows users to fill in and save PDF forms, create annotations, convert to popular Office formats such as Word, Excel and RTF and convert documents to PDF. It’s also compatible with Microsoft SharePoint and offers support for PDF portfolios and embedded Flash and video files, so depending on your needs this could be a very significant alternative.
Registration is required to access the small, free download and during installation you’re given the option of installing the software with JavaScript turned off to improve security; a handy feature that isn’t available with Acrobat. The software is also noticeably quicker to load and quicker to open PDF files than Adobe’s software, and offers all the typical tools for browsing and viewing large documents.
There are a few hoops to jump through for the privilege of a free download though, and PDF conversion isn’t done locally, rather using a hosted web service to encrypt, upload, convert and deliver to a specified email address. A choice of Word, Excel, RTF and WordPerfect formats are available and it’s also possible to select the language and image quality depending on how the document will be used.
We sent a range of files off for conversion and were pleased to note that the process is very fast and straightforward. At the best image quality setting arrival time at our Inbox ranged from just over 30 seconds for a two-page document with text and images to little over a minute for a 25-page document with a similar mix.
Windows XP (32-bit, SP3), Windows Vista 32-bit/64-bit, SP1, Windows 7 32-bit/64-bit
Internet Explorer 6 or above
256 MB RAM (512 MB recommended)
50 MB of free hard disk space
SVGA monitor with 256 colors and 800x600 resolution
Review categories
Laptops (108) | Tablets (58) | Mobile Phones (155) |
Asus Zenbook UX21E ultrabook review | Apple iPad 2 vs Asus Transformer Prime head-to-head review | Nokia Lumia 710 video review |
Other product categories
Hands on with the highly anticipated Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich hybrid tablet
Connect with V3.co.uk
This paper focuses on a series of best practices and techniques for development teams looking to improve their software development processes
Why good data management at all levels is essential in the modern business (video, 6mins)
Electronics Engineer, Real Time Control Systems Engineer...
Electronics Software Engineer - C - Control Systems Programming...
I'm looking for a Software Developer that will report...
A Principal ETL Consultant with expertise in IBM InfoSphere...
Keep up to date with the latest products, services and technologies from the world's leading IT companies. IThound.com brings you over 2,000 white papers, case studies and analyst reports.
Do you agree?
4 PDF Reader
There are 4 best PDF reader you can refer to. Adobe reader/ PDF X-change Viewer/ Foxit reader/ Nuance PDF reader. People have tested them and find Adobe reader is the best. However, I also like to use Nuance PDF Reader and PDF X-change viewer. Though it provides free coversion from PDF to Word, it cannot meet my needs. I like to use free AnyBizSoft PDF to Word Converter, which provides more functions than online software. http://www.anypdftools.com/pdf-to-word.html#201
Posted by: DavidSmith 07 Apr 2010
PDF to Word
PDF is a publishing, not an authoring format. If you want to change the content of a PDF, you go back to the source document ? its parent if you will. But what if you can?t find the parent? Or don?t trust the source? While PDF tools, including our own, can make minor text corrections (fixing a typo for example) the nature of PDF precludes large scale changes. For that you need to convert the PDF back to an authoring format. I?ve found some free software that solves this very common problem http://bit.ly/GlobalGraphicsFreeCreator.
Posted by: TamaraDigi 25 Mar 2010