Tag Archives | PDF

Foxit Reader 4.0 | Freer than ever before!

By Matthew Guay on June 29, 2010 in PC Software

Foxit Reader is one of the most popular alternates to Adobe Reader, and users around the world have chosen to use it as their default PDF reader on Windows, Linux, and a variety of mobile devices. Today the latest version, Foxit Reader 4.0, is being released, so here’s our look at the new features.

Foxit Reader has always been a great PDF reader, since it’s lightweight (using under 10Mb of ram when running without a PDF open), fast, and secure. Foxit Reader was also extendable with a variety of for-pay addons including the Pro Pack that let you markup and perform basic edits on PDFs. And since it is cross-platform, Foxit has been the go-to PDF reader for users who want the same features on both Windows and Linux.

But now, there’s 4.0

Today, however, Foxit Reader is freer than ever. The latest version, Reader 4.0, that is being released today, included markup and editing tools for free in the standard Reader install. You can add notes, insert words, stamp your signature, or even add multimedia files such as mp4 videos directly to PDFs, all in Foxit Reader for free. Let’s look at the latest version, and what you’ll find to make your PDF editing easier than ever.

Getting Started

Download the latest version of Foxit Reader from the link below, and run the installer as normal.

Foxit Reader 4 uses Safe Reading Mode by default, which helps protect your computer from malicious PDFs. As PDFs have been increasingly targeted by hackers, we recommend you leave it enabled as default; however, if you’d prefer, you can uncheck the box during the setup to have PDFs render in standard mode.

Additionally, you can choose to not install links to 3rd party sites if you do not want these. Unlike in previous versions, Foxit Reader 4 still includes all of its advanced features even if you don’t install the optional tie-in products.

Once it’s installed, launch it from the start menu or select to run it immediately at the end of the installation. Welcome to the latest version of Foxit!

Note that some features, including spell checking and OnDemand CM, require a separate, free download. When you try to use a feature that needs a download, Foxit will prompt you to download the extra component. Click Yes at the prompt to automatically download and install the extra components.

New Features

Foxit Reader 4 looks very similar to previous versions, and uses the same toolbars and menu system. This makes it easy for longtime users to find their way around, though we were slightly disappointed to not see a more updated UI.

It still renders PDFs great, and we could not tell any formatting differences from other PDF applications.

But, there’s plenty more to be excited about under the hood. You can quickly get started marking up and adding content to PDFs from the toolbar on the bottom right.

You can insert text directly on a PDF document. Note that you cannot actually remove existing words and replace them, but you could add an extra line of text if you need.

Fun Fact: Interestingly, Foxit Reader uses Helvetica as the default editing font, even if Helvetica isn’t installed on your computer.

You can also select any section of the PDF and make it into a link to a file, website, or location in a PDF. This is very useful if you’d like to add a linked Table of Contents to a PDF ebook, for example.

One of the most exciting features is the ability to add multimedia content to a PDF. From the Edit menu, you can add images or movies to a PDF, or even attach another file to the document.

Foxit makes it easy to find more information about anything. Simply select a word with the selection tool, and a small popup will hover near the selection that lets you search for the term on the internet.

Another cool feature is that you can view a PDF as a text file. Click the glasses icon to activate this feature.

Now you can focus just on the content, which can be nice if you’re distracted by sidebars and images in a PDF ebook. This also makes it easy to select text to copy and use elsewhere.

Conclusion

Foxit Reader 4 is still an excellent PDF reader, but more exciting are the new markup and editing tools. While Reader is still not a full-fledged PDF editing suite, it does include many features that will make it nice for many home and business users. And, since all of the features are free, Foxit Reader 4 doesn’t feel like a limited product, and doesn’t nag you to purchase upgrades.

So if you’re a longtime Foxit Reader user, or regularly use another PDF reader but would like more control over your documents, Foxit Reader 4 is a great upgrade. It’s fast, keeps you secure, and even lets you take your documents further!

Download Foxit Reader 4 now!

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Nitro PDF Professional – Edit PDFs without breaking the bank

By Matthew Guay on March 9, 2010 in PC Software, Techinch

We regularly edit and create documents, images, videos, and more on our computers, but PDFs are the one file format that many people still cannot easily edit or create. Adobe Acrobat, the industry leading PDF solution, is expensive, and most people simply have the free Adobe Reader so they can view, but not edit or create, PDF files. With PDFs being one of the most used files for professional documents, a simple and affordable PDF editor is an increasingly needed thing. Nitro PDF Professional offers such a solution, and at $99 it is much more affordable than Adobe Acrobat Pro.

Last year I reviewed a wide range of free tools from Nitro to create and convert PDF files, ranging from their PrimoPDF creator to the excellent PDF to Word online conversion service. These products are all excellent and highly recommended, and a recent update to PrimoPDF made it an even more valuable PDF creator. But if you want to edit PDF files directly, or create your own rich PDF documents and forms, Nitro PDF may be the best solution for you.

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How to rearrange pages in a PDF … for Free!

By Matthew Guay on July 22, 2009 in Techinch

Have you ever needed to rearrange the pages in a PDF file before, but didn’t want to pay hundreds of dollars for Adobe Acrobat? This quick and easy method of rearranging pages in a PDF will let you do this for free right on your desktop in seconds!

First, install Adobe reader and PrimoPDF if you do not already have them installed. Adobe reader is a free program for viewing PDF files, and you can download it at http://get.adobe.com/reader/. PrimoPDF is a free PDF creator that lets you print any file on your computer as a PDF, and you can download it for free at http://www.primopdf.com/.

Next, open the PDF file you wish to work on. Note the page numbers of the pages you wish to rearrange. In the example image below, the pages should be in the order 1,3,2 to be in the correct order.

Now, click File, then Print, and select PrimoPDF as the printer. Select the Pages bullet under “Print Range” and type the number pages in the order you wish them to be. Make sure not to forget any pages. In the example image on the right, I put in “1,3,2″ to print the pages in the correct order.

PrimoPDF will then open a dialog; just put in the file name you want for the PDF with the pages in the correct order and click “Create PDF.”

Now you can open your new PDF, and the pages should be in the correct order. Our example document can be seen completed below. If any of the pages are still in the wrong order, go back to step 3 and make sure to put the page numbers in the order you want them to appear.

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Nitro PDF tools – the best free PDF tools!

By Matthew Guay on July 6, 2009 in Reviews, Techinch

PDF files are the de-facto standard for document sharing, especially over the internet, as you can be certain that a PDF from your computer will look the same on another computer anywhere around the world. From newsletters to tax forms, PDFs are used everyday, and sometimes it is very convenient and indeed needful to edit or even create these files. Microsoft Office 2007 added the ability to save files as PDF, and this greatly expanded the amount of people worldwide that were able to save their documents as a PDF easily and cheaply. However, most computer users didn’t have a convenient and cheap way to edit these or other PDF files, as Adobe Acrobat, one of the few programs that can edit and create PDFs, has a suggested retail price of $299!

Enter Nitro PDF’s products. As the main competitor to Adobe’s Acrobat products, the Nitro PDF company has a large portfolio of free products and services for creating and editing PDF files in addition to for-pay PDF products. I first became acquainted with Nitro PDF products when I was looking for a way to print files as PDF from any program for free. After trying out several PDF printers I found online, I was generally unimpressed with the quality of the files they produced and the speed and usability of the programs. I then discovered PrimoPDF, a free PDF printer made by Nitro PDF. This excellent little utility creates picture-perfect PDF files from any program you can print from, and it even leaves the text in documents selectable so you can copy the text out of the PDF file. PrimoPDF allows you to adjust the image quality depending on your intended use for the files, and even allows you to add security to the PDF so a password is required to open it. This week I even found another use for PrimoPDF: rearranging pages in a PDF! I had a newsletter that was formatted for printing, so the pages weren’t in the correct order for reading on a screen. I finally came up with a solution to rearrange the pages for free on my desktop. After opening the PDF in Adobe Reader, I proceeded to print it as a PDF through PrimoPDF, and selected the option to print only the selected pages. In the selected pages box, I typed the page numbers in the order I wanted them to be printed in. After clicking print, I had a perfect PDF that was now in the correct page order … without having to buy Adobe Acrobat!

Nitro PDF also offers several very good online PDF tools. My favorite is PDF to Word, which converts a PDF file you upload into a word document (your choice of .doc or .rtf format; hopefully they’ll add .docx in the near future), and the final converted document is then emailed back to you. This has been very helpful for me with the newsletter I have been working on, because when I copy text from the original PDF it maintains hard returns at the end of each printed line. Not Nitro PDF’s conversion; the .doc file it gave me let me select a paragraph, and then paste it into another document without all the hard returns at the end of each line! That is a lot easier than doing a Find and Replace, removing all the returns, and then adding them back at real paragraph breaks.

In addition to these offerings, Nitro PDF also offers a PDF to Excel convertor, a PDF downloader addon for Firefox, PrimoOnline which lets create a PDF online just like PrimoPDF printer lets you create PDFs locally, and PDF Hammer which lets you combine and rearrange pages in PDFs online. I have had some trouble with PDF Hammer, but I believe the issues are due to my internet connection and upload speed more than problems with PDF Hammer itself. That said, I have had no problems whatsoever with PDF to Word, even at the same time that I’m having a hard time uploading files to PDF Hammer. As I outlined above, I was able to rearrange pages with a little trick with Adobe reader and PrimoPDF, so I was still able to get the job done.

Primo PDF also makes professional desktop programs, Nitro PDF Professional and Nitro PDF Express. I haven’t used either of these, but based on my experiences with their free offerings I would expect them to be top-of-the-line in every aspect. They are also much cheaper than Adobe’s offerings, so if I ever need a more advanced PDF editor I will definitely purchase Primo PDF Pro. If I do so, I will review it here as well. But for now, enjoy the free offerings, and if you try out the pro products, let me know how they go for you!

Edit: I had written the names of their paid offerings wrong … they are Nitro PDF Pro and Express, not Primo PDF pro and express. Its corrected now!

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