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General Software Discussion / Re: Editor for PDFs: recommendations, please?
« on: May 05, 2011, 09:31 PM »
I was looking for a PDF editor to fix some irritating typos and inaccuracies in PDFs of boardgame rules before printing them (many specialty boardgame publishers provide additional copies of their rules in freely-downloadable PDFs). I had tried PDFEDIT (GPL'd software) under Linux, but it was quite buggy and the user interface was horrible.
So I downloaded demo versions of a couple of programs that work under WinXP: Nitro PDF Professional 6 (demo is full version, limited to 14 days), and Foxit PDF Editor 2.2 (demo version puts an "evaluation mark" at the corner of each page). The non-crippled version of each has a purchase price of $99.
Using the PDF I currently wanted to fix, I first tried Nitro. I could not edit text successfully (perhaps because the font was an embedded subset, but that's pure speculation based on general ignorance of PDF technology), and gave up after about an hour fiddling with different things. I then tried Foxit on the same PDF, and it worked like a charm. I was able to change text and add text immediately. Later I added a transparent graphic, also very easily. It was easy to learn to use, and the user interface was intuitive. The program Help was very good, and the 140-page manual seems to cover things pretty well.
For reference, the PDF I used was marked as PDF 1.6, produced by QuarkXPress 7.5.
My impression is that the Foxit Editor is oriented towards modification of existing PDFs rather than creation of new ones (though it can do that). Since that's what I want it for, it looks perfect for me. The only issue (for the amount of use I will make of it) is the price, although it's only one-third of the cost of Adobe Acrobat.
Based on an extremely limited sample of PDFs
, I give a 
to Foxit PDF Editor 2.2, and I expect I will end up forking out that $99 (after I've tested compatibility with a few more PDFs).
So I downloaded demo versions of a couple of programs that work under WinXP: Nitro PDF Professional 6 (demo is full version, limited to 14 days), and Foxit PDF Editor 2.2 (demo version puts an "evaluation mark" at the corner of each page). The non-crippled version of each has a purchase price of $99.
Using the PDF I currently wanted to fix, I first tried Nitro. I could not edit text successfully (perhaps because the font was an embedded subset, but that's pure speculation based on general ignorance of PDF technology), and gave up after about an hour fiddling with different things. I then tried Foxit on the same PDF, and it worked like a charm. I was able to change text and add text immediately. Later I added a transparent graphic, also very easily. It was easy to learn to use, and the user interface was intuitive. The program Help was very good, and the 140-page manual seems to cover things pretty well.
For reference, the PDF I used was marked as PDF 1.6, produced by QuarkXPress 7.5.
My impression is that the Foxit Editor is oriented towards modification of existing PDFs rather than creation of new ones (though it can do that). Since that's what I want it for, it looks perfect for me. The only issue (for the amount of use I will make of it) is the price, although it's only one-third of the cost of Adobe Acrobat.
Based on an extremely limited sample of PDFs
, I give a to Foxit PDF Editor 2.2, and I expect I will end up forking out that $99 (after I've tested compatibility with a few more PDFs).