Down with Foxit!

[rjbull]

I am a registered user of Foxit PDF Editor, which at $99 isn't cheap.  Yesterday I re-registered in their forums (the first time I tried, I could never log in after: the registration information got somehow lost at their end, and was never recovered, despite e-mails).  Yesterday I posted twice, first a pretty modest suggestion that they add a hotkey to toggle the Properties panel on/off, for convenience.  The second time was to add to a short thread Convert PDF files to Word file, suggesting Zamzar (with a caveat), also Nuance and Able2Extract.  Today I tried logging in again, to find this:

vBulletin Message

You have been banned for the following reason:
No reason was specified.

Date the ban will be lifted: Never

They had deleted both my posts.  Nice people, eh?  Looks like they can't stand any suggestion that software other than their own can exist, even though they don't seem to offer a PDF-to-Word converter themselves.

Naturally, I shall be looking for another PDF editor to replace Foxit.

[Carol Haynes]

I used to use JawsPDF but have Adobe Acrobat installed (part of a suite I installed) so I use that now.

JawsPDF has now become gDoc and I haven't tried the new version of the software but given the quality of JAwsPDF I would guess the new version is worth checking out. See http://www.globalgra.../en/gdoc/gdoc-fusion

NitroPDF might be worth a visit - I used to use that one ages ago and it worked very well but they had a fairly draconian upgrade policy which I didn't like. I also found NitroPDF didn't coexist well with other PDF apps (though they may have fixed that now - it was quite a while ago).

Given that you are a registered user of Foxit have you actually contacted them directly to ask why they are behaving in such a cavalier (and stupid) manner?

[IainB]

Yes, that's a good point. It would be interesting to know why you were banned. Foxit may have banned you for what they perceived was a perfectly correct/valid reason. Check up on their forum rules?

I don't use Foxit - I tried it and found it was flaky.
You should have used a cross smiley in your post. Here, use this------> 

[rjbull]

Carol Haynes, IainB: you are of course both right.  I have now sent off quite a gentle e-mail requesting clarification to Foxit.

@IainB: I haven't found Foxit PDF Editor flakey, but there are features I wish it had.  However, it's just very hard work editing PDFs.  And I nearly did put in the Mad smiley 

Just for general interest, some earlier DC threads on PDF editors:

INfix: easy, capable, but expensive WordPad-like PDF editor

Editor for PDFs: recommendations, please?

Bluebeam (AWESOME pdf editor, Acrobat alternative)

[Grorgy]

Slightly off topic i guess but PDF related, I tried gdoc fusion just recently and it looks great and when it works it did all i wanted, the big problem I had was that it failed to open about 10% of my PDF files, and that was just too many.  They opened ok in adobe reader and sumatra, they were the only other 2 I had at the time.

[rjbull]

I received a reply from Foxit:

We deleted and banned many spam messages and users every day. We might have mis-deleted your account. We have recovered {your account}

I've tried it, the account is indeed active, though they didn't undelete my posts.  I feel they were trigger-happy on anti-spam measures, but at least they've done the right thing by reinstating the account.  Now to see if it stays that way...

Still interested in alternative editors, but Foxit would do themselves a favour by adding a Help file.  There's nothing at all at present, and I'm probably overlooking some of the functionality.

@Grorgy:  From the sales puff, gDoc Fusion looks like a competitor to Nuance PDF Converter Pro.  I have Able2Extract, which has much of the same features apart from any kind of editing.  Did you by any chance look at gDoc Fusion's editing features?

[wraith808]

I received a reply from Foxit:

We deleted and banned many spam messages and users every day. We might have mis-deleted your account. We have recovered {your account}

I've tried it, the account is indeed active, though they didn't undelete my posts.  I feel they were trigger-happy on anti-spam measures, but at least they've done the right thing by reinstating the account.  Now to see if it stays that way...

-rjbull (August 03, 2009, 10:11 AM)

Did you re-post your deleted posts?

[Grorgy]

I can't remember now, I was more concerned with having the documents open in the first instance, I have gone with nuance PDF converter pro.

[rjbull]

Did you re-post your deleted posts?

-wraith808 (August 03, 2009, 12:17 PM)

Not verbatim, because I hadn't kept the text elsewhere, but more or less.  They were still there this morning and one had been replied to.  So that's good.

@Grorgy:  thanks - I doubt you'll find any of them better than Nuance PDF Converter Pro.  Even the Able2Extract that I use includes Nuance OCR technology.