I'd be interested to hear anyone's experiences of using Serif PagePlus 11 for editing PDFs, as if it works, it would be an unusually cheap approach.  Foxit PDF Editor is $99, for example, about £67.

From the illustration on their site, showing pdf editing, it looks as though pdf editing is less flexible than one might hope... it's hard to tell.

I've wound up switching to Scansoft PDF Converter Pro.

Is that the Nuance one?  I seem to remember someone complaining about problems with it?  Have you compared it with Able2Extract?

Darwin, do you know if the PDF converter Pro has any advantages over Omnipage? - I had the impression that the Converter functionality might be a subset of the  tools of the omnipage package. I would certainly give it a try if there are some extras.

Nuance's PDF Converter Professional 5

Thanks, I'd better take a look at it.  I hate these systems that won't let you download without you fill in a form and an e-mail address, though.

Well... what's worse about Nuance (unless they've changed their tune of late) is that they won't let you run a trial of their software - you MUST buy it. The upside is that they've got a generous 90 day no questions asked return policy, which I have used without fanfare or drama twice. BTW, they should have most of their stuff on sale over the next two months - you might want to hold off in anticipation of that...

Twice???  

Quote

BTW, they should have most of their stuff on sale over the next two months - you might want to hold off in anticipation of that...

...Does the program have an editor-style search-and-replace, or would one have to work on every repeated text object separately?  In the latter case, it would probably be better to convert to Word .DOC.

In both cases I bought the software only to be offered large discounts at a later date, so I simply returned them and bought them again 

RE: discounts, my experience is that they usually offer a discount around the middle/end of Decmeber. Often, this precedes a new release, but not every year. I guess you've nothing to lose, really - if you buy now and the sale DOES happen, you can pull my little stunt and return it, then buy at the discount!

Finally, in place text editing/search-and-replace... I'm going to test it now. I'll post back in a few minutes 

UPDATE: AFAICT there is no replace feature. However, you can both Find and Search throughout a document - Find functions more or less like Find in Word while Search reports back with a list of all occurences of the search term:

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Just to chip in - I have used Serif PagePlus X3 for editing some fairly complex PDFs (CAD drawings, forms with images, etc) and have found it to work extremely well. I think there's a trial version and there's normally discounts available from various sources.

FWIW...
1 thing to remember when talking about, rating, trying PDF conversion &/or editing software, is that there are several ways, programs to create PDFs now days -- the PDFs created are not always the same internally. What works for PDFs created in one program might fail miserably on the output of another. There are quite a few cheaper PDF conversion programs out, but in my experience how well they work, or if they work at all depends on what created the PDF you feed them. A few examples with ratings/comments for Quick-PDF [http://www.quick-pdf.com/] can be found here [http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/category/quick-pdfcom/].

FWIW RE: Serif...
AFAIK -- & from what I can recall (which may not be *totally* accurate) -- Serif was started years & years ago by Russian coders going up against Adobe & quite possibly Aldus (it was that long ago) (assuming anyone else is old enough to remember Aldus). They had excellent products, but not a lot of marketing clout in a then very closed-minded publishing & graphics arts community, where it was felt your professional credibility rested on the price of your tools, not your results. I think they then started licensing code or collaborating on niche products like a vector-based Dinosaur Drawing program one of my boys used back in a grade school project, eventually I believe turning over marketing (or selling themselves?) to one of the mass marketers similar to Broderbund. Their initial DTP program was dumbed down a little to compete with the brand new Microsoft Publisher, over the years becoming the PagePlus discussed here. You'll usually find deals on their software on various shareware &/or PC magazine sites like vnunet, at software surplus sites, at discount PC parts & accessory sites, & sometimes in the cheap software racks in retail stores.

PS to rjbull - should have noted that you can often pick up boxed versions of Nuance apps in places like Staples cheaper than the on-line discounts. I paid $79.95 US for the upgrade from PDFCP 4 to 5, having missed the opportunity to buy it for $79 Cdn. at Staples. At the time the Cdn. dollar was around parity so I didn't really care, and suspect that I saved a bit because I didn't have to pay any taxes on the download version! Besides, it's the "green" thing to do - who needs CDs/DVDs and all the packaging. But still...

Last week I recall Amazon.com and Buy.com advertising PDF Converter Professional 5 for about $62 shipped. Newegg has a downloadable version for $64.99. Prices seem to fluctuate often. The documentation indicates this product uses online activation. I am trying to decide between this product and Acrobat 9 Standard which I can get as an upgrade for $99.

There you go! Can't really comment on the PDFCP vs Adobe Acrobat Std issue, though... My vague understanding is that PDFCP is roughly equivalent to Acrobat Standard, but I could be wrong about that. I no longer have any idea what features are included in what versions of Acrobat, so...

what's worse about Nuance (unless they've changed their tune of late) is that they won't let you run a trial of their software

They've changed their tune!  They just told me they now offer a 15-day trial, and also that it's a personal license to this extent:

The software is licensed per user so as long as it's no concurrent use you could use it at home and at work as long as it was licensed to the company.

 

PS to rjbull - should have noted that you can often pick up boxed versions of Nuance apps in places like Staples cheaper than the on-line discounts.

We do have Staples in the UK, but I hardly ever get to places like that.  In fact I think I'd more or less forgotten about buying software from a retail outlet, expecting everything to be done online, and certainly anything worthwhile.

Thanks for the heads-up.  I'll try to make a detour next time I'm anywhere near a Staples, just to see what's on offer.