If you’ve ever needed to fill out or modify a PDF file, you’ve probably googled a PDF editor that can help you. Unfortunately, many PDF editing programs are either expensive or difficult to use, so we conducted a survey to find the best and most intuitive PDF editors to use on Windows that will make your life easier.
1. SwifDoo PDF
SwifDoo PDF is an easy-to-use editor for Windows that provides many useful features, including the ability to easily modify, create, transform, annotate, password protect, and sign PDF documents.
This program includes a 15-day free trial, which includes a number of supporting features such as OCR technology, which allows you to modify/extract texts from scanned PDF files.
Intuitive User Interface
The first thing that impressed us about SwifDoo PDF was its easy layout with an intuitive menu system. The settings and menu system are immediately familiar and very similar to those of Microsoft Office, so if you’re familiar with Word, you’ll quickly become familiar with the editor.
The starting interface offers the ability to create, merge, modify or transform PDF files, and the website also gives you the option to use various PDF templates to get started.
These templates provide input for everything from sample business capitals to job application forms, purchase agreements, and more. This is a really useful tool if you don’t want to do something completely from scratch.
Editing, design and customization tools
When you start working on a PDF file, the editing tools are activated. These tools can be quickly accessed via the navigation menu.
With just a few clicks you can add or modify articles, insert images, change backgrounds, use headers and footers and much more.
You can do all of the above while maintaining the layout of the original file, such as the layout using the line and paragraph editing features.
OCR processing
SwifDoo PDF also has the ability to batch process PDF files. This allows people in small businesses to quickly retrieve data from multiple PDF forms, as well as import data directly into editable tables.
The combination of batch scanning and OCR letter and number recognition technology makes this form scanning much simpler to develop, even for multiple documents. This, in turn, increases efficiency and eliminates much of the manual work that is typically associated with managing these types of operations.
Convert multiple PDF pages into one continuous page of images
Sometimes people need to use a multi-page PDF file to make something that can be communicated. SwifDoo has an easy-to-use tool to transform multiple pages into one image. These images can be used for blogs or infographics, for example.
2. Adobe Acrobat
The Adobe Acrobat editor is among the most popular tools for editing PDF files on Windows.
Adobe Acrobat Reader has become the dominant browser, but Adobe is also popular for its PDF editing tools, the newest of which is Adobe Acrobat DC. DC stands for “Document Cloud” and this software tool allows you to store PDF files in the cloud for easy viewing and access anytime, anywhere.
Although Adobe is an amazing PDF editor because it allows you to transform, modify and annotate, for example functionality, the software may not be convenient if you only need to use the PDF editor occasionally as it is a subscription service (paid monthly).
3. Foxit PDF
Foxit PDF is a very efficient PDF editor for Windows. It provides each of the basic functions such as the ability to combine and split PDF files, annotate and communicate, create forms and convert to other formats, among others. You can also add encryption, write and sign files. It has an OCR function if necessary. If you want to evaluate before you get, you have a 14-day free trial, but you must register and provide your details to the company.
4. Nuance Power PDF
Nuance Power PDF Editor provides the ability to transform, annotate, modify and add encryption to PDF documents. However, the dominant feature of this program is its voice note recognition technology, which allows you to add notes to a PDF file by simply speaking the notes instead of having to type them. In the age of Alexa, Siri and Google Assistant, the ability to dictate is certainly welcome.
5. Smallpdf
If you don’t like it enough or you don’t like downloading and also putting programs on your computer, then Smallpdf is the right alternative. This free PDF editing tool is free in your browser (online).
It provides amazing functionality and is able to perform a variety of tasks, including converting multiple documents to PDF, merging, compressing and protecting PDF files. You can use this online tool to modify PDF files and return to converting the file to PDF when finished.
In closing
PDF files are some of the most frequently sent documents. The reason for this is that they are extremely easy to open, and a document created in this format usually cannot be edited using a file browser. Therefore, it is not possible to accidentally delete certain elements of the document or modify it.
You can also use other free programs to open and read PDFs. Whatever program you choose, be sure to download it from a reputable source such as SwifDoo PDF.