As far as free PDF converters go, doPDF is one of the best out there saving you tons of cash on Adobe's patented version and whatsmore, doing it in half the time.

The program is remarkably simple to use. Just open a document in Microsoft Word, WordPad, NotePad or practically any other text editing software, choose Print and select doPDF. The program asks you where to save the PDF file and when finished, the PDF file will be automatically opened in your default PDF viewer. This process takes less than a minute and you'll be amazed at how accurate the PDF is. Occasionally, it can suffer with unusually formatted text and images and so they won't come-out exactly as you want but this can be remedied.

Unfortunately, there's also no option to print large web pages (such as long news articles or forum pages) without dividing it into separate pages so you'll end up with lines dividing the article up throughout your PDF documents. The other slight downside is that it seems the PDF files it creates can be rather large although if you ZIP them up, this is not much of an issue.

An excellent PDF converter that's fast, easy to use and serves as more than an adequate replacement for Adobe's software.

Download doPDF 6.1.274 in Softonic

Finally you can create fully navigable online versions of your PDF files in a very stylish way. It’s like turning the page of a book but with the possibility of zooming in, so as not to stress your eyes.

3D Issue Manager is very easy to use, although the graphics could have been nicer. All it requires is that you select a PDF file, choose the orientation of the output document as portrait, landscape or a mix of both, and select the image resolution together with its quality. The program automatically creates the virtual booklet, which is optimized for search engines.

In the main window there are some interesting options you can choose from which allow you to personalise the zoom navigation to either click and drag, or mouse movements, and allow users to download an offline edition of your virtual glossy magazine. These are just two examples, but there is a whole feature list on offer. Strangely enough, the program’s windows are not resizable, which can be annoying if you have to work with different windows open.

With 3D Issue Manager you can easily and efficiently convert your PDF files into fully accessible online 3D booklets, so as to present documents in a stylish, glossy way - and save paper along the way.

Download 3D Issue Manager 3.1 in Softonic

PdfFactory products offer a unique approach to PDF creation that is simpler, more effective and less expensive than that offered by other programs.

Create PDF or print to paper - pdfFactory allows printing to paper or PDF without printing twice. Acrobat is not needed for printing.

It combines multiple documents into a single PDF and increases the convenience of document delivery by having a single PDF that contains material from different sources. Just keep printing documents to pdfFactory and they will automatically be concatenated.

A quicker and cheaper way to create PDF files!

Download PdfFactory 3.36 in Softonic

Find Desktop is the entry level solution for document management. The extreme simplification of all operations, allows you to drammatically decrease the time needed to find, view and elaborate documents. Find Desktop is integrated with a powerful "full-text" retrieval engine, supported by O.C.R. (optical character recognition) engine.

This allows you to search directly in the text, starting from one word or exact phrase contained in electronic or image documents. Other important functions are the mail indexing system, the enhanced scanning functions (with virtual annotation capabilities) as well as the management of the classification fields associated with documents render Find Desktop the fast and economic solution for document management.

Find Desktop is equipped of technology "Highlight" that evidences directly on the original document (image file or electronic file) the search results and supports the most common electronic document formats (Adobe Acrobat PDF, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, etc..) with search capabilities also in ZIP file. The Automatic Web Update allows you to maintain the software always up to date.

Download Find Desktop Standard 1.84 in Softonic

ComicRack brings more entertainment to comic lovers by providing an excellent tool to read electronic comics in your PC. It supports several formats and allows displaying comics in several ways, such as two pages view or full screen.

The program also includes some useful tools, like a magnifier to pay attention to every single detail and a smart list system to organize your comic collection and share it locally, like the iTunes library. These lists can be displayed on either side of the interface or at the bottom, but they take too much space.

ComicRack works very well and enables you to enjoy comics in a very natural way. It's also easy to use, although you'll have to test every single function by yourself as there's no help available.

Download ComicRack 0.9.93 in Softonic

PDF is a great format to share documents regardless of the operating system you use. But if what you really need is doing some work on your PDF files, then PDF Split and Merge may be useful for you.

As its name clearly states, PDF Split and Merge lets you split and merge any PDF documents in a very easy way and in just a few steps. The program has one main drawback though and that is its unfriendly interface, which takes a while to get used to. After that, PDF Split and Merge is really a helpful tool.

You'll be able to split PDF documents – with several configuration options to choose from – as well as joining several of them together in one single file. PDF Split and Merge works quickly and efficiently, getting the job done in almost no time.

Despite a counterintuitive interface, PDF Split and Merge is a great tool to split and merge PDF files in just a few seconds.

Download PDF Split and Merge 1.0.0 in Softonic

There's an increasing demand for alternatives to Adobe's resource hogging, RAM sapping, not least expensive PDF creator and PrimoPDF weighs in as an excellent alternative.

The fact that this program is free makes it all the more appealing. One of the problems with these PDF programs is that invariably, they change the formatting of your text, once you've converted your Word, Publisher etc. document to PDF. PrimoPDF largely avoids this however converting to PDF as faithfully as the original. It's also remarkably fast and the installation is equally speedy.

Once installed, the program appears as a virtual printer in your Printer Driver preferences too. The main downside, of which there are few, is that you are regularly prompted to register although this is a small price to pay for an excellent program. It's also a bit unreliable when converting images. Text is fine but images can sometimes be in the wrong position or formatted incorrectly when converting from Office documents. It also doesn't use Windows standard way of saving documents - it has it's own format which doesn't suggest a file name but it's a small drawback.

A really excellent PDF creator that will have Adobe critics laughing all the way to their virtual printers.

Download PrimoPDF 4.1.0.9 in Softonic

One of the worst problems with Adobe's Acrobat reader is that it often takes about a week to load PDFs. OK, maybe not quite that long, but it is very slow.

SumatraPDF is one of several apps knocking around that are designed to simplify your PDF viewing - and it doesn't do a bad job either. Opening files in the program is virtually as quick as opening and closing your eyes and it doesn't take a genius to find your way around the interface.

Options are a little thin on the ground but SumatraPDF provides a very comfortable environment for reading PDFs and you can print documents without much hassle. Give me this over Acrobat any day for looking at eBooks.

Download Sumatra PDF 0.9 in Softonic

There is nothing that annoys me more in Firefox when a PDF document tries to open and crashes the browser. That was until I tried PDF Download.

PDF Download prevents this problem ever arising by allowing you to control exactly how and when PDF files are opened or downloaded. Instead of opening PDF files "blind" which is currently the case, PDF Download lets you know exactly how big it is with options of whether to convert it, open it, download it or convert to HTML. PDF Download stops the annoying problem of PDF files taking ages to open - especially big ones. With PDF Download, you can see instantly whether its a big file, in which case, it's advisable to download it for reading later as opening a big PDF file is like waiting for Christmas to arrive sometimes.

The PDF Download plugin usually presents you with 3 options unless you've instructed it to do the same thing by default all the time - convert the PDF to HTML, download the PDF or open the PDF in the browser. One bonus with PDF Download, that perhaps separates it from others, is that it's not just limited to Adobe Reader. PDF Download also works with Foxit Reader and other PDF readers although to be honest, if you're using Foxit, you won't find much use for PDF Download anyway as it opens PDF files much more smoothly than Adobe Reader.

PDF Download is an excellent PDF tool which will result in fewer Firefox crashes although not everytime as it still seems susceptible to crashes when opening PDF files in the browser.

Download PDF Download 2.0.0.0 in Softonic

PDFMerge is a handy way to merge multiple PDF pages into one document whether it's been fragmented for some reason or you can only display one page at a time.

PDFMerge uses a simple GUI that allows you to select the PDF documents you want to merge and then in a click, merge them into one. PDFMerge is useful, for example, if you're printing out something that will only display or save data into one PDF document at a time.

One example where PDFMerge could be useful is with Google Calendar which in the monthly view, only allows you to print one page at a time. If you want to print out a whole year, this would involve 12 PDF prints at once but with PDF merge you can simply drag and drop PDFs onto the PDFMerge interface, which lets you rearrange and rotate files.

PDFMerge is a simply but effective tool for anyone who has ever had the conundrum of wondering how to put several PDFs together into one easy to read document.

Download PdfMerge 1.18.3137.1773 in Softonic

pdfFactory products offer a unique approach to PDF creation that is simpler, more effective and less expensive than that offered by other programs.

Create PDF or print to paper

Only pdfFactory allows printing to paper or PDF without printing twice. Acrobat is not needed for printing.

Combines multiple documents into a single PDF

Increases the convenience of document delivery by having a single PDF that contains material from different sources. Just keep printing documents to pdfFactory and they will automatically be concatenated.

Preview

Allows quick, accurate previewing of the PDF, including up to 400% zoom, without saving the file first and without opening Acrobat.

Font embedding

Ensures that the original fonts used in a document are displayed even if the reader of the PDF does not have the fonts installed on his or her computer.

Page insertion and deletion

Allows unwanted material to be deleted before the PDF is created. This is especially useful when creating PDFs from long reports, email and web pages.

Send via email

One mouse click sends PDFs through your default email program. Also copies PDF to clipboard for pasting into existing email.

AutoSave

Saves entire contents of pdfFactory sessions automatically so you can retrieve previously compiled PDFs.

Live URL Links

Customize links by line type, thickness and color to open Web pages and email addresses with a click of your mouse.

Security

Encrypt and control access to PDF files

Bookmarks and Table of Contents

Automatically or manually create bookmarks to organize and easily navigate complex documents.

Integrated Jobs Tab

Shows all jobs and allows you to rearrange them.

Custom Drivers

Save your settings to multiple print drivers so you can quickly select them for specific tasks.

Set Initial Acrobat Display Properties

Such as zoom factor, layout and tab configuration.

Download PdfFactory Pro 3.35 in Softonic

DownloadStudio has over 12 specialized downloading tools to help you get programs, games, photos, music, movies, flash, documents, RSS feeds, blogs, podcasts, complete web sites, complete FTP sites and much more! DownloadStudio Quick Start gives you instant access to all tools and features in one easy-to-use window! Extensive help and tutorials get you up-and-running fast.

DownloadStudio lets you download a complete web site, or to download just certain files that match your criteria from a web site. Downloading a complete web site allows you to view the web site offline without being connected to the internet. All files for the web site are downloaded and the site is fully functional. This is great for offline browsing, for research purposes and for making regular backups of a web site.

Downloading certain files from a web site based on your criteria is a very powerful downloading technique. For example, it lets you get all images from a web site, or to get all PDF files from a web site, or to get all music from a web site. DownloadStudio lets you specify the criteria that you would like to use when downloading files from a web site. These criteria can include file type, file size, file date, file location and more. For example, you may wish to download all JPEG images that are larger than 50KB from a particular web server. This would allow you to get all the large-sized photos from a photo gallery web site.

Download DownloadStudio 5.0.2.0 in Softonic

Radio technicians can now prepare for their radio exams with Elmer. The program has two test levels, technician and general. You can view your exam and question history anytime and even grade your exam before you've finished it to make sure you've got the right answer.

The questions are fairly technical but we were disappointed by a number of issues. There's not startup window to guide you and all the help is found only in PDF files. We couldn't check if the tests are really up to date and, although Elmer provides extra technical figures it lacks any explanation. Similarly, the program doesn't ever explain the right answer for questions.

Even though the interface is pretty sparse and the application lacks any real guidance, it will at least provide some sort of help to radio experts looking to prepare for their exams.

Download Elmer 7.5 in Softonic

If you ever need to convert documents to PDF format, the easiest way to do so is simply by printing out your document with Royce PDF Printer.

Royce PDF Printer works as a virtual printer that's configured and added to your Printers and Faxes folder and thus accessible from any Windows application with printing capabilities. The difference is that, instead of creating a copy of your documents on paper, Royce PDF Printer generates a PDF file.

The PDF you create with Royce PDF Printer contains exactly the same information as the original document. Plus, being a standard format, you have the guarantee that it'll keep its design and design, no matter in which program and/or platform the PDF is used.

Royce PDF Printer includes a complete settings menu you can access from the "Preferences" button in the Print dialog of any Windows app. My only complaint is the size of the watermark: I understand this is a shareware version, but was that huge watermark really necessary?

With Royce PDF Printer you can convert any document to PDF, as long as the application you open it with has printing capabilities.

Download Royce PDF Printer in Softonic

Wouldn't it be nice if you could edit PDF documents in the same way that you edit Word documents?

Well you can with Abdio PDF Editor (formerly known as Microadobe PDF Editor) which is a professional PDF editing application. Abdio PDF Editor aims to make creating and editing PDF files just like using Mircosoft Office Word and for the most part, it succeeds. Abdio PDF Editor also allows you to work with a wide range of file formats such as native Word and HTML files.

Creating a new PDF is easy in Abdio PDF Editor. Simply open a new project, select the page size you require and the background color. Next you have the option to import a document into Abdio PDF Editor. You can import by selecting "File" and then "Import" Word (DOC), RTF, TXT, HTML and XML formats. From here, you can edit text much as you would in Word. You can insert images and tables, hyperlinks and edit the header and footer just as you would with any Word document. To secure your document at the end, you can define a password so that it can only be opened by authorised users in Abdio PDF Editor.

If you're not a big fan of editing in Adobe's PDF own editor or are a grand master at using Word, Abdio PDF Editor is a considerably easier way of editing PDFs.

Download Abdio PDF Editor 8.6 Build 80705 in Softonic

Not everybody has a plotter at home, so if you want to print large-sized posters in your humble A4 printer, your best option is Posterazor.

This open-source tool splits up any image into several sheets of paper, enabling you to print them out and then build a poster as large as you want it to be. Just bear in mind that you should use high definition photos, because otherwise you'll get a nice pixelated design instead of a huge attractive poster to pin up on your bedroom's walls. The good thing is that Posterazor supports a really wide variety of image formats.

Posterazor works as a wizard, guiding you through five simple steps in order to create your poster. Though this is probably the easiest way to go for novice users, I missed having a somewhat more advanced interface with other extra options such as frames and borders, some guiding lines to cut out the image or the possibility to add a text layer or even apply a watermark, like in Posteriza (why do they all have similar names?).

The final poster is created in PDF format, so you'll need a PDF reader in order to open the file and print it. I personally recommend Foxit Reader but any other will do the trick. And I must say the results were gorgeous!

Despite lacking some advanced features, its ease of use and support for a wide array of image formats make of Posterazor a great tool for printing large posters.

Download PosteRazor 1.5 in Softonic

With Create Ringtone it is easy to load into phone memory music, ringtones, podcasts, video, MS Office documents and PDF files. Any new content can be sent directly to the phone via WAP protocol. If the computer is connected to the Internet, any other physical link to the phone becomes redundant.

Using data exchange protocols, Create Ringtone sends the newly made content directly to the phone. A new ringtone or wallpaper can become a present for relatives and friends. By just choosing a global operator and typing the phone number you can forward both greetings and presents. IrDA, Bluetooth, and USB connectivity are equally supported. Automatic conversion and file transfer take a minute or so.

The program's intuitive interface makes the job of creating a new tune or a background a real pleasure. Create Ringtone saves both time and money that might have been spent with a content provider. It gives independence for creative thoughts and means to apply them in custom phone profiles. With wide range of supported audio formats one can convert any audio file into a trendy ringtone with a few mouse clicks.

Download Create Ringtone 4.98 in Softonic

Converting photos from one format to another is one of those boring editing tasks you have to do from time to time. Wouldn't it be great to have a tool that made it easier for you?

Morz Image Converter is one of those tools. But don't expect an attractive interface or lots of tools and menus. Mors Image Converter is directly embedded into Windows Explorer, which means that once installed on your computer, you can convert any photo from its context menu in Windows.

Simply right click on any photo and select the "Convert image(s)" option. You'll be presented with a window where you can choose the target format and the quality. When you click on "Convert" the program will convert all the selected images and save them into the same folder.

Handy as it is, I missed having a few more options in Morz Image Converter, such as the ability to rename converted files or save them in a different folder from the source one.

With Morz Image Converter you can convert multiple photos from one format to another right in Windows Explorer.

Download Morz Image Converter 2008 in Softonic

Adding a watermark is probably the best way to protect your online photos. It wont' stop people from using them, but at least they'll have your name on them wherever they go.

You can easily apply watermarks to your photos with Fast Watermark. The program doesn't require installation, so just unzip the contents of the file into any folder and you're good to go. Fast Watermark's interface has two main areas: one to design the watermark in itself and the other one to select the pictures you want to apply it to. The whole process is really easy and shouldn't take you more than a couple of minutes.

That said, the truth is that Fast Watermarks lacks certain options you find in other similar applications: for example, you can only use text (and not graphics). Also, there is no support for transparency effects or shadows. Finally, I didn't like the wat Fast Watermark handles images: it doesn't have a zoom tool and doesn't resize images properly either.

Fast Watermark is a quick, simple tool that enables you to add a watermark to your photos, but lacks some advanced tools you find in similar programs.

Download Fast Watermark 1.1 in Softonic

Adobe Reader is the standard application needed for PDF viewing on the Windows platform. It has been in existence for over a decade now and has gone through various evolutions during this time. One result of this is that it has been increasingly loaded with plugins and extensions which mean that it's consistently criticised as being bloated and slow.

This is true to a certain extent although it still has much to offer. With this release, Adobe have addressed some of the speed issues and the memory footprint has been improved consistently throughout the development of version 8. The biggest problem with this program however is and continues to be security. It has too many features that most people do not need which not only slow it down but also leave it very vulnerable to attack. However, it does a very good job of allowing you to scroll through documents, jump to certain pages, copy text and print.

Adobe Reader is a well designed application that still performs effectively despite its size and will continue to be an essential application for producing documents.

Download Adobe Reader 9 in Softonic