Adobe Acrobat - Organizer

Adobe Acrobat Reader (2024) review

4:20 pm | February 26, 2024

The PDF format was created by Adobe Systems, and introduced at the Windows and OS/2 Conference in January 1993. It became an open standard in 2008, which enabled other companies to make PDF-compatible software. However, Adobe Acrobat Reader remains the venerable original - but is it still one of the best free PDF readers we’ve tested? We’re going to take a look.

Adobe Acrobat Reader: Price & plans

It’s totally free, but there’s a price to pay in the form numerous prompts urging you to try out Acrobat Pro

There are multiple versions of Acrobat: Reader, Standard, and Pro. Each offers an increasing number of features, each comes in its own dedicated application, and we’ll therefore review them separately.

Reader is the simplest of the bunch, offering the most basic functions, and is designed to be accessed by as many people as possible. As a result, it is offered completely free of charge. Shame about the constant prompts to get you to upgrade, though. It does distract from the otherwise pleasant workflow.

Pricing & plans: 3.5/5

Adobe Acrobat Reader: Interface

Adobe Acrobat Reader screenshot during our review — The software’s main window is clean and simple showing you a handful of tools, while reminding you to upgrade to Acrobat Pro (Image credit: Adobe)

A large clear interface offering you tools which you can’t actually use unless you log on or pay

The interface looks clean and simple. To the left you’ve got a sidebar showing links to various functions, such as any recent documents you’ve worked with within the app, access to your Adobe Cloud Storage, any Agreement documents you’ve dealt with, and links to file storage, either on your hard drive, or via many of the best cloud storage providers, such as Box, Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive and SharePoint.

The bulk of the interface to the right will depend on which menu is selected in the sidebar, with ‘Recent’ offering you some tools such as adding comments to a PDF, request an e-signature, or fill and sign a document yourself. You can also open a PDF and simply read it.

The ‘Online Cloud Storage’, which takes up a fair chunk of the sidebar, is actually useless if you haven’t logged in with your Adobe ID. Top right and lower left are also permanent adverts for you to “try Acrobat Pro, free for 7 days”. You’ll also find a small ‘Create’ tab, top left. This is where you’ll find one of the best Word to PDF converters - but it also works with images. It’s a great tool, for sure… except this isn’t actually available for free: you would have to upgrade to either Standard or Pro to take advantage of such a feature.

But that’s not the only hidden prompt to upgrade you’ll find dotted around the interface. There are many enticing tools offering you to Convert a PDF into a Microsoft format, or Edit a PDF for instance, but none are actually available unless you pay for Standard or Pro.

All of this must be great from a marketing point of view, but is far from user friendly. In fact, the interface feels way too big for the small amount of features you actually have access to with Acrobat Reader.

Interface: 2/5

Adobe Acrobat Reader: Online advantages

A generous amount of online storage, and an easier way to request e-signatures. What’s not to like?

Adobe Acrobat Reader really wants you to sign in, so let’s sign in. This can be done any time you select a tool that cannot work without being online, or simply by clicking on the ‘sign in’ button, top right of the interface, just above the large blue ‘Try Acrobat Pro’ button.

The most obvious bonus is gaining access to your ‘Adobe Cloud Storage’. Adobe very generously offers you 2GB of free storage. It’s yours forever. No need to pay for anything in order to get it. So that’s great.

We have to say, though, this is some of the best eSignature software in a PDF reader. Once you’ve signed up and signed in, it’s really easy to add text and signature fields to a document which can then be sent to other people, all handled through Adobe’s Cloud Storage. The recipients do not need an account themselves. This can be most useful.

Online advantages: 4/5

Adobe Acrobat Reader: Free tools

Let’s take a look at what you can actually do with Adobe Acrobat Reader. You can of course open and read a PDF. This is a very simple function, which offers you the ability to scroll through the document and even search for specific words.

On top of that, you can add comments, make annotations, draw on the page, add shapes, that sort of thing. It’s all incredibly easy to use. You’re even able to change the colour and thickness of what you’re applying to the page.

To the left you’ll find a sidebar, containing tools, most of which you can’t use without paying - again. The little blue asterisk is there, but only when you hover over the menu you’re interested in, so as to hide the fact you can’t actually have access to what’s on offer.

When it comes to filling in and signing a form yourself, Adobe Acrobat Reader will automatically highlight the sections that are designed for you to fill in, and if they haven’t been set for you by the sender, you can click on a button and Acrobat Reader will detect the fields automatically. We found this saves a lot of time - your mileage may vary, but we found that automatic detection to be almost flawless.

It’s a shame that many of the other best free PDF editors and readers offer more tools without charge. Apple Preview for instance allows you to combine PDFs, reorder pages, take pages out, place pages into new documents, and convert any file it can open into a PDF. These should be seen as basic functions, not premium ones. Sadly, Adobe thinks you must subscribe in order to gain access to those.

Free tools: 4/5

Adobe Acrobat Reader: Paid tools

Why offer tools you can’t actually use unless you upgrade to a different piece of Adobe software?

Adobe Acrobat Reader showcases 28 different tools, which sounds fantastic, but the vast majority of these can only really be accessed by upgrading the app to Standard or Pro. Very useful tools like ‘Scan & OCR’, ‘Convert to PDF’, ‘Redact a PDF’, ‘Combine Files’ and many more are there for you to look at, but not for you to use. This is exceedingly frustrating.

Thankfully, those ‘premium’ tools have a small blue asterisk next to their icon to help you discern them. Puzzlingly, ‘Request a Signature’ has such an icon, yet you can use it for free. This leaves 7 tools (8 if you count ‘Request a Signature’) free for you to use. It is frustrating to see this, especially since Adobe’s professional tools are so exceedingly good. Such tactics shouldn’t be needed.

Paid tools: 2/5

Adobe Acrobat Reader: Scorecard

Should I buy?

Buy it if...

You want a PDF reader that offers you a few basic functions that work well, while constantly reminding you its paid-for alternatives have more advanced tools available.

Don't buy it if...

You don’t want to be constantly reminded of other Adobe apps you can purchase that would allow you to use most of the tools Acrobat Reader displays, but restricts.

Adobe Acrobat Reader: Alternatives

We've tested a number of the best PDF readers for Windows, the best PDF readers for Android, and the best PDF readers for Mac. So, if you're looking for an alternative to Reader, we know what to look out for.

In our experience, the closest competition - a free PDF reader with a good set of tools - we recommend checking out our Apple Preview review for macOS users and our PDF24 Creator review - it's one of the best PDF editors on the market and doesn't cost anything.

Best alternatives to Adobe Acrobat: Tested, reviewed, rated by us

PDFgear review

9:10 pm | February 6, 2024

Author: admin | Category: Computers Gadgets Pro Software & Services | Tags: Adobe Acrobat, PDF | Comments: Off

PDFgear is a multi-platform app whose Singapore-based developers claim offers everything you need to do to a PDF, all under one roof, and all for free. We’ve tested plenty of the best free PDF editors, and when you consider some of these hide more advanced features behind a subscription, or lack specific tools altogether, this is certainly an attractive proposition.

Like all the best PDF editors, this one is available on desktop, mobile, and the web - so, we took a look at each app to see what it can do.

PDFgear: Pricing & plans

PDFgear free PDF editor as we test out each app — The desktop version of PDFgear lets you alter the actual existing text of a PDF for free (Image credit: PDFgear)

No charge whether you use the service offline or online, no watermark, no need to create an account.

OK, the advertising says it’s free, but there’s got to be a catch, right? Apparently not. We’ve looked around and tried various features, but it looks like the developers are true to their word: not only is PDFgear totally free to use, it won’t watermark your work, nor will you need to create an online account.

We contacted the company about this, and their response hinted at the possibility this might not be the case in the future: “PDFgear is free to use at the current stage, and there are no other versions that contain more functions.” So for right now, everything is free, and that’s worth celebrating.

PDFgear is available to try by clicking here.

Pricing & plans: 5/5

PDFgear: Desktop app

So many features and possibilities - PDFgear lets you edit, annotate, fill in and sign, as well as offering numerous conversion tools

We tested out version 2.1. You’ll find the interface clean and simple. Most of the welcome page is dedicated to various shortcuts which will allow you to perform quick, one-step functions, such as rotating a PDF, taking a screenshot and using the OCR software. As you[‘d expect, there’s also conversion tools and a PDF merger.

You can display the ‘hottest’ tools, narrow down the results to merely ‘convert’ from or to PDFs, or simply focus on the ‘split & merge’ tools, or just display everything. Click on the tool you need, locate the file you wish to alter, use fields to input your instructions, and save the results. It’s simple, but it’s not drag-and-drop-simple.

For instance, when splitting a PDF, you need to state which pages you wish to split and put that information in a field. You don’t have a visual representation of the file, or thumbnails of the pages, so no way to just click on the ones you need. Most of the conversion tools don’t need much input, so when it comes to them, such a basic interface works great.

But these are just the appetisers. To the left is a simple sidebar with a single button: ‘Open File’. This enables you to load a PDF into PDFgear, and gain access to all of its tools. This is where editing the text contained within PDFs is possible. Highlighting text, adding shapes, overlaying images, inserting new URL links, notes, it’s all there for you to use.

You’ll find some tabs at the top of the page. This is from where you can access the signing and form filling options for instance. There’s even a way to set a password to access your document, or redact certain sensitive sections of it. PDFgear covers pretty much all the bases.

Desktop app: 4.5/5

PDFgear: Mobile app

A good number of options while you’re on the go, but the potential privacy issue when it comes to accessing your camera from within the app could be a concern for some.

On Android and iOS, PDFgear lacks the shortcut feature that is so prominently displayed in the desktop version. We also couldn’t find a way to edit the text already present in a PDF. However, the annotation options are vast. The interface works in either landscape or portrait orientation, you can highlight and underline text in multiple colours, draw, add shapes and notes, pretty much the same as what you can do with the Desktop version.

There’s a cool feature when adding a Text Box: you can turn on your phone’s camera and grab any text it sees. PDFgear will automatically OCR said text and insert it into your document as a moveable and resizable text box. The character recognition isn’t perfect, but thankfully, you'll be able to edit the content, font size and colour.

There is however a privacy concern when using an iPhone (we couldn’t check this on an Android device). Usually, when you choose to access your camera for the first time from a new app, your iPhone asks you for permission for it to do so, but here, no such permission was requested. Maybe something Apple should look into?

Additional features include organising pages, creating new ones, and splitting pages from a PDF, as well as built-in eSignature software. It’s a great tool to have when you need to annotate a PDF on the go, and you get to import documents directly from your iPhone, iCloud Drive or Dropbox.

Mobile app: 3.5/5

PDFgear: Web app

If you need to annotate or fill in a PDF and you’re nowhere near your computer or phone, this would be a godsend.

If you don’t have your computer or mobile device handy, but still need to work on some documents, you can do this without having to download an app onto the machine you’re borrowing: just use PDFgear straight from the developers’ website under the ‘Products’ menu, then select the online tool you’d like to use.

When it comes to annotation, form building, conversation, splitting and merging, and more, the online tools are very similar to the Desktop version. The only drawback is an interface that isn’t ideally suited for the purpose: you constantly have to visit a dropdown menu to choose the tool you need, and doing so overwrites whatever document you might’ve had on the page at the time.

The service’s forte lies in its desktop app, so it isn’t too surprising the online version isn’t as polished. PDFgear even quietly urges you to download their app, with a prominent red button, top right of the page. Despite this, you can do everything you’d expect, aside from editing the text of a PDF. We weren’t able to find a tool that does that. The ‘Edit PDF’ option is actually the annotation tool.

The biggest drawback is of course having to be online to use the service, which isn’t surprising, but it’s worth noting that if your internet drops, so will your ability to work in PDFgear, and if you’re not comfortable uploading a document in order to work on it, then this version is a no-go for you.

PDFgear works best and is the most feature-rich on a desktop (or laptop), but it’s good to have options, as the mobile version can be fantastic when you’re on the go, while the online version could save your bacon if you’ve got no other option. The fact this app is free and so feature rich is most impressive, just as long as it remains that way.

Web app: 3.5/5