PDF

The ability to process multiple document files into a more universal format would be helpful to a number of businesses and individuals. Despite its limited functions and interface, Easy PDF for Mac performs well, and may be helpful to those users.

The installation process of this freeware was seamless, with a quick download that did not require any user interaction. Easy PDF for Mac features a basic, straightforward menu that proved easy to use. The entire program is a small window with one large box where the user can drag and drop files that need to be converted. After the … Read more

Apple's Preview program is the default PDF viewer in OS X, and has a number of options for annotating and otherwise managing PDF files. One of its features is support for Quartz filters, which can be applied to PDFs and image files to convert them, for example into sepia, black-and-white, or gray scale. A Quartz filter can be used to reduce the PDF's file size, but while it's effective at doing so, you may find images in the resulting PDF too grainy to use.

These compression routines are done by adjusting the embedded image quality of the … Read more

PDF files are much easier to send and read than your standard Open Office files. This app claims to convert your Office files into PDFs, but it does the bare minimum to live up to that name. In fact, Open Office to PDF Creator seems much more like a basic file viewer than anything else.

Most of Open Office to PDF Creator's navigation buttons are clouded by ads that take up the top and bottom of the screen. That really doesn't matter, since you can do most of the converting right from your file menu. Converting .odt files … Read more

BeamReader PDF Viewer is a free Android app that opens, displays, and saves PDF files and email attachments. It's compact and has most of the features you expect from a PDF reader, such as zoom, pinch-to-zoom, text wrap, bookmarks, and password protection. It's suitable for Android 2+ devices, but it doesn't seem to support Android 4 releases, and the developer seems to have stopped updating it. With excellent PDF utilities available from Adobe and others, and at the same price as BeamReader (free, as in no money) it's hard to see how it finds a place … Read more

Tools for creating PDF documents tend to fall somewhere between do-it-all packages with big names (and price tags to match) and freeware stripped down to the basics. But simple is good, which is why PDF tools that install themselves as print drivers may be our favorite of all. That's how PDFCreator from Pdforge works, though that's not all it does.

PDFCreator's optional server installation mode can act as a network printer, but we chose the standard installation, which includes some optional downloads such as Images2PDF and PDFArchitect, plus some sample files and our choice of language and … Read more

Page-turning Web pages offer a unique and realistic way of presenting a series of pages, especially text pages. Instead of clicking forward and back arrows, users turn pages with the cursor using a motion very similar to turning the pages of a book (one of the reasons it's great for text). It's not the easiest trick to program, but it's surprisingly easy to do with PDF2PageTurn. Its Wizard Mode turns your PDF documents into page-turning HTML documents and then saves or uploads them to your Web site with a few clicks. There's also an Advanced Mode … Read more

People often want to work with locked PDF files, but the file format prevents editing. For those people, iPubsoft PDF to GIF Converter for Mac effectively changes those files to a format that can be modified.

iPubsoft PDF to GIF Converter is available as a free trial version with a 15-time usage limit; the full version requires a payment of $39.95. In addition, the trial version only allows part of the conversion to complete. The program downloaded quickly and the native installer placed it directly in the applications folder. Startup required acceptance of a user agreement. The interface design … Read more

When you scan a document into your system, OS X will create a single file of the scan and allow you to save it to the location of your choice. However, if you would like to combine scanned pages into one document, the system supports that option as well.

The first approach is to have the system scan a set of documents directly into a single file, which can be done by using the basic scanning features in Apple's Preview program. With your scanner attached and turned on, open the Preview program and select your scanner from the File … Read more

Creating and editing PDF files using Adobe Acrobat has become costly due to the complexity and the necessary resources for running the app under optimal conditions. Regardless of your PDF editing skills and even without using a powerful computer, with PDF Studio for Mac you can do anything you want in a PDF document.

Available as free to try, PDF Studio for Mac offers a standard and a pro version, and you can choose between the two if you decide to purchase it. Without a license you can use both versions for as long as you want and at their … Read more