pdf

Mac PDF Converter for Mac is a tool for everyday use, especially for those who need to work with PDF and text files, and its easy-to-use interface and speed help you save time.

The easy-to-handle interface makes using Mac PDF Converter a no-brainer, and it works straight out of the box: users can convert any PDF file to Word, text, image, HTML, or EPUB formats using the application. Although we missed having a convenient drag-and-drop function when adding files, we can live without it, if necessary. The trial version is limited to a conversion of five pages, which is adequate.… Read more

If you're not a fan of relying on browser add-ons and plug-ins, you'll probably want to enable a feature that can help you ditch at least one of them. Firefox now has a built-in PDF reader, and while it doesn't offer all of the same features that Adobe's version does, it's more than sufficient for most uses.

Before you get started enabling the PDF viewer, make sure you have the latest version of Firefox and you've disabled the Adobe PDF viewer.

To check the version: click the menu at the top left-hand corner and … Read more

You have many options for converting PDF files into Excel documents, depending on what software you already have, what the PDF contains, and what you expect as a finished product: everything from free Web-based tools to expensive pro tools and enterprise-level packages. Blue Label Software's PDF to Excel Converter falls somewhere in the middle, offering lots of speed and convenience, but at a significant cost, compared to the freeware.

PDF to Excel Converter's user interface is a nicely rendered variation on a common layout for tools of this type, with a tree view in a sidebar to the … Read more

If you need to convert JPEG images into PDF files that you can open in any PDF viewer, you can buy a big-box program for a big-ticket price, though that may be overkill, especially for individual users. You can try one of the free converters out there, but those can be underwhelming since many of them lack basic features and options. In between you'll find some affordable shareware that can do the job with a minimum of fuss and without sacrificing features or the extras that make them worth the cost, starting with technical support. That's the case … Read more

Nitro PDF's PrimoPDF is a free tool that converts all kinds of files into PDFs that you can open, edit, and manage with your usual PDF application (Nitro has a free reader, too, if you don't already have one). Some free PDF converters are more like print drivers and only create documents from the Print command. But PrimoPDF also has a handy desktop icon you can drag and drop files into for rapid automatic conversion. Whichever method you prefer, PrimoPDF gives you the choice.

Clicking PrimoPDF's Drop Files icon opens the main interface, which is where you … Read more

After upgrading Mountain Lion, you might find odd problems such as Safari crashing, or the system not showing the appropriate cursor at times, either in Safari or in other programs like Microsoft Office. When you might expect to see the standard arrow as the mouse pointer, the cursor will instead look like a crosshair or another alternate cursor.

This problem is not widespread by any means, and seems to be rooted around the user installing an incompatible Adobe PDF viewer Web browser plug-in.

Since Safari provides built-in PDF compatibility, for most people there has been no real need for an … Read more

If all the stored PDFs were printed out, we'd be tripping over the piles of documents. While you won't find as many PDF tools as PDFs, it sometimes seems like it, especially lightweight freeware designed to make quick work of handling PDFs. PDF-XChange Viewer Portable from Tracker Software is a fine example of the breed. It can view Adobe-compatible PDFs, perform a variety of functions on them, and export PDF data in several file formats. With editing, annotating, searching, and printing capabilities, it's neither too sparse nor too big and unwieldy to be useful. It's totally … Read more

Plenty of people don't want or need a big PDF app just to do something fairly simple, such as split or merge a handful of PDFs. Those people have many choices. For example, there's 7-PDF Split and Merge, a freeware version of the German software developer's premium tool. It has all the features of the Pro tool, but it will split only the first 50 pages and merge only five PDFs. We tried a fully portable version of the software, 7-PDF Split and Merge Portable.

As with similar tools, Split and Merge has a compact, all-in-one style … Read more

As its name suggests, Quickoffice Pro HD is a mobile office and productivity suite for use on the go. It lets you create and edit office files, and even sync them to your favorite cloud storage service.

If you're a fan of Google Docs like I am, then you've probably noticed that editing files from your mobile device can be a bit of a pain. The Google Drive (download) app (which recently slurped up Google Docs) doesn't offer a very robust menu of formatting tools, which makes workflow more complicated than it should be (especially when dealing … Read more