Mastering PDF: 80 Free Tools, Tips and Resources

Advertisement

pdf tips, tools, resource

Portable Document Format (PDF) has been widely used for electronic documents in our daily life, either in work or personal file exchange. According to Adobe, PDF has been around for more than 15 years, with more than 250 million circulating on the Internet. But why PDF, and not the typical text files, docs, etc? Adobe has a good answer for that – Multiplatform, Extensible, Trusted and reliable, Rich in file integrity, More secure, Searchable and Accessible. Click here to read more about Adobe PDF.

We present you 80+ Free Tools, Tips and Resources to help you master and get the best out of PDF documents. Full list after jump.

PDF Converters

Online Tools

  1. Youblisher – Free flip page software
    Youblisher.com is a free hosted flipping book pdf publisher software. After creating a free account pdf files can be uploaded and be converted into flash page flips in a short time.
  2. PDFTextOnline – Extract text from PDF and makes these text copy-able.
  3. ShowPDF – A PDF-to-HTML converter.
  4. FreePDFConvert – Convert MS Office, Images, Web Pages, Vector Graphic Formats files to PDF or Convert PDF to Word (doc) or Excel (xls) document, extract Images from PDF.
    PDFConverter
  5. Document Converter eXPress – Convert files to PDF or Image without the need of installing special software.
    neevia_technology
  6. Web2PDF Online – A free HTML to PDF Conversion service for your websites that allows your visitors to quickly save useful information in your blogs and websites to PDF files.
    PDF_Online
  7. Lettos – DOC to ODT & PDF, ODT to PDF a DOC, PDF to TXT
  8. PDFIt – A Firefox extension that allows you to convert any page into a PDF through a online service provided by Touchpdf.com.
  9. htm2PDF – A service to convert your webpages to PDF
  10. Zamzar – A free online file conversion that able to convert PDF to many document formats.
    zamzar
  11. PDFOnline – Convert documents to PDF, PDF service for iPhone, web to PDF and PDF to word.
  12. KoolWire – Just send your documents to pdf@koolwire.com, then you will receive a converted file in PDF format.
    koolwire
  13. HTML2PDF.BIZ – Web Service & API that converts your Website into PDF.
  14. ExpressPDF – ExpressPDF is an online service that lets you convert your Microsoft Office documents to PDF.
  15. Online PDF Converter – You can convert you PDF file to text or image (JPEG, PNG, GIF, TIFF) absolutely free.
  16. PDFText – Converts your PDF (Acrobat) file to plain text.
  17. RSS2PDF – Free Online RSS, Atom or OPML to PDF Generator.
  18. PDF-o-matic – A simple PHP script that uses HTMLDOC to convert the web page of your choice.
  19. LOOP – A free web-based service that allows you to convert and combine files to PDF.
  20. FeedJournal – Convert RSS and Atom feeds into PDF newspaper.
  21. BookletCreator – A free online tool that allows to create a booklet from a PDF document.

Offline Tools

  1. doPDF – With one click you can convert your Microsoft Excel, Word or PowerPoint documents or your emails and favorite web sites to PDF files.
    doPDF
  2. PDF995 -  Pdf995 makes it easy and affordable to create professional-quality documents in the popular PDF file format.
  3. BullZip -  BullZip PDF Printer works as a Microsoft Windows printer and allows you to write PDF documents from virtually any Microsoft Windows application.
  4. PrimoPDF -  Create PDF files from 300+ file types and optimized for print, screen, ebook, or prepress.
    PrimoPDF
  5. PDFConverter Desktop – PDFConverter Desktop is Windows software which allow to convert your files to PDF directly from your desktop.
  6. OmniFormat -  A free document conversion utility which allows dynamic conversion and image manipulation of over 75 file formats.
  7. PDF to JPG – A complete solution for the conversion of PDF documents into JPG, TIFF or other graphical files.
    pdftojpg
  8. PDF Image Converter – An easy-to-use application that converts PDF pages to image files with excellent quality.
  9. PDF to Text Converter – Easy PDF to Text Converter can extract text from pdf files — it does NOT need Adobe Acrobat software.
  10. PDF Ripper – Extract image, text, chart, formula from PDF files.
    PDF_Ripperpng
  11. PDF to Word Doc Converter – A desktop document conversion tool to convert Adobe PDF file to Microsoft Word Doc file.
  12. PDF Creator – An application for creating PDF documents from almost any windows application that is capable of printing.
  13. Some PDF Convert Tools – Convert PDFs to DOC competently and in batch.
  14. SWF Printer PRO –Convert documents (DOC,XLS, HTML etc) into both standalone flash movie (.swf) presentations with navigation and/or PDF document format with security options support.

PDF Creator & Editor

Online Tools

  1. Google Docs – Google Docs is a free, Web-based word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation application offered by Google. It allows you to download file as PDF.
  2. FreePDF.org – A PDF creator which is free and create your own pdf file with editor facility. Registration is required.
  3. PDF Hammer – With PDF Hammer you can quickly and easily edit PDF files online, without the need to install anything.
    PDFHammer
  4. PrimoPDFOnline – Free Online PDF Creator
    primoonline
  5. PDFfiller – Online PDF Form Editor-Writer works on any form.
  6. PDFescape – Your online PDF reader, editor, form filler and form designer.
  7. gOffice Web Word Wizard – gOffice Web Word Wizard is a wrapper around Microsoft Word 2007. This means you can implement a subset of the features found in Word on your website.
    gOffice
  8. Arcobat.com – Acrobat.com organizer for sharing files and creating PDFs and storing files.
  9. PDFsharp–An Open Source library that easily creates PDF documents from any .NET language.
  10. Zoho Tools – Zoho writer allows you to create a document online and save as PDF format.
  11. O!pdf – Online PDF creator
  12. Online PDF Creator – A very complete online PDF creator, comes with WYSIWYG editor.
    online_pdf_creator

Offline Tools

  1. CutePDF Writer -  Create PDF for free, free PDF utilities, edit PDF easily.
  2. OpenOffice.org -  A free and open productivity suite that allows you to save a document into PDF.
  3. A-PDF INFO Changer -  A very simple tool, that lets you edit the properties of a PDF file, including author, title, subject and keywords. It does not require Adobe Acrobat.
    a-pdf_info_changer
  4. Skim -  Skim is a PDF reader and note-taker for OS X. It is designed to help you read and annotate scientific papers in PDF.
    Skim
  5. PDFTools 1.3 – PDFTools is a PDF management application. It can encrypt, decrypt, join, split, stamp, create and rearrange a PDF file.
  6. FPDF – FPDF is a PHP class which allows to generate PDF files with pure PHP.
  7. PDF Text Reader – Convert PDF files to text or PDF to TXT.
    free-pdf-text 

PDF Readers

Online Tools

  1. PDFMeNot – A free online PDF viewer.
    pdfmenot
  2. Samurajdata – An online viewer, with which you can view PDF and PostScript files as browsable images and Word documents as web pages.

Offline Tools

  1. Sumatra -  Sumatra PDF Portable is the lightweight Sumatra PDF packaged as a portable app, so you can view PDF files on the go.
    sumatra-PDF
  2. Foxit Reader -  A free PDF document viewer, with incredible small size (only 2.55 M download size), breezing-fast launch speed and rich feature set.
  3. Adobe Reader -  Easily view, print, and collaborate on PDF files with free Adobe Reader 9 software
  4. Cool PDF Reader – The world’s smallest PDF viewer/reader to view, print, and convert PDF files to TXT, BMP, JPG, GIF, PNG, WMF, EMF, EPS.
    cool-pdf-reader
  5. eXPert PDF Reader – A free pdf viewer software that lets you view and print pdf documents on windows operating systems.
  6. PDF-XChange Viewer -  A smaller, faster and more feature rich than the Adobe Reader which has until now been the Reader of choice for PDF files.

PDF Tips & Related Tools

  1. Insert a PDF into Powerpoint 
  2. How to convert a PDF file to Word, Excel or JPG format
  3. How to convert Powerpoint To PDF
  4. How to capture links and embed in PDF
  5. How to add Save as PDF button to your website or blog
  6. How to Remove Watermarks from PDF Files
  7. Docmetrics – Track Statistics for Your PDFs
  8. Adobe Reader Speed-Up -  Allows you to significantly speed-up the time it takes to load the Adobe reader application.
  9. A-PDF Number  – Add numbers to PDF pages
  10. Scan2PDF – Enables you to scan paper documents and save them to PDF format on your computer for digital archiving or backup.
    scan2pdf
  11. Combine PDFs – Merges multiple PDF files into one. (Mac only)
  12. PDF Filler – PDFfiller lets you fill PDF Forms on-line
  13. PDF Image Grabber – Allows you to take embedded images out of PDF Files.

PDF Resources

  1. Issuu – A place for online publications: Magazines, catalogs, documents, and stuff you’d normally find on print.
    Issuu
  2. Data-Sheet – A search engine specially designed for searching PDF files, powered by Google.
  3. PDF Search Engine – PDF Search Engine allows you to search web for e-books with relative ease.
  4. Scribd – Scribd is a free, web-based, document sharing community and self-publishing platform that enables anyone to easily publish, distribute, share, and discover documents of all kinds.
    scribd
  5. Calameo – A new publishing method that has an incredibly wide variety of options and is simple to use. From a PDF file, you create magazines, brochures, sales catalogs, annual reports, presentation brochures and etc.
  6. Yudu Freedom – YUDU is a free online publishing service that lets you share your work with the world!
    yudu
  7. PlanetPDF – PDF user community – PDF softwares, events and newsletters.
    planetPDF
  8. VeryPDF- A Fascinating Entry To The PDF World

Related Contents

Sponsors

Posted by Kay in Tools, Web Tricks , at 08.15.08

Comments

  1. Aseem Kishore August 15th, 2008

    Great article man! Thanks for mentioning my site twice! This is the best resource I’ve ever read for PDF files…bookmarked and saved!

    Reply
  2. syuxx August 15th, 2008

    that is such a good compilation.
    ill gonna blog about this soon.
    huhu

    Reply
  3. wongsk August 15th, 2008

    Here have another online tool (onsitecatelog)

    http://www.onsitecatalog.com/

    convert pdf file to printed matters.

    Reply
  4. pening August 15th, 2008

    You forgot to mention LaTeX.

    TeX is a popular text typesetting tool since the 80’s till now, among academician. Whereas, LaTeX is the document markup language and document preparation system for the TeX typesetting program.

    LaTeX is free, and the output documents could vary from dvi, ps or even pdf.

    Reply
  5. Kid Tech Guru August 15th, 2008

    Hong Kiat, I bet you have spent a lot of time to find all these useful information!

    Xavier Lur, the World’s Youngest Professional Blogger

    http://www.KidTechGuru.blogspot.com

    Reply
  6. Francisco Espinoza August 15th, 2008

    Great!!!
    That is such a good compilation.

    Reply
  7. Hilmy August 15th, 2008

    HK,

    This list is simply superb!
    I thought I knew a lot about pdf converters but you blew me up.
    Thanks for a very good work. You rock :)

    Reply
  8. WordsAreGood August 15th, 2008

    This is an excellent list of PDF tools. Thanks for pulling this list together.

    Here are a couple (firefox add-ons):
    PDF Download (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/636)

    PrintPDF (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/5971)

    Reply
  9. Kay August 16th, 2008

    Hopefully this list helps. :)
    Cheers!

    Reply
  10. Simon SC August 16th, 2008

    Excellent article. Gotta hand it to you for the hard work that undoutedly went into this

    Reply
  11. dev August 16th, 2008

    wah, so many ah…..
    hongkiat, i think you waste many time to found it.
    by the way,hongkiat are u a full time blogger?

    Reply
  12. Kay August 16th, 2008

    @dev, it’s time consuming for this post but I think it worths. Read http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/resigned-from-my-day-job/ for your answer.
    :)

    Reply
  13. Syahid A. August 16th, 2008

    Awesome list yet again HK. This will surely generate a lot of traffic :D

    Reply
  14. Yong How August 16th, 2008

    Wow ~ Good collection! Nice post!

    Reply
  15. United Voices August 18th, 2008

    Gosh.. I am astonished my the sites listed here. Quite a lot of site for online PDF.

    I’d once used Web2PDF Online. I found their service is quite good.

    Reply
  16. Gravity August 18th, 2008

    awesome list, thnx a lot.

    Reply
  17. Welcome to Paradise August 18th, 2008

    Thanks for this awesome list for online pdf conversion tools. I’ve got it bookmarked and saved for my future reference.

    Reply
  18. vivek August 19th, 2008

    really good one thanks

    Reply
  19. Kiqlo August 19th, 2008

    To convert pdf to swf you can use kiqlo.com service for free. You upload a pdf (ebook) and the swf is automatically generated for you. The service is free and it is based on open source tools one of which is the core swftools. You don’t need to register to convert documents. The registration will give you the ability to sell the uploaded document. Registration is still free and no commission are applied on the sell.

    Reply
  20. boubacar August 21st, 2008

    Pstill

    Pstill is the best for converting pdf into … pdf

    Do you ever need to convert all text in a pdf file into vector shapes? i mean outline text so they become vector editable, in that case only pstill can do it.

    Reply
  21. Fachia August 21st, 2008

    So complete and so useful post. I think I have to pingback to this post.. it is great compilation of useful free PDF tool

    Reply
  22. Mr Khaleel Mughal August 22nd, 2008

    This is one amazing resource site

    I have needing this post, it puts Google to shame when searching for free resources and tools to manage this sort of stuff

    Khal

    Reply
  23. Cascia August 25th, 2008

    Thank you so much for this article! Very helpful. I use few of this tools such as http;//cutepdf.com, http://pdffiller.com, koolwire… It’s nice, and such as many of other links you considered I found very useful.

    Reply
  24. myadlan August 26th, 2008

    wow.. really useful list
    i’m just using PrimoPDF
    but there are more PDF software here. kewl

    Reply
  25. Mayor of Kentonville August 26th, 2008

    Just what I was looking for

    Reply
  26. Bengza September 1st, 2008

    I love PDF stuffs. They are all very useful
    thanks a lot

    Reply
  27. The Pit December 14th, 2008

    Great list! I just used the online PDF generator and it worked like a charm :)

    Reply
  28. Yang Yang January 7th, 2009

    I’m pretty sure you’d also like http://www.converthub.com/htmltopdf.php which converts HTML to PDF on the fly.

    Reply
  29. Altis Lo (Beaulife) March 22nd, 2009

    This is a superb sharing, Hong Kiat – you have been a great researcher on any great tools from online to offline for all internet users. Cheers! Please accept my applause and salute to you.

    Reply
  30. vanphongtrongoi April 22nd, 2009

  31. vanphongtrongoi April 22nd, 2009

  32. vanphongtrongoi April 22nd, 2009

  33. www.krembo99.com July 3rd, 2009

    ZOu missed one of the most notable PDF projects on source forge, the excellent PDFcreator Virtual Printer.
    http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/

    Reply
  34. wools July 9th, 2009

    I agree http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/ is one of the oldest but one of the best of these :)

    Reply
  35. html to pdf July 15th, 2009

    those are some good great tools thanks for the handy list . . .

    Reply
  36. Sally July 28th, 2009

    Cool list! But I would like to shamelessly plug our own cool product.
    Please consider http://www.pdf-technologies.com in the future when you create the list again.

    Reply
  37. Javier August 30th, 2009

    good list. but you perhaps should include also web based tools like http://www.fillanypdf.com, they become handy when you dont have a software for filling adobe files. or are just using another’s person computer.

    Reply
  38. Ilan October 1st, 2009

    Sometimes I find myself in need of converting the contents of my PDF files to MS-Excel, so I use a program called PDF2XL (their website is http://www.cogniview.com ) which is very flexible, and even includes an OCR as a bonus :)

    Reply
  39. Noxcho November 2nd, 2009

    Thanks a lot ! That is Amazing :)

    Reply
  40. Rita Lee November 9th, 2009

  41. Genduk November 21st, 2009

    Many thanks for these resources, very useful.

    Reply
  42. educational consultants chennai December 22nd, 2009

    Very useful post. Thanks.

    Reply
  43. AffineMesh94464 January 27th, 2010

    A great collection of PDF resources – good work!

    Don’t forget to include Infix PDF Editor. I recommend this because it’s the only editor I have found that can handle text editing properly. If you’ve tried the others you’ll know exactly what I mean ;-)

    Secondly, you’ve missed out ABCpdf – a popular PDF library for the .NET platform. Simply the best SDK for generating PDF documents dynamically.

    Both of these are commercial products, but obtainable for free – just look out for the special offers.

    Infix PDF Editor by Iceni (www.iceni.com)
    ABCpdf .NET by webSupergoo (www.websupergoo.com)

    Reply

Leave a reply