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Creating PDFs: What’s happening now

RICHARD WEINER
Technology for Lawyers

Published: April 1, 2016

The Adobe company developed the portable document format (PDF) within its Acrobat app and continues to lead the way with full-powered PDF creation suites. Acrobat also costs a considerable amount of money.

Adobe itself has come out with its most modern version of its PDF creator, called Acrobat DC. It is available at www.acrobat.adobe.com in two versions: the stand-alone desktop version is $449. The cross-platform version, good on the desktop, smartphone, tablet, and on the web, etc., is available for about $15 per month, with an annual subscription.

But there are, of course, a number of other solutions that allow PDF creation on various levels for less money. These solutions, though having limitations, are less expensive than Acrobat and may be good enough for a particular user’s needs. Here are a few, and thanks to TechRepublic for the tips.

Wondershare PDFelement (available at http://www.wondershare.com) creates PDF documents as well as combining them and converting them from and to Word. It’s strongest suit is as a PDF editor. It also has a forms creator with lots of useful functions and costs $69.95 with a free trial.

DeskPDF Studio X (http://www.docudesk.com) bills itself as “the ultimate paperless solution.” It can create a PDF from the ground up, or using any captured image or document. It then can convert that PDF to a Word doc. The strength here, especially in terms of the paperless office, is the ability to create a full range of online forms. It is about $80, has a free trial and has an online discount available as of this writing.

PDFR Forms (one of a few interesting PDF apps from http://fytek.com) is really only for people who are comfortable coding, but it gives you incredible micro-control over creating a PDF, including control over metadata. A $100 with a free trial.

Amyuni PDF Suite Professional is an editor and creator that can work with existing PDFs to create new documents. Simple and with all of the features most users would need. The company also has developer and server PDF products at https://www.amyuni.com. Cost is $100 Canadian. Free trial with tech support.

If you just want to make forms, try FormDocs (www.formdocs.com). Make a PDF form, or convert a Word form to a PDF. Dual monitor support. A $100 with a free trial. Beyond this app, the company has an extensive online forms library and forms creator.


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