pdf

PDF files are a part of just about everybody's life now, but many people don't have applications that are capable of doing much with these files besides viewing them. Quick PDF Tools is a small suite of utilities that lets users do more with their PDF files than just look at them. It's not the most feature-filled program we've ever seen, but it's not a bad choice if you're looking to perform a few basic tasks with your PDFs.

The program appears in the Windows context menu, so all you have to do is … Read more

WinPDF from PDFDesk Informatique is a free tool for creating PDF documents via the Print properties. It installs a virtual printer on your system that you select via the Print command. It saves documents as PDFs in a directory of your choosing, or it can print them out as PDFs. It can convert other documents to PDFs, too. Though it's a free solution for creating PDFs, it adds a watermark on output, limiting its appeal.

Installing WinPDF adds the Easy PDF Creator printer software to your Printers directory, and you can access it like your system's other real … Read more

The WinPenPack project focuses on making popular open-source software portable, and X-Scribus is part of their X-Software Collection of portable open-source freeware. It's a fully portable version of Scribus, the page layout software. Like the installed version, X-Scribus supports professional standards and top-quality features, including CMYK, ICC, and spot color and commercial-grade PDFs.

X-Scribus opens with its main interface as well as its tabbed New Document dialog, which also lets you open existing and recent documents as well as quickly configure new documents with up to four folds. We created a basic, letter-size, single-page document, which opened in a … Read more

It used to be that creating PDFs required a big, expensive program like Adobe Acrobat. Nowadays, PDF creators are a dime a dozen, and they range from the bare bones to the feature-packed. 7-PDF Maker is a simple program that makes quick work of PDF creation, but we can't say that anything about it really sets it apart from the crowd.

The program's interface is quite plain, just a big gray box with tabs for settings and security. Most file conversion programs follow a certain series of steps; typically you choose the file you want to convert, adjust … Read more

PDF is a popular file format that works well for all kinds of text- and image-based documents. Unfortunately, though, PDFs haven't always been easy to create. PDF24 Creator makes the process of creating a PDF as easy as printing. We've seen other programs that do the same thing, and while PDF24 Creator didn't totally knock our socks off, it stands up well to other basic PDF programs.

The process of using PDF24 Creator really is just like printing: the program appears as an icon along with the your other installed printers, and you need only select the … Read more

It's easy enough to print a Web page by simply going to the File menu of your browser and selecting Print, but what you see on your screen is not always what you get on paper. Free HTML to PDF Converter solves this problem by converting Web pages to PDF or image files. It's a simple program, but one that has the potential to be tremendously useful.

The converter's interface is plain and intuitive. Users simply enter the URL of the Web page they want to convert and select whether they want to convert to a PDF … Read more

The idea behind Yep is simple: iPhoto helps you with your pictures and iTunes handles your music--but what do you use to work with your PDFs? Yep is a dedicated document manager, almost a "specialized Finder" just for PDFs. Don't have a lot of PDFs? If you're really ambitious, Yep also gives you the tools to scan and then manage all of your paper documents--moving you out of folders and filing cabinets in the same way that iPhoto gets your pictures out of shoeboxes.

Yep can handle tens of thousands of files, giving you very flexible … Read more

CNET TV's Brian Tong discusses the latest in Apple news, rumors, tips, and tricks. This week, the iPad gets more television than you can shake a stick at, iPhone 4 rumors heat up with reports of Apple testing near field communications, and a quick tip for reading PDFs in iOS 4.

Can't see the video? Have an iPhone or iPad? Click the following link to download this week's Apple Byte (should show in the HTML5 viewer in Safari):

→ Apple Byte 8/20/2010 for iPad and iPhone ←

Is near field communications the next big feature for iPhone? … Read more

Unlike with text documents, combining multiple PDF files is more than a matter of just copying and pasting. Fortunately, you don't have to drop a big chunk of change on Adobe Acrobat to be able to merge or split PDF files. Arduo PDF Merger is a simple program that can handle basic splitting and merging tasks. It's not the most sophisticated program we've ever seen, but it works fine for what it is.

The program's interface is plain and intuitive, with commonsense buttons for adding and removing files. To merge PDF files, users simply select the … Read more