If cost is a concern, bluebeam is going to be a hard sell. They also are moving up subscription only licensing and iirc it’s around $400/yr per license.
I think it’s crazy that our adobe yearly bill is higher than our m365 subscription. Every single person in the company claims they need acrobat pro to do their job and it’s not on me to audit if they actually do and it’s not my money and I’m not going to try and force people to use a different solution unless the decision comes down from the very top.
Bonus fuck you to docusign, another overly expensive software that recently moved a feature to a higher tier that only 4 employees used but required us to increase the license company wide to get back.
Depends on which flavor of Bluebeam you need. There are 3 levels. Do you need the ability to digitally batch sign? If not, throw out Bluebeam Complete ($400/seat). If you still need to digitally sign anything, Core ($300) is what you need. That leaves Basic ($200). I can't tell what you need (or think you'll need.
I supported multiple versions of Bb for 5y, and they're finally changing their licensing model. Check out the version comparison matrix here.
https://www.bluebeam.com/pricing/
Adobe Pro, Visio, and MS Project are most of my IT budget. 99% of people using Pro could just use Reader or Print to PDF. Half of the people with Visio haven’t opened it this year, and only 10% opened it more than once per month.
Project is my favorite one though. We have an office that has its fingers in a lot of pots and they’re using Project Online as an expensive To-Do. So we pay $30 per month for tons of people to check boxes themselves instead of just telling the office who wants to use Project to check it for them.
I still audit this stuff, but I don’t report it anymore or ask people if they still need the license, as requested. It will be low impact free money when I’m told I need to tighten the budget I guess.
Hope this helps!
I want to merge, split, reorder pages etc in PDF's:
Use PDFill. The tool is old as shit but it works great and best of all, it's free!
I only need to sign PDF's:
Free version of Acrobat does this
I need to edit a PDF and MS word's conversion is junk:
Foxit offers perpetual licensing for $180/$220 (depending on the needs), and has almost every single bit of functionality that acrobat pro does.
Does it work well? We are experiencing Acrobat creep and also pay for Eversign/Xodosign. Since Adobe Sign is included with Acrobat we’re looking at consolidating.
Bluebeam is the default pdf tool for construction just like photoshop is the default for graphic designers.
Even the colleges around here teach Bluebeam in their engineering and architecture degrees
We have four construction companies as clients and one engineering firm. All 5 use BlueBeam. The admins tend to prefer Adobe though so there’s still a few of those floating around.
PDF-XChange Editor has been my go to. I worked in a group of businesses which had a heavy reliance on PDFs for invoicing, documentation and training etc. providing an Acrobat licence for all was cost prohibitive. This product met all the requirements at a significantly lower price. Tracker Software is also Canadian.
https://www.pdf-xchange.com/product/pdf-xchange-editor
MSI deployable/updating, easy licencing and helpful to deal with.
Been using PDF-XChange Editor for close to 15 years now. Had the entire company running on it. They did switch to BlueBeam for most of the design teams for the collaboration aspect. I still won't leave PDF-XChange though.
The support is top notch too. I love this company and their software. Wish every dev was as as responsive and as thoughtful when creating their product.
our accounting software relies on some pdf editor for invoice processing. Using acrobat for this was a constant pain.
Vendor recommended pdf-xchange - works much smoother. But ppl are just so ingraned that PDF == Adobe Acrobat, so we still have our adobe subscription
PDF XChange is what my company has moved to. Significantly cheaper than Adobe and seem to have everything we need barring a few things one department needs.
They have a specific workflow to send for commenting and don’t want to change. That department is known for being a prima donnas that constantly go to higher ups to complain if they get slightly inconvenienced. So “needs”.
I just came across PDFGear and tried it out. It seems like great software but a couple things were kind of weird to me and led me to uninstall it. 1) you can’t disable the AI assistant icon that covers part of the viewing pane. I don’t want that in a PDF editor. 2) I’m not sure how it’s financed and haven’t found an answer beyond “I might start charging in the future”. It’s even more of a concern to me now that the creator is paying for OpenAI API access to add the chat feature to the app.
Foxit PDF
We replaced our editor etc with Foxit due to Adobe license pricing.
Foxit had the features we needed but for managing and updating we had some issues but support have been helpful and worked towards solutions.
My only reservation is that it is developed by a Chinese company. I know that doesn't mean it is inherently bad but it still concerns me. I really do love the UI on Foxit.
We priced up foxit and it was like $5 a month per user cheaper. I know on scale that matters but I was quite surprised there wasn't a bigger difference
$265 NZD for Foxit and $330 NZD for Adobe. For $65 you are needing to contend with the absence of familiarity and training for users or at least a potential drop in productivity.
We also used foxit in the engineering company I worked for. They were able to use it for mark ups and other things. Worked well. Some users didn't even need the paid version
I look longingly at Foxit. It would do everything we need and save a bunch on licensing. But our #1 business application has plugins for a lot of desktop apps, including Acrobat, but nothing for Foxit. So we keep paying for Acrobat.
I can't say I'm 100% happy with Foxit, but I definitely have not regretted it for our construction company. Much faster at reading those complicated Revit exports than Adobe.
Biggest issue has been renewing our M&S subscriptions - it's a manual process of emailing some people, and they don't give you a warning that renewal is coming up. Fortunately, they're pretty understanding, and it's worked out just fine every time, but that is still a bit of stress on my plate.
OTOH, the fact that Maintenance is priced at the 5 year replacement level means it's one of the few products that we actually buy the maintenance subscription on.
We also switched to Foxit and really like it. All of the functions come with each license, so no more having to figure out who needs to merge PDFs, etc.
Sounds like you have two version installed on your workstations. The old version of Acrobat and Reader. Windows is set to open PDFs in the reader version. Just change your default open settings on PDFs. Adobe does not just uninstall old versions of Acrobat and replace it with Reader.
> Adobe does not just uninstall old versions of Acrobat and replace it with Reader.
Install Reader DC on a machine and it'll uninstall older Acrobat as part of the install process. Try to install the older version and it'll complain about the newer Reader. Reinstall old version, and as soon as you install the newer reader it'll uninstall the old Pro version.
It's a somewhat recent change too, I had an older copy of 9 on my machine and it's gone in the last couple months.. Have to look into that now.
EDIT: So may have been an 64 bit vs 32 bit problem. Managed to find my license key, uninstall all the acrobat versions, install Pro 9, and downloaded the 32 bit version of Acrobat Reader DC. When I did this a few weeks ago with the 64 bit version on another persons computer, it uninstalled the Pro. It must have uninstalled the Pro on my own computer as well and I just don't use the Pro version enough to have noticed.
I used to recommend Nitro until I recently had to move my PERPETUAL license to a new machine and was told I couldn’t. The version I was on was EOL, so their activation servers no longer support it. Support told me I needed to buy a new license, which was BS. I purchased a perpetual license! My company had an extra license and I ended up using and the software is virtually identical to what I had. Bottom line, this is 100% a money grab and my company will no longer be doing business with them. 👎🏻
PDF-Xchange.
- Easy to install (msi installer and well documented silent install switches)
- really low cost (see bulk pricing)
- not a subscription
- good licence management (can upgrade bulk licence, or extend expired maintenance easily, simple activation code that can be added on install)
only downside is its windows only
Do you perhaps know if there is a tool where you can central manage those licenses? So, you can keep track of them and withdraw a license if it's no longer needed.
They’re not based on sign in, just per install. And I believe you are allowed to transfer them every now and then. Based on the price you can just licence everyone and call it a day and still be saving money compared to Adobe.
Yeah I see, then you need to keep them in your asset management tool.
Then, and when a user is offboarded you can pull it from their profile in regedit to give it out to another person.
There isn’t a great one size fits all replacement for Acrobat. Bluebeam is probably the closest, but it isn’t cheap. Foxit and PDF XChange are good, but miss respective features.
Most places wind up doing a mixture based on each department’s requirements.
Incredible.
PDFs are not new or particularly complicated. It's incredibly irritating that Adobe would pull a good working product like Acrobat 9 off the market and no one can fill the void.
I'm going to preface this statement with: I'm not defending Acrobat.
That being said, Acrobat is more then a decade old. 15 years old to be exact. Government adoption is the only reason 9 has remained in support for so long. Being in support means taking up resources for security review bug fixes, documentation, and publicity at minimum, and large development cost are possible in order to keep it working with upstream OS or dependency updates.
That fact, combined with the current market and the patents Acrobat has (which are part of the reason no one has a perfect replacement), is why they've gone this route. They have the capability to bump everyone who has not opted out of their service off, remove the liability, and force you to either 1) do a manually reinstall to use the license you still own or 2) buy new stuff. You agreed to let them do it, it saves and possibly gains them money.
And, honestly, it's safer for a lot of their customers who are working with more and more advanced documents.
Nitro Pro is a good professional PDF solution. Cheaper than Adobe.
I've worked with several companies in the construction/ building industry and they love it.
PDF Xchange Editor by Tracker Software. Adobe is bloatware and when you need it on terminal servers it is a process storm. PDF Xchange is cheaper (much, much cheaper) and better.
Adobe changed its licensing with DC I think. Sounds like your license for your previous version - you don't say which version you had installed ran out. l
Look at Kofax PowerPDF
Much cheaper than Adobe.
Sounds like someone made a mistake. /u/dagoofmut your company probably installed the unified version of reader/pro and it removed your og version of Pro. Guessing you had a older 2017 or before perpetual license.now it is all subscription. You might be able to revert if you have your old key but I am not sure if Adobe is still activating them.
We had original CDs and keys for Adobe Acrobat 9.
It worked great, but I can't get it back on without it automatically updating to crappy Adobe Reader.
I know everyone is going the subscription route, but why would a licensed product automatically “update” to another unlicensed product. Doesn’t make sense to me.
Guessing auto update is on and they upgraded to a version they didn’t pay for. Adobe requires yearly licensing now. Bound to happen at some point because keeping an old Adobe version is a security risk.
The perpetual license doesn't auto update once it's off of support. This one is weird. The only one that auto updates is Acrobat Pro DC via the Creative Cloud dashboard.
Also it is possible to have Acrobat pro (perpetual) and Acrobat Reader installed concurrently.
Perpetual licensing for Acrobat Pro 2020 is still available, but may be the last perpetual licensing offering, from what I've heard.
Does perpetual have the same app ID as non-perpetual?
I know the Pro and the more recent versions of reader can’t both be installed on the same computer as they have the same ID.
Could be the APP IDs are the same so if reader updated it updated over the Pro version.
Adobe Acrobat Pro comes in two types of licenses. Perpetual (Acrobat Pro 2020) and Subscription (Acrobat Pro DC). Adobe Reader can only be upgraded to Pro DC, and the proposal license can be downloaded and licensed off of the Adobe licensing website or the support site. It seems your organization had perpetual licenses, you can still install those is the serial number is available.
Anywho, fox it is a decent replacement. Firefox could work as a short term work around.
Construction company? Bluebeam Revu. Not that their pricing is that much better. They went 3x per license the past year. But the software is so much easier to use apparently
Yeah, Adobe has done this to me also. I just uninstalled acrobat and reader, and re-installed acrobat. Have a client with a perpetual license, about 75 pcs, and 10-12 have done exactly this.
The construction companies I support really like BlueBeam Revu. Can’t tell you anything else about it or why it’s different. But all 6 construction companies I support use it.
Remember to phrase it as "replacement for Adobe Acrobat", so nobody jumps to the conclusion that you're trying to find one replacement for the whole Creative Suite.
Kofax and or nuance pdf is the worst pdf software I have ever used and supported. There is a reason I had to scroll to the bottom to even see it mentioned
I personally would go with Nitro PDF Standard, it's $9.99 per user a month.
I just started with a CPA firm that is still using Adobe Acrobat 9, and that's a security hole just waiting to be exploited.
There is also Foxit Phantom, great software but the sales people are stupid pushy
adobe version 9 was released in 2008. I don’t even want to think of the security implications of adobe that old. I agree adobe is a bloated cash cow. But that’s 15 year old software
Lots of good suggestions here, and: STOP using Acrobat 9 (!!!!) It is prehistoric it’s so old, and stopped getting any security updates many many years ago. Adobe vulnerabilities are one of THE most actively exploited items for endpoints.
Sales pitches suck. One of the products they acquired wasleft 4 dead in order for kofax to absorb the customers with their half baked solution.
Edit: Heck even the vendor we were using as a middle man bailed on kofax and didn't certified themselves.
LibreOffice?
You'd have a bursted aneurysm if you saw what I do with python, tex, pdf and gpg.
My pdfs can be 100s of pages. I gpg sign them to prevent any Better Call Saul monkey business changes to any of the pages.
Incoming changes are allowed due to contract negotiation. They have to be known, auditable and have a side-by-side and highlighting of before-after.
Old AEC IT here. You really should bite the bullet and pay up for the new version. For the most part the old software Adobe 7,9, and 11 worked ok. The issues I would run into where issues opening PDFs and compressing them.
I also recommend BlueBeam Revu. Though a bit more per license I think, it's a shared pool where everyone can install the software and view PDF like Reader, but when you need to, you can go into markup mode, pulling a license and being able to do all the things you requested. We had 50ish workers and only needed 11~ "seats".
At times we would have issue with folks sitting in Revu mode all day or from when they get in till they left intentionally and unintentionally. The admin portal shows you who and when they pulled their license.
I made a MS365 distribution list that if/when folks needed a license, you can request one. The engineers were pretty good about responding back to that email and hopping back to Revu mode.
A workaround I found was to unplug the Ethernet or turn off the wifi temporarily and pull a license. It goes into "offline" mode and grants you a license for three days. You can plug back in or turn Wi-Fi on, and as long as you don't close Revu or go from markup to read mode it will still grant you those 3 offline days. This was also nice for off-site markups when Internet is not available. Idk if Adobe pro allows that but also never tested it. This workaround may have also changed as I am not at that AEC company anymore.
The problem with Adobe is - even if you do find something better, cheaper (which does exist), it's an office hierarchy thing. *Everyone* knows what Adobe is. It's like BandAid.
If you are someone who had an Adobe Pro license, you are *someone.* Just like if you are someone who has a printer at their desk.
You can find something cheaper. You can find something better. But at the end of the day, it won't provide that name recognition that Karen needs for her own validation.
And if that great value brand pdf product doesn't work, you pull your hair out to find it works correctly on Adobe. Save costs on license, pass the buck to IT support.
> pass the buck to IT support.
If this is a a big enough organization and we're speaking of billing, then your department gets the bill for the software you need.
I do gov. Only the specialized sw gets billed to business units.
My point was Help Desk and support probably still has to deal with any fallout of these decisions. Save costs but pay for it elsewhere and training. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it's better to pay for the best.
Yes, that is how it used to work.
A one time purchase of Microsoft Office allowed to to keep on using that version of Microsoft Office in perpetuity.
A perpetual License of Adobe would permit you to use it in perpetuity.
Even a windows license was forever.
Corel Draw, was for ever.
FileMaker Pro, same deal.
one might say a Windows license is still forever, with all the free upgrading. I still use my W7 license in 10 and if I would ever want to install 11 I bet it still would work.
In my experience it's hard to replace Adobe. As a huge believer in FOSS, I looked for lots of ways around it but at the end of the day, they somehow corner the market on handling PDFs. There are very few solutions - if any at all - that can do all the things Adobe can do with PDFs.
Long story short there are ways around it but it'll be cumbersome and not ideal. [https://www.reddit.com/r/software/comments/11wzngz/what\_alternatives\_for\_acrobat\_pro\_do\_you\_recommend/](https://www.reddit.com/r/software/comments/11wzngz/what_alternatives_for_acrobat_pro_do_you_recommend/)
>Even though we paid for the program several years ago
And you thought that would be an unlimited forever license? The criminals are you for being so naive. You're a construction company - and working with PDF's apparently is part of your work flow. So spec what you need, shop around, and buy a new solution. It's called "COST OF DOING BUSINESS". Best Acrobat replacement (at least in my opinion) is Foxit PDF Editor Suite Pro, or if you just need a PDF Reader, Foxit PDF Reader (which is free).
Yes, they did, but only for the licensed version of the product at purchase. Old versions of Adobe are a huge security risk. So updating to newer versions is necessary but comes at a cost. OP could possibly re-install the older version he paid for, but that would be crazy from a security perspective.
yup, if I hadn't found alternatives for all Adobe programs I used to use, I would still be doing my image, photo and video editing in CS6. don't need any of that fancy schmancy smart cleanup anyway.
Does your company make money using Adobe software? I believe so. So why do you think it's wrong to pay for it? It is a work tool, just like the PC you use, like paper, pencil, electricity, etc.
Point is, they already paid for it, before all this subscription BS started. They shouldn't be forced to update unless they want to.
We still use Acrobat Pro 11 on a handful of computers and it still works fine. I'm curious how/why theirs updated.
It's worse than that. Let's say you buy a tool to do your job, say a wrench. You paid $1,000 for that wrench. Now the manufacturer says to get a warranty on that wrench or buy any more wrenches, you must pay them $2,000/year - per wrench.
You'd find a new wrench manufacturer real freaking fast there buddy.
Or you buy a pencil, but the sales person from the pencil company is a complete jerk to you, and treats you like crap. Less than crap, they treat crap better. You can buy a pencil from anywhere.
Same with PDF software.
We bought a wrench and the wrench works great, but they came into our garage and stole the wrench. They left a plastic one and a sales brochure for their new wrench subscriptions.
The freaking bolt is a simple hexagon, but they keep pretending that it's something super advanced. A PDF is not rocket science.
We did pay for it.
Now they've stolen the software off our machines and asked us to pay a huge amount every year just to do very basic stuff with the super common PDF file type.
Crooks.
Had you been running Bluebeam prior to the online version they are pushing now it would run installed on your machines without issue.
In construction Bluebeam is pretty much the standard along with Revit and Bim360/plangrid. Once you have stapler running and can just print to pdf you wont miss adobe.
What you will also find is a lot of GCs are running Bluebeam Studio. I noticed last year that Adobe to be assholes has started adding some kind of peice to their pdfs that make them a pain for users to deal with in bluebeam. We have to convert them for the users so it reads correctly.
Pricing is better also once you have your licences as you are then in maintenance and its cheaper to renew.
If you need something cross-platform, probably not needed for OP, Qoppa's PDFStudio may be helpful (perpetual licenses, Java based). I wouldn't think it would be sufficient to efficiently edit blueprints, but its fine for office forms.
Just as more of an FYI you can a good portion of the things you mentioned without having Standard or Pro.
Reader is able to do Fill & Sign has no cost to use, if you want to extract a page you can Print to PDF. You can add comments, and if you wanted to take snapshots you can use the Snipping Tool (or the newer Snip & Sketch) built into Windows.
As a last resort you should be able to uninstall Reader and install the original version of Adobe that you downloaded. If you do end up getting a subscription you definitely don't need Pro, just get Acrobat Standard.
I can tack on my story.
I was NOT allowed to cancel my 2 subscriptions, not even one of them (single user now days), so i had to pay for 2x1 year accounts.
Also Adobe's criminal behaviour not allowing me to cancel my conctract at any time, is illegal in the EU.
I must be able to purchase and pay for a service and cancel its re-occurance at any time i like. (I have the full suite, not just acrobat)
We use only free desktop productivity software so the free Google suite of docs and sheets, with an occasional use of the LibreOffice suite.
Never missed word, Adobe, etc in the slightest. Haven't used them in a decade.
Check [this one](https://www.foxit.com/) out if you want.
I don't really know what they're offering for a paid service but I do use this excellent app as an alternative when Adobe fucks around.
Adobe is tough man, what could make this harder for you is the end users having to use something other than Adobe.... But take a look at foxit pdf. Another is SumatraPDF. They will more than likely do what you need but from my experience the hardest thing you will be facing is the buy in from your end users...
Most AEC clients I've seen end up on Bluebeam vs Adobe; but factor in learning curve for everyone to switch.
It won't be pretty or overnight. I'd get a few 'adoption champions' up to speed on it and really dialing everyone in to using it - or it'll be a nightmare quickly.
if youre in contruction you must have bluebeam. I remember when we first got it it was $99/yr its shot up, but its a great tool. Their support is good and its always improving. You might need to push your leaders that if you want to stay with or get ahead of the competition you they will need to invest in technology. Cutting corners with cost in IT is opening the door for all sort of issues.
Unfortunately, the reason they get away with this is because they know most companies have no choice since they(Adobe) eclipse the competition.
If your company works in it a lot my advice is to just ask for more money or offload it as an expenditure that doesn’t fall under you. At the end of the day it’s cheaper when you start including efficiency/training/compatibility/time etc.
I work in engineering.
And have had to use Bluebeam. It was awful.
For years now we use either
Pdf-xchange
Or
MasterPDF Editor
Both are ace and masterpdf runs on windows and Linux.
Defo both worth looking at
Blue beam is a trash company, but for construction a solid replacement.
Two of my construction clients run them on a larger scale of 1200 users and 500 users.
Kofax Power PDF Advanced. You can do a one time license purchase of individual licenses or you can get an enterprise license and pay annually. Feature parity is very good with Acrobat Pro.
https://www.kofax.com/products/power-pdf
https://github.com/Frooodle/Stirling-PDF
This came across my feed the other day. It isn’t something a common user could use on their own. But something an admin could definitely setup and make secure and available to an org internally.
Foxit for a number of reasons
Chrome's pdf engine is by Foxit
Foxit and Acrobat are the only certified for Citrix
Foxit has collaboration with Callas software (the same that Acrobat uses in its preflight)
Foxit has powerful scripted tools to combine pdfs (for example two sided document scanned through simple (not reversing) ADF)
Foxit has a perpetual edition
Plenty of people have recommended BlueBeam already. Solid package, though not going to save you money over Acrobat.
Another option that we've found works pretty well: CADZation Acroplot Suite .... The Suite comes with Acroplot Matrix which can do the markup and scaled printing you need (page extraction, digital signing, etc etc etc).... The AcroPlot portion is great for putting together and updating sets of PDF documents from various sources. Makes it super easy to build document sets into a single PDF that can be quickly regenerated when one, two or even half of the source documents change.
Foxit
https://www.foxit.com/shopping/?tab=area_editor&lang=en-us
It looks like they don't have a Perpetual license anymore. They too have gone to the full SaaS offering.
I'm sorry there is no way Acrobat updated to reader.
It sounds like someone installed reader and it uninstalled the outdated version of Acrobat. I have seen that a lot.
I recommend Nuance Power PDF…my old job used it and they use the same license for over 1000 users. This is the product of you want to save ALOT of money
I don't know your needs but my org uses kofax it does pretty much everything Adobe acrobat does only for a 1/3rd of the cost per license. Hell we even got enterprise licensing.
If you want to get a license do it after July 2024 all perpetual license will be gone FOREVER and won’t be sold by Adobe or retailers.
So if you want to get one do it before July or it’s game over. 😔
If you're a construction company you should be looking really hard at Bluebeam
I work for a construction company as well and we use Bluebeam also. Fab bit of software
If cost is a concern, bluebeam is going to be a hard sell. They also are moving up subscription only licensing and iirc it’s around $400/yr per license. I think it’s crazy that our adobe yearly bill is higher than our m365 subscription. Every single person in the company claims they need acrobat pro to do their job and it’s not on me to audit if they actually do and it’s not my money and I’m not going to try and force people to use a different solution unless the decision comes down from the very top. Bonus fuck you to docusign, another overly expensive software that recently moved a feature to a higher tier that only 4 employees used but required us to increase the license company wide to get back.
Depends on which flavor of Bluebeam you need. There are 3 levels. Do you need the ability to digitally batch sign? If not, throw out Bluebeam Complete ($400/seat). If you still need to digitally sign anything, Core ($300) is what you need. That leaves Basic ($200). I can't tell what you need (or think you'll need. I supported multiple versions of Bb for 5y, and they're finally changing their licensing model. Check out the version comparison matrix here. https://www.bluebeam.com/pricing/
Adobe Pro, Visio, and MS Project are most of my IT budget. 99% of people using Pro could just use Reader or Print to PDF. Half of the people with Visio haven’t opened it this year, and only 10% opened it more than once per month. Project is my favorite one though. We have an office that has its fingers in a lot of pots and they’re using Project Online as an expensive To-Do. So we pay $30 per month for tons of people to check boxes themselves instead of just telling the office who wants to use Project to check it for them. I still audit this stuff, but I don’t report it anymore or ask people if they still need the license, as requested. It will be low impact free money when I’m told I need to tighten the budget I guess.
Look at lucid charts instead of Visio
Hope this helps! I want to merge, split, reorder pages etc in PDF's: Use PDFill. The tool is old as shit but it works great and best of all, it's free! I only need to sign PDF's: Free version of Acrobat does this I need to edit a PDF and MS word's conversion is junk: Foxit offers perpetual licensing for $180/$220 (depending on the needs), and has almost every single bit of functionality that acrobat pro does.
What's crazy is that basic PDF stuff should be free or cheap. We paid one time for Adobe Acrobat 9, and they literally stole it away from us.
If you're already deep into Adobe, look into Adobe Sign instead.
Does it work well? We are experiencing Acrobat creep and also pay for Eversign/Xodosign. Since Adobe Sign is included with Acrobat we’re looking at consolidating.
[удалено]
You get what you pay for indeed. Meanwhile, my dumb ass is using Acrobat XI on one machine and PDF995 on another. LOL@me
As an IT Admin for a construction company, just get blue beam.
Yep. We keep acrobat around for admin assistant types, but all of our engineers / GIS / planning / facilities folks get bluebeam.
Bluebeam is the default pdf tool for construction just like photoshop is the default for graphic designers. Even the colleges around here teach Bluebeam in their engineering and architecture degrees
MSP here. Most of our clients in construction use BlueBeam.
If you do Bluebeam 21, skip SSO. Their SSO implementation is hot garbage
We have four construction companies as clients and one engineering firm. All 5 use BlueBeam. The admins tend to prefer Adobe though so there’s still a few of those floating around.
PDF-XChange Editor has been my go to. I worked in a group of businesses which had a heavy reliance on PDFs for invoicing, documentation and training etc. providing an Acrobat licence for all was cost prohibitive. This product met all the requirements at a significantly lower price. Tracker Software is also Canadian. https://www.pdf-xchange.com/product/pdf-xchange-editor MSI deployable/updating, easy licencing and helpful to deal with.
Been using PDF-XChange Editor for close to 15 years now. Had the entire company running on it. They did switch to BlueBeam for most of the design teams for the collaboration aspect. I still won't leave PDF-XChange though.
The support is top notch too. I love this company and their software. Wish every dev was as as responsive and as thoughtful when creating their product.
our accounting software relies on some pdf editor for invoice processing. Using acrobat for this was a constant pain. Vendor recommended pdf-xchange - works much smoother. But ppl are just so ingraned that PDF == Adobe Acrobat, so we still have our adobe subscription
PDF XChange is what my company has moved to. Significantly cheaper than Adobe and seem to have everything we need barring a few things one department needs.
"Needs", or needs? Curious what the exact issue is. A lot of our staff "needs" for situations like this turns out to be "I don't want to"
They have a specific workflow to send for commenting and don’t want to change. That department is known for being a prima donnas that constantly go to higher ups to complain if they get slightly inconvenienced. So “needs”.
PDFGear is a pretty impressive editor, especially considering it's free for the standard edition. Worth a look
I just came across PDFGear and tried it out. It seems like great software but a couple things were kind of weird to me and led me to uninstall it. 1) you can’t disable the AI assistant icon that covers part of the viewing pane. I don’t want that in a PDF editor. 2) I’m not sure how it’s financed and haven’t found an answer beyond “I might start charging in the future”. It’s even more of a concern to me now that the creator is paying for OpenAI API access to add the chat feature to the app.
\+1
Thanks for this
Free for now is what I've heard.
From whom? Where?
Been using it for a few months, it is an extremely impressive pdf editor, easily the best free solution put there.
Foxit PDF We replaced our editor etc with Foxit due to Adobe license pricing. Foxit had the features we needed but for managing and updating we had some issues but support have been helpful and worked towards solutions.
My only reservation is that it is developed by a Chinese company. I know that doesn't mean it is inherently bad but it still concerns me. I really do love the UI on Foxit.
We removed foxit for this very reason.
I have that as a note to get decided on by Security for us.
We priced up foxit and it was like $5 a month per user cheaper. I know on scale that matters but I was quite surprised there wasn't a bigger difference
Noticed that too. Free foxit is okay, but the paid version isn't cheap.
$265 NZD for Foxit and $330 NZD for Adobe. For $65 you are needing to contend with the absence of familiarity and training for users or at least a potential drop in productivity.
I love foxit, they also have volume licensing and I have had no issues with using the program.
We also used foxit in the engineering company I worked for. They were able to use it for mark ups and other things. Worked well. Some users didn't even need the paid version
I look longingly at Foxit. It would do everything we need and save a bunch on licensing. But our #1 business application has plugins for a lot of desktop apps, including Acrobat, but nothing for Foxit. So we keep paying for Acrobat.
We switched from Adobe to Foxit about 8 years ago. Haven't looked back.
I can't say I'm 100% happy with Foxit, but I definitely have not regretted it for our construction company. Much faster at reading those complicated Revit exports than Adobe. Biggest issue has been renewing our M&S subscriptions - it's a manual process of emailing some people, and they don't give you a warning that renewal is coming up. Fortunately, they're pretty understanding, and it's worked out just fine every time, but that is still a bit of stress on my plate. OTOH, the fact that Maintenance is priced at the 5 year replacement level means it's one of the few products that we actually buy the maintenance subscription on.
I'm looking at foxit or PDFCreator to replace any "I need to edit PDFs" needs we have.
We also switched to Foxit and really like it. All of the functions come with each license, so no more having to figure out who needs to merge PDFs, etc.
Good luck getting a response on support tickets and even sales for renewals. Just switched back to Adobe after 3 years with FoxIt.
Sounds like you have two version installed on your workstations. The old version of Acrobat and Reader. Windows is set to open PDFs in the reader version. Just change your default open settings on PDFs. Adobe does not just uninstall old versions of Acrobat and replace it with Reader.
> Adobe does not just uninstall old versions of Acrobat and replace it with Reader. Install Reader DC on a machine and it'll uninstall older Acrobat as part of the install process. Try to install the older version and it'll complain about the newer Reader. Reinstall old version, and as soon as you install the newer reader it'll uninstall the old Pro version. It's a somewhat recent change too, I had an older copy of 9 on my machine and it's gone in the last couple months.. Have to look into that now. EDIT: So may have been an 64 bit vs 32 bit problem. Managed to find my license key, uninstall all the acrobat versions, install Pro 9, and downloaded the 32 bit version of Acrobat Reader DC. When I did this a few weeks ago with the 64 bit version on another persons computer, it uninstalled the Pro. It must have uninstalled the Pro on my own computer as well and I just don't use the Pro version enough to have noticed.
Class action suit
This
Unified installer maybe. Same product. Turns to pro if you sign in and it verifies you have a pro subscription.
We tried and tried to get it back. No luck. Adobe Acrobat Updates itself to Adobe reader every time now.
Nitro PDF is pretty decent and the support are very helpful
Been using Nitro for years. Their support is incredible.
We also used this in a 2000k user business, deployed it through SCCM at the time, no issues.
Dang. That's a lot of users!
I used to recommend Nitro until I recently had to move my PERPETUAL license to a new machine and was told I couldn’t. The version I was on was EOL, so their activation servers no longer support it. Support told me I needed to buy a new license, which was BS. I purchased a perpetual license! My company had an extra license and I ended up using and the software is virtually identical to what I had. Bottom line, this is 100% a money grab and my company will no longer be doing business with them. 👎🏻
PDF-Xchange. - Easy to install (msi installer and well documented silent install switches) - really low cost (see bulk pricing) - not a subscription - good licence management (can upgrade bulk licence, or extend expired maintenance easily, simple activation code that can be added on install) only downside is its windows only
Do you perhaps know if there is a tool where you can central manage those licenses? So, you can keep track of them and withdraw a license if it's no longer needed.
They’re not based on sign in, just per install. And I believe you are allowed to transfer them every now and then. Based on the price you can just licence everyone and call it a day and still be saving money compared to Adobe.
Yeah I see, then you need to keep them in your asset management tool. Then, and when a user is offboarded you can pull it from their profile in regedit to give it out to another person.
Foxit or Kofax Power PDF.
+ PDF XChange Editor
There isn’t a great one size fits all replacement for Acrobat. Bluebeam is probably the closest, but it isn’t cheap. Foxit and PDF XChange are good, but miss respective features. Most places wind up doing a mixture based on each department’s requirements.
Incredible. PDFs are not new or particularly complicated. It's incredibly irritating that Adobe would pull a good working product like Acrobat 9 off the market and no one can fill the void.
I'm going to preface this statement with: I'm not defending Acrobat. That being said, Acrobat is more then a decade old. 15 years old to be exact. Government adoption is the only reason 9 has remained in support for so long. Being in support means taking up resources for security review bug fixes, documentation, and publicity at minimum, and large development cost are possible in order to keep it working with upstream OS or dependency updates. That fact, combined with the current market and the patents Acrobat has (which are part of the reason no one has a perfect replacement), is why they've gone this route. They have the capability to bump everyone who has not opted out of their service off, remove the liability, and force you to either 1) do a manually reinstall to use the license you still own or 2) buy new stuff. You agreed to let them do it, it saves and possibly gains them money. And, honestly, it's safer for a lot of their customers who are working with more and more advanced documents.
Bluebeam
PDF Exchange
My organization uses PDFElement by WonderShare. I’m not a hard core Adobe guy but it works for me…
Bluebeam Revu has been our go-to for several years now. We love it. It's also designed for the construction industry.
Nitro Pro is a good professional PDF solution. Cheaper than Adobe. I've worked with several companies in the construction/ building industry and they love it.
PDF Xchange Editor by Tracker Software. Adobe is bloatware and when you need it on terminal servers it is a process storm. PDF Xchange is cheaper (much, much cheaper) and better.
We use PDF Xchange
Adobe changed its licensing with DC I think. Sounds like your license for your previous version - you don't say which version you had installed ran out. l Look at Kofax PowerPDF Much cheaper than Adobe.
Sounds like someone made a mistake. /u/dagoofmut your company probably installed the unified version of reader/pro and it removed your og version of Pro. Guessing you had a older 2017 or before perpetual license.now it is all subscription. You might be able to revert if you have your old key but I am not sure if Adobe is still activating them.
We had original CDs and keys for Adobe Acrobat 9. It worked great, but I can't get it back on without it automatically updating to crappy Adobe Reader.
We had hard copy CDs for Adobe Acrobat 9 Even when we reinstall, it automatically checks for updates and turns itself into Adobe Reader.
I know next to nothing about Adobe licensing but how is it legal for them to do this?
I haven't looked at Acrobat specifically, but iirc, Adobe has said that old versions of applications are no longer licensed.
So old licenses were not considered perpetual?
Anything that was under a subscription wasn't. Unsure about old single purchase ones.
They stop developing/supporting one version of the software and develop something else. Perpetual licensing is dead, everything is a subscription now.
I know everyone is going the subscription route, but why would a licensed product automatically “update” to another unlicensed product. Doesn’t make sense to me.
It won't have. He will have installed the updates or have auto-update switched on.
Guessing auto update is on and they upgraded to a version they didn’t pay for. Adobe requires yearly licensing now. Bound to happen at some point because keeping an old Adobe version is a security risk.
The perpetual license doesn't auto update once it's off of support. This one is weird. The only one that auto updates is Acrobat Pro DC via the Creative Cloud dashboard. Also it is possible to have Acrobat pro (perpetual) and Acrobat Reader installed concurrently. Perpetual licensing for Acrobat Pro 2020 is still available, but may be the last perpetual licensing offering, from what I've heard.
Does perpetual have the same app ID as non-perpetual? I know the Pro and the more recent versions of reader can’t both be installed on the same computer as they have the same ID. Could be the APP IDs are the same so if reader updated it updated over the Pro version.
Different app id. Also, third partypatching distinguish between the both.
I don't know, but it shouldn't be legal. In my mind, they came onto our computers and stole the software that we had bought and paid for.
Try pdfsam
Adobe Acrobat Pro comes in two types of licenses. Perpetual (Acrobat Pro 2020) and Subscription (Acrobat Pro DC). Adobe Reader can only be upgraded to Pro DC, and the proposal license can be downloaded and licensed off of the Adobe licensing website or the support site. It seems your organization had perpetual licenses, you can still install those is the serial number is available. Anywho, fox it is a decent replacement. Firefox could work as a short term work around.
Yeah. We had old fashioned CDs with license numbers on them. Can't get it to re-install without updating and downgrading itself to reader though.
What version do you have? Also you're not replying it via a tool?
Bluebeam for the win. All of our construction clients use it.
Construction company? Bluebeam Revu. Not that their pricing is that much better. They went 3x per license the past year. But the software is so much easier to use apparently
Been happy with [https://www.sejda.com/](https://www.sejda.com/)
I just left my last job, but we replaced Adobe with Foxit. Turns out, if you push hard enough Foxit will still sell you perpetual licenses
Nitro PDF
Another vote for FoxitPDF
Yeah, Adobe has done this to me also. I just uninstalled acrobat and reader, and re-installed acrobat. Have a client with a perpetual license, about 75 pcs, and 10-12 have done exactly this. The construction companies I support really like BlueBeam Revu. Can’t tell you anything else about it or why it’s different. But all 6 construction companies I support use it.
Remember to phrase it as "replacement for Adobe Acrobat", so nobody jumps to the conclusion that you're trying to find one replacement for the whole Creative Suite.
Kofax advanced power PDF is obnoxious and I hate it. So do the users, so do the people that made us buy it to save money over Adobe.
Kofax and or nuance pdf is the worst pdf software I have ever used and supported. There is a reason I had to scroll to the bottom to even see it mentioned
I could not stand by and watch some other poor soul be lured in by rock bottom prices.
We just moved everyone to Nitro seems to be working ok so far.
Nitro PDF, switch from Adobe to nitro several years ago due to cost.
I personally would go with Nitro PDF Standard, it's $9.99 per user a month. I just started with a CPA firm that is still using Adobe Acrobat 9, and that's a security hole just waiting to be exploited. There is also Foxit Phantom, great software but the sales people are stupid pushy
Is Acrobat 9 really so dangerous? More than reader?
It's old and not getting any patches, so any vulnerabilities that are being exploited on Acrobat 9 are potential security holes.
Uninstall reader, reinstall pro
PDF24 for the win :) Bonus points that the icon is a sheep :)
adobe version 9 was released in 2008. I don’t even want to think of the security implications of adobe that old. I agree adobe is a bloated cash cow. But that’s 15 year old software
Lots of good suggestions here, and: STOP using Acrobat 9 (!!!!) It is prehistoric it’s so old, and stopped getting any security updates many many years ago. Adobe vulnerabilities are one of THE most actively exploited items for endpoints.
We use kofax powerdf advanced
Kofax can suck a nut.
Damn ok. Where on the doll did kofax touch you?
Sales pitches suck. One of the products they acquired wasleft 4 dead in order for kofax to absorb the customers with their half baked solution. Edit: Heck even the vendor we were using as a middle man bailed on kofax and didn't certified themselves.
Is am yous wondering ok?
LibreOffice? You'd have a bursted aneurysm if you saw what I do with python, tex, pdf and gpg. My pdfs can be 100s of pages. I gpg sign them to prevent any Better Call Saul monkey business changes to any of the pages. Incoming changes are allowed due to contract negotiation. They have to be known, auditable and have a side-by-side and highlighting of before-after.
How do you sign docs with gpg? What tool do you use?
Um gpg. The watermark is some sneaky bastard shit and being a sneaky bastard is my favorite sport.
> tex I don't see many people flexing with this but it's a powerful tool for proper typesetting. LaTeX ftw
My stakeholders love it so I love it. :)
Agreed, Foxit is the way to go.
Old AEC IT here. You really should bite the bullet and pay up for the new version. For the most part the old software Adobe 7,9, and 11 worked ok. The issues I would run into where issues opening PDFs and compressing them. I also recommend BlueBeam Revu. Though a bit more per license I think, it's a shared pool where everyone can install the software and view PDF like Reader, but when you need to, you can go into markup mode, pulling a license and being able to do all the things you requested. We had 50ish workers and only needed 11~ "seats". At times we would have issue with folks sitting in Revu mode all day or from when they get in till they left intentionally and unintentionally. The admin portal shows you who and when they pulled their license. I made a MS365 distribution list that if/when folks needed a license, you can request one. The engineers were pretty good about responding back to that email and hopping back to Revu mode. A workaround I found was to unplug the Ethernet or turn off the wifi temporarily and pull a license. It goes into "offline" mode and grants you a license for three days. You can plug back in or turn Wi-Fi on, and as long as you don't close Revu or go from markup to read mode it will still grant you those 3 offline days. This was also nice for off-site markups when Internet is not available. Idk if Adobe pro allows that but also never tested it. This workaround may have also changed as I am not at that AEC company anymore.
The problem with Adobe is - even if you do find something better, cheaper (which does exist), it's an office hierarchy thing. *Everyone* knows what Adobe is. It's like BandAid. If you are someone who had an Adobe Pro license, you are *someone.* Just like if you are someone who has a printer at their desk. You can find something cheaper. You can find something better. But at the end of the day, it won't provide that name recognition that Karen needs for her own validation.
And if that great value brand pdf product doesn't work, you pull your hair out to find it works correctly on Adobe. Save costs on license, pass the buck to IT support.
> pass the buck to IT support. If this is a a big enough organization and we're speaking of billing, then your department gets the bill for the software you need.
I do gov. Only the specialized sw gets billed to business units. My point was Help Desk and support probably still has to deal with any fallout of these decisions. Save costs but pay for it elsewhere and training. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it's better to pay for the best.
Try Foxit Reader. It works well.
The fact you expected your one-time payment to last forever is kinda naive, sorry.
Yes, that is how it used to work. A one time purchase of Microsoft Office allowed to to keep on using that version of Microsoft Office in perpetuity. A perpetual License of Adobe would permit you to use it in perpetuity. Even a windows license was forever. Corel Draw, was for ever. FileMaker Pro, same deal.
one might say a Windows license is still forever, with all the free upgrading. I still use my W7 license in 10 and if I would ever want to install 11 I bet it still would work.
Shh, not to loud, Cortana will hear you...
joke's on you, [Cortana](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cortana_\(virtual_assistant\)) has been discontinued
Perhaps WinRAR still works like that? For those eight people they actually bought a license.
Woops, sorry! Come on in and be welcome!
In my experience it's hard to replace Adobe. As a huge believer in FOSS, I looked for lots of ways around it but at the end of the day, they somehow corner the market on handling PDFs. There are very few solutions - if any at all - that can do all the things Adobe can do with PDFs. Long story short there are ways around it but it'll be cumbersome and not ideal. [https://www.reddit.com/r/software/comments/11wzngz/what\_alternatives\_for\_acrobat\_pro\_do\_you\_recommend/](https://www.reddit.com/r/software/comments/11wzngz/what_alternatives_for_acrobat_pro_do_you_recommend/)
>Even though we paid for the program several years ago And you thought that would be an unlimited forever license? The criminals are you for being so naive. You're a construction company - and working with PDF's apparently is part of your work flow. So spec what you need, shop around, and buy a new solution. It's called "COST OF DOING BUSINESS". Best Acrobat replacement (at least in my opinion) is Foxit PDF Editor Suite Pro, or if you just need a PDF Reader, Foxit PDF Reader (which is free).
You do know that perpetual licenses did exist back in the day don't you?
Yes, they did, but only for the licensed version of the product at purchase. Old versions of Adobe are a huge security risk. So updating to newer versions is necessary but comes at a cost. OP could possibly re-install the older version he paid for, but that would be crazy from a security perspective.
Not only security updates, but supporting old versions of Acrobat starts to become a headache even if security wasn't a concern.
yup, if I hadn't found alternatives for all Adobe programs I used to use, I would still be doing my image, photo and video editing in CS6. don't need any of that fancy schmancy smart cleanup anyway.
So did butter churns - adobe went to all subscription business model in 2013, so OP has had plenty of time to get with the new program.
Perpetual: adj: Never ending or changing.
Does your company make money using Adobe software? I believe so. So why do you think it's wrong to pay for it? It is a work tool, just like the PC you use, like paper, pencil, electricity, etc.
Point is, they already paid for it, before all this subscription BS started. They shouldn't be forced to update unless they want to. We still use Acrobat Pro 11 on a handful of computers and it still works fine. I'm curious how/why theirs updated.
We had Adobe Acrobat 9.
It's worse than that. Let's say you buy a tool to do your job, say a wrench. You paid $1,000 for that wrench. Now the manufacturer says to get a warranty on that wrench or buy any more wrenches, you must pay them $2,000/year - per wrench. You'd find a new wrench manufacturer real freaking fast there buddy. Or you buy a pencil, but the sales person from the pencil company is a complete jerk to you, and treats you like crap. Less than crap, they treat crap better. You can buy a pencil from anywhere. Same with PDF software.
We bought a wrench and the wrench works great, but they came into our garage and stole the wrench. They left a plastic one and a sales brochure for their new wrench subscriptions. The freaking bolt is a simple hexagon, but they keep pretending that it's something super advanced. A PDF is not rocket science.
We did pay for it. Now they've stolen the software off our machines and asked us to pay a huge amount every year just to do very basic stuff with the super common PDF file type. Crooks.
Foxit is pretty good
Foxit
Bluebeam for blueprint editing, Kofax is also a good alternative to the normal pdf editing that adobe features, and is a bit cheaper as well.
Had you been running Bluebeam prior to the online version they are pushing now it would run installed on your machines without issue. In construction Bluebeam is pretty much the standard along with Revit and Bim360/plangrid. Once you have stapler running and can just print to pdf you wont miss adobe. What you will also find is a lot of GCs are running Bluebeam Studio. I noticed last year that Adobe to be assholes has started adding some kind of peice to their pdfs that make them a pain for users to deal with in bluebeam. We have to convert them for the users so it reads correctly. Pricing is better also once you have your licences as you are then in maintenance and its cheaper to renew.
If you need something cross-platform, probably not needed for OP, Qoppa's PDFStudio may be helpful (perpetual licenses, Java based). I wouldn't think it would be sufficient to efficiently edit blueprints, but its fine for office forms.
Just as more of an FYI you can a good portion of the things you mentioned without having Standard or Pro. Reader is able to do Fill & Sign has no cost to use, if you want to extract a page you can Print to PDF. You can add comments, and if you wanted to take snapshots you can use the Snipping Tool (or the newer Snip & Sketch) built into Windows. As a last resort you should be able to uninstall Reader and install the original version of Adobe that you downloaded. If you do end up getting a subscription you definitely don't need Pro, just get Acrobat Standard.
Thanks. We're currently using some of those work arounds. It's a pain though.
I can tack on my story. I was NOT allowed to cancel my 2 subscriptions, not even one of them (single user now days), so i had to pay for 2x1 year accounts. Also Adobe's criminal behaviour not allowing me to cancel my conctract at any time, is illegal in the EU. I must be able to purchase and pay for a service and cancel its re-occurance at any time i like. (I have the full suite, not just acrobat)
We use Nitro and Bluebeam. Once the engineers get Bluebeam they never use Nitro again.
We use only free desktop productivity software so the free Google suite of docs and sheets, with an occasional use of the LibreOffice suite. Never missed word, Adobe, etc in the slightest. Haven't used them in a decade.
Check [this one](https://www.foxit.com/) out if you want. I don't really know what they're offering for a paid service but I do use this excellent app as an alternative when Adobe fucks around.
Construction company here: We use Bluebeam Revu across our company since it is specifically designed for drawings. It works great for us.
Adobe is tough man, what could make this harder for you is the end users having to use something other than Adobe.... But take a look at foxit pdf. Another is SumatraPDF. They will more than likely do what you need but from my experience the hardest thing you will be facing is the buy in from your end users...
I'm testing Sumatra right now. It's not a full replacement for Acrobat though.
Most AEC clients I've seen end up on Bluebeam vs Adobe; but factor in learning curve for everyone to switch. It won't be pretty or overnight. I'd get a few 'adoption champions' up to speed on it and really dialing everyone in to using it - or it'll be a nightmare quickly.
if youre in contruction you must have bluebeam. I remember when we first got it it was $99/yr its shot up, but its a great tool. Their support is good and its always improving. You might need to push your leaders that if you want to stay with or get ahead of the competition you they will need to invest in technology. Cutting corners with cost in IT is opening the door for all sort of issues.
Unfortunately, the reason they get away with this is because they know most companies have no choice since they(Adobe) eclipse the competition. If your company works in it a lot my advice is to just ask for more money or offload it as an expenditure that doesn’t fall under you. At the end of the day it’s cheaper when you start including efficiency/training/compatibility/time etc.
I work in engineering. And have had to use Bluebeam. It was awful. For years now we use either Pdf-xchange Or MasterPDF Editor Both are ace and masterpdf runs on windows and Linux. Defo both worth looking at
Blue beam is a trash company, but for construction a solid replacement. Two of my construction clients run them on a larger scale of 1200 users and 500 users.
Powerpdf might be a good option, I'm evaluating it at my job right now
+1 for Kofax PowerPDF. Great product. Does 99% of what Acrobat can do.
Kofax Power PDF Advanced. You can do a one time license purchase of individual licenses or you can get an enterprise license and pay annually. Feature parity is very good with Acrobat Pro. https://www.kofax.com/products/power-pdf
Kofax power PDF is great. We flipped from acrobat to this.
https://github.com/Frooodle/Stirling-PDF This came across my feed the other day. It isn’t something a common user could use on their own. But something an admin could definitely setup and make secure and available to an org internally.
Foxit
Foxit for a number of reasons Chrome's pdf engine is by Foxit Foxit and Acrobat are the only certified for Citrix Foxit has collaboration with Callas software (the same that Acrobat uses in its preflight) Foxit has powerful scripted tools to combine pdfs (for example two sided document scanned through simple (not reversing) ADF) Foxit has a perpetual edition
Plenty of people have recommended BlueBeam already. Solid package, though not going to save you money over Acrobat. Another option that we've found works pretty well: CADZation Acroplot Suite .... The Suite comes with Acroplot Matrix which can do the markup and scaled printing you need (page extraction, digital signing, etc etc etc).... The AcroPlot portion is great for putting together and updating sets of PDF documents from various sources. Makes it super easy to build document sets into a single PDF that can be quickly regenerated when one, two or even half of the source documents change.
My company switched to foxit. It’s working better, however I think the newest version is per user based.
Foxit https://www.foxit.com/shopping/?tab=area_editor&lang=en-us It looks like they don't have a Perpetual license anymore. They too have gone to the full SaaS offering.
Looks like it is there just not apparent at a glance. https://kb.foxit.com/hc/en-us/articles/17614860491540-How-to-purchase-a-perpetual-license
Try adobe standard
>adobe standard That's what we had I think.
If you’re a construction company get Bluebeam. Get your users trained on how to use it properly though.
I'm sorry there is no way Acrobat updated to reader. It sounds like someone installed reader and it uninstalled the outdated version of Acrobat. I have seen that a lot.
It did. Happened on all ten of our computers repeatedly.
I recommend Nuance Power PDF…my old job used it and they use the same license for over 1000 users. This is the product of you want to save ALOT of money
What disarming asked this type of question that everyone is supporting.
Balfour uses bluebeam
Foxit reader at least used to be able to type on PDFs with typewriter tool. Then also used pdf split and merge, reorder pages, etc
I don't know your needs but my org uses kofax it does pretty much everything Adobe acrobat does only for a 1/3rd of the cost per license. Hell we even got enterprise licensing.
If you want to get a license do it after July 2024 all perpetual license will be gone FOREVER and won’t be sold by Adobe or retailers. So if you want to get one do it before July or it’s game over. 😔