List of PDF software - Wikipedia. This is a list of links to articles on software used to manage Portable Document Format (PDF) documents. The distinction between the various functions is not entirely clear- cut; for example, some viewers allow adding of annotations, signatures, etc. Some software allows redaction, removing content irreversibly for security. Extracting embedded text is a common feature, but other applications perform optical character recognition (OCR) to convert imaged text to machine- readable form, sometimes by using an external OCR module. Multi- platform. For software to convert HTML/CSS to PDF, see also the .

1. Here are direct download links for the new Acrobat DC 2016 Pro/Standard and Reader on both Windows & Mac, without the Adobe Download Assistant.
2. In Internet Explorer, choose View > Toolbars > Adobe Acrobat Create PDF Toolbar. In Firefox, choose Tools > Add-ons > Extensions, and then enable the Adobe Acrobat.

Has many of the features offered by Acrobat. Scribus. GNU LGPLWindows, Mac OS, Linux. PDF viewing and editing. Supports JS forms. Open. Office Draw. GNU LGPLWindows, Mac OS, Linux. PDF import via Open.

Office. org software, or extensions. Inkscape. GNU GPLWindows, Mac OS, Linux. Open, edit and export documents, but only one page at a time (pages can be later combined using PDF printer)PDFedit. Grid Paper To Print A4 Size on this page. GNU GPLWindows, Linux, BSDSoftware to view or edit the internal structures of PDF documents, and merge them. Pdftk. GNU GPLWindows, Mac OS, Linux, Free. BSD, Solaris. Command- line tools to edit and convert documents; supports filling of PDF forms with FDF/XFDF data.

GUI front- end exists. PDFsam. Affero GPLv. Windows, Mac OS, Linux, Free. BSD, Solaris. PDFsam Basic is a free and open source desktop application to split, merge, extract pages, rotate and mix PDF files. Nitro PDFProprietary.

With Acrobat 9, Adobe's PDF creation and editing program brings new Web relevance to print-ready PDFs by enabling embedded video and animation. Forms, security. Adobe PDF file icon. The Adobe PDF file icon is provided solely as an indicator of an active link to a Portable Document Format file with a.pdf filename.

Windows. Rich UI, allows combining PDFs, converting to other formats, editing (add images, shapes, text, etc.)PDF Studio. Proprietary. Windows, Mac OS, Linux. Full feature PDF editor.

Karbon. GNU GPL/LGPLWindows, Mac OS X, Linux, BSD, Solaris/Illumos. Import PDF with multiple pages as layouts, export as a one- page PDF. All standard vector graphics editor features. Serif Page. Plus. Proprietary. Windows. Desktop publishing (DTP) application allows opening and editing of PDF documents; Allows compatible saving as PDF 1.

PDF/X1, PDF/X1a and PDF/X- 3. Soda PDFProprietary. Windows, Mac OS XModular PDF software. Microsoft Word. Proprietary. Windows. Save To PDF option was added in version 2. Word can also open PDF for editing.

Development libraries. Allows users to add many elements to PDFs (e. Uses the Mu. PDF library. Utopia Documents. GNU GPL v. 3Semantic scientific PDF reader (optimised for life sciences and medicine), allows public comments on PDFs, generates on- the- fly link- outs to scientific databases and resources when used while online. Xpdf. GNU GPL/Proprietary.

Multi- platform viewer; source and binaries available for Windows, Linux and Macintosh. Amiga. OS. Supports a range of annotation types.

Annotations are stored separately from the unmodified PDF file, or (since version 0. Poppler 0. 2. 0) can be saved in the document as standard PDF annotations. Evince. GNU GPLYes. Yes. Default PDF and file viewer for GNOME; replaces GPdf. Supports addition and removal (since v. CUPSFree. No. No.

No. Yes. Printing system can render any document to a PDF file, thus any Linux program with print capability can produce PDF files. Pdftk. GPLv. 2No.

Yes. Yes. Command- line tools to merge, split, en- /decrypt, watermark/stamp and manipulate PDF document files. PDFsam. Affero GPLv. Yes. PDFsam Basic is a free and open source desktop application to split, merge, extract pages, rotate and mix PDF filespoppler.

GNU GPLYes. Yes. Utility library for rendering Portable Document Format (PDF) documents. Bundled with a viewer with the same name for the X Window System. PDF Studio. Proprietary. Yes. Yes. Software for viewing and editing PDF documents. Inkscape. GNU GPLYes.

Technically not a PDF editor, but can be used as such page by page. Adobe Reader. Proprietary freeware. Yes. Extant versions are obsolete, Adobe has stopped support for Linux. Firefox. MPLYes. Includes a PDF viewer. Google Chrome. Proprietary freeware.

Yes. Includes a PDF viewer. Mu. PDFGNU AGPLYes.

Yes. Lightweight document viewer. Zathura. Free. Yes. Lightweight document viewer with vim- like keybindings. Mac OS X. It can also merge files, create new files from existing files, and move pages between files.)Adobe Reader: Adobe Systems's reader which is also available for Macintosh; Safari plug- in available.

Skim, an open source (BSD licence) PDF reader and note- taker for Mac OS XFoxit Reader: Proprietary, freeware. Allows users to add elements to PDFs (e. Word, Excel, Powerpoint, into PDF format. SWFTools: 'pdf. 2swf component converts PDF to SWF – command line with GUI wrapperpoppler- utils a collection of tools builds on poppler to convert PDF contents to everything. Creators. Creates a PDF with embedded Creative Commons license from any software. Bundled with optional proprietary Razoss adware and browser tools. Cute. PDFProprietary.

Yes. Virtual printer, also with proprietary PDF editor. Attempts to install the Ask Toolbar as well as Hotspot Shield. Can be avoided by using the /no. Includes Open. Candy adware. PDFProprietary. No. Available for both client and terminal servers.

PDFProprietary. Yes. Virtual printer. It doesn't use Ghostscript. Includes adware. e. Copy Paper. Works. Proprietary. No. Foxit Phantom.

PDFProprietary. No. Foxit Reader PDF Printer. Proprietary. Yes. Virtual printer that comes with Foxit Reader. Doc Creator. Proprietary, shareware.

No. Enterprise- level creator to create, review, edit, share or archive PDF and XPS documents. After 3. 0 days shareware version places a watermark on documents. Help. NDoc. Proprietary. Yes. Manual and documentation authoring tool with native PDF export. Free for personal use. Nitro PDF Reader.

Proprietary. Yes. As with Adobe Acrobat, Nitro PDF Pro's reader is free; but unlike Adobe's free reader, Nitro's free reader allows PDF creation (via a virtual printer driver, or by specifying a filename in the reader's interface, or by drag- 'n- drop of a file to Nitro PDF Reader's Windows desktop icon); Ghostscript not needed. Nova. PDFProprietary. No. Virtual printer.

Page. Plus. Proprietary. No. Desktop publishing suite with PDF viewing, editing and creation features. Paper. Port. Proprietary.

No. Desktop publishing suite with PDF viewing, editing and creation features. PDFCreator. GNU GPL/Proprietary—Virtual printer for Windows using a custom license called Fair. Play. Used Ghostscript GPL until v. Now uses . NET Framework 4.

Includes adware. PDF- XChange. Proprietary. Yes. PDF Tools allows creation of PDFs from many types of source input (images, scans, etc.). The PDF- XChange print driver allows printing directly to a PDF. Connects with www. Includes Open Candy adware.

Print& Share. Proprietary. No. Virtual printer.

Creates also PDF/A. Saveas. PDFand. XPSProprietary. Yes. Add- in for Microsoft Office 2. Solid PDF Creator. Proprietary. No. Universal Document Converter. Proprietary. No. Virtual printer. It doesn't use Ghostscript.

Xara Photo & Graphic Designer. Proprietary. No. Graphic design software with PDF creation plus import, viewing and limited editing. PDF2. 4 Creator. Proprietary.

Yes. A PDF creator for Microsoft Windows. Editors. After 3. Libre. Office: free (MPLv.

GUI tools to manipulate, split, merge, encrypt and decrypt PDF files. Microsoft Word 2. Proprietary desktop software. The 2. 01. 3 edition of Office allows PDF files to be converted into a format that can be edited. Nitro PDF Reader: (Freeware) Text highlighting, draw lines and measure distances in PDF files.

Nitro PDF Pro: a proprietary commercial PDF creator/editor with an interface styled after Microsoft Office; replicates most or all features of the Adobe Acrobat full commercial version; offers a separate freeware reader (which also supports PDF creation, annotation, collaboration and signing); Ghostscript not additionally needed. PDF Studio: Proprietary software for viewing and editing PDF documents. PDFsam: (Affero GPLv.

Portable Document Format - Wikipedia. The Portable Document Format (PDF) is a file format used to present documents in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems. In those early years before the rise of the World Wide Web and HTML documents, PDF was popular mainly in desktop publishingworkflows. Adobe Systems made the PDF specification available free of charge in 1. PDF was a proprietary format controlled by Adobe, until it was officially released as an open standard on July 1, 2. International Organization for Standardization as ISO 3. In 2. 00. 8, Adobe published a Public Patent License to ISO 3.

Adobe that are necessary to make, use, sell, and distribute PDF compliant implementations. These proprietary technologies are not standardized and their specification is published only on Adobe’s website. So when organizations publish PDFs which use these proprietary technologies, they present accessibility issues for some users.

On July 2. 8, 2. 01. ISO 3. 20. 00- 2 was published by the ISO. It can handle graphics and standard features of programming languages such as if and loop commands. PDF is largely based on Post. Script but simplified to remove flow control features like these, while graphics commands such as lineto remain.

Often, the Post. Script- like PDF code is generated from a source Post. Script file. The graphics commands that are output by the Post. Script code are collected and tokenized. Any files, graphics, or fonts to which the document refers also are collected. Then, everything is compressed to a single file.

Therefore, the entire Post. Script world (fonts, layout, measurements) remains intact. As a document format, PDF has several advantages over Post. Script: PDF contains tokenized and interpreted results of the Post. Script source code, for direct correspondence between changes to items in the PDF page description and changes to the resulting page appearance. PDF (from version 1. Post. Script does not.

Post. Script is an interpreted programming language with an implicit global state, so instructions accompanying the description of one page can affect the appearance of any following page. Therefore, all preceding pages in a Post.

Script document must be processed to determine the correct appearance of a given page, whereas each page in a PDF document is unaffected by the others. As a result, PDF viewers allow the user to quickly jump to the final pages of a long document, whereas a Post. Script viewer needs to process all pages sequentially before being able to display the destination page (unless the optional Post. Script Document Structuring Conventions have been carefully complied with). Technical overview.

A PDF file starts with a header containing the magic number and the version of the format such as %PDF- 1. The format is a subset of a COS (. Comments may contain 8- bit characters.

Objects may be either direct (embedded in another object) or indirect. Indirect objects are numbered with an object number and a generation number and defined between the obj and endobj keywords. An index table, also called the cross- reference table and marked with the xref keyword, follows the main body and gives the byte offset of each indirect object from the start of the file. Beginning with PDF version 1.

This technique reduces the size of files that have large numbers of small indirect objects and is especially useful for Tagged PDF. At the end of a PDF file is a trailer introduced with the trailer keyword. It contains. A dictionary.

An offset to the start of the cross- reference table (the table starting with the xref keyword)And the %%EOFend- of- file marker. The dictionary contains. A reference to the root object of the tree structure, also known as the catalog. The count of indirect objects in the cross- reference table. And other optional information. There are two layouts to the PDF files: non- linear (not .

Non- linear PDF files consume less disk space than their linear counterparts, though they are slower to access because portions of the data required to assemble pages of the document are scattered throughout the PDF file. Linear PDF files (also called . A PDF page description can use a matrix to scale, rotate, or skew graphical elements. A key concept in PDF is that of the graphics state, which is a collection of graphical parameters that may be changed, saved, and restored by a page description.

PDF has (as of version 1. Vector graphics. Paths are usually composed of lines and cubic B. Unlike Post. Script, PDF does not allow a single path to mix text outlines with lines and curves. Paths can be stroked, filled, clipping. Strokes and fills can use any color set in the graphics state, including patterns.

PDF supports several types of patterns. The simplest is the tiling pattern in which a piece of artwork is specified to be drawn repeatedly. This may be a colored tiling pattern, with the colors specified in the pattern object, or an uncolored tiling pattern, which defers color specification to the time the pattern is drawn. Beginning with PDF 1. There are seven types of shading pattern of which the simplest are the axial shade (Type 2) and radial shade (Type 3).

Raster images. The dictionary describes properties of the image, and the stream contains the image data. Image filters supported in PDF include the general purpose filters. ASCII8. 5Decode a filter used to put the stream into 7- bit ASCIIASCIIHex. Decode similar to ASCII8. Decode but less compact. Flate. Decode a commonly used filter based on the deflate algorithm defined in RFC 1.

PNG, and zip file formats among others); introduced in PDF 1. Predictor 2 from the TIFF 6. PNG specification (RFC 2. LZWDecode a filter based on LZW Compression; it can use one of two groups of predictor functions for more compact LZW compression: Predictor 2 from the TIFF 6. PNG specification.

Run. Length. Decode a simple compression method for streams with repetitive data using the run- length encoding algorithm and the image- specific filters. DCTDecode a lossy filter based on the JPEG standard. CCITTFax. Decode a losslessbi- level (black/white) filter based on the Group 3 or Group 4.

CCITT (ITU- T) fax compression standard defined in ITU- T T. T. 6. JBIG2. Decode a lossy or lossless bi- level (black/white) filter based on the JBIG2 standard, introduced in PDF 1. JPXDecode a lossy or lossless filter based on the JPEG 2. PDF 1. 5. Normally all image content in a PDF is embedded in the file.

But PDF allows image data to be stored in external files by the use of external streams or Alternate Images. Standardized subsets of PDF, including PDF/A and PDF/X, prohibit these features. Text in PDF is represented by text elements in page content streams.

A text element specifies that characters should be drawn at certain positions. The characters are specified using the encoding of a selected font resource. A font object in PDF is a description of a digital typeface. It may either describe the characteristics of a typeface, or it may include an embedded font file. The latter case is called an embedded font while the former is called an unembedded font.

The font files that may be embedded are based on widely used standard digital font formats: Type 1 (and its compressed variant CFF), True. Type, and (beginning with PDF 1. Open. Type. Additionally PDF supports the Type 3 variant in which the components of the font are described by PDF graphic operators.

Standard Type 1 Fonts (Standard 1. Fonts). However, since Adobe Acrobat version 6, most of these fonts are not guaranteed to be available in the reader, and may only display correctly if the system has them installed. There are a number of predefined encodings, including Win. Ansi, Mac. Roman, and a large number of encodings for East Asian languages, and a font can have its own built- in encoding. With such fonts it is necessary to provide a To. Unicode table if semantic information about the characters is to be preserved. Transparency. In PDF 1.