You can download the Barnes and Noble eReader here (18.5 MB for PC).
You can download the Kindle eReader here (6.24 MB for PC).

[Editor’s note: this review was written by Freewaregenius contributor Jason H. Check out his tech blog: 404techsupport.com].

If you’d like to see how Apple’s iBooks on the iPad might compare, see my review of the iPad on 404 Tech Support.

I tried out the Amazon Kindle software on the iPad while I had one at my disposal and grabbed a few screenshots. Here’s the sign-in screen:

The Library page that will show the different books you have downloaded:

A page from the book:

I’ll let you form your own opinion but to me the Kindle’s page doesn’t look too enticing. It looks like what you would see reading a standard PDF document making dry reading even more dry. The image below shows a screenshot of the PC version of the Kindle software and it doesn’t look much different than it does on the iPad.

You can also send the pages into Full-screen to remove the menu bar at the top and other distractions.

Personally, I tend to like the Barnes & Noble Desktop eReader more than the Kindle application for the PC but it’s mostly just personal preference. Speaking of preferences, the BN Reader has a place where you can go to change Reader Preferences but it is a blank screen. Not a whole lot of customization is available at this point but I like the wider, two-page format better.

The BN Reader also allows you go full-screen and remove the distraction. With the arrow keys working to advance the page, this can make for pretty easy reading without constantly thinking that you’re reading on a computer.

One distinct feature that the BN Reader has and the Kindle doesn’t is the ability to easily import your own books. Files with the extension .pdb, .epub, .pdf can be imported by using the option under My Library and My Stuff.

Just because you haven’t purchased an eBook Reader device yet doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy some of the conveniences digital books offer. Even if you have a device, being able to read your library of books on a computer or laptop gives you even greater flexibility. Your preference for which device or which application you like better is also helpful to know before you build up your library because the formats aren’t compatible with each other and you should take this into consideration before you make your purchases. In the meantime, the desktop readers are free and include a number of free ebooks currently available.

PDF bookmarks add an extra dimension to PDF documents by making them interactive in ways similar to, say, a webpage, whereby you can instantly jump to the desired section or information that you want to read. PDF’s with bookmarks can be much more useful and accessible, especially for technical document and instruction manuals, but also for ebooks whereby chapters or sections can be delineated as well.

The program used to do this and presented here is called “JPDFbookmarks“, and it is both free and open source.

For this example I am going to go through the process of adding bookmarks to a document I am publishing to PDF, step by step.

4. Add the names for your desired bookmarks

Next name your bookmark appropriately. Use a name that makes sense, as these bookmarks need to make sense for readers that are going to use them.

Add as many bookmarks as necessary. Do not worry about defining them in the document for the time being, just put them all down in the correct structure.

Also note that you can drag and drop to re-arrange your bookmarks, and use the formatting controls in the left sidebar to format as desired (bold, italic, change font color, etc.)

See the screenshot below to see the list of bookmarks I entered for this example:

It is important to get exactly the right view on-screen when you bookmark, as the bookmark will preserve exactly your on-screen view. Use the controls on the top toolbar to navigate to the view (see below).

Bookmark creation step by step

(a) Click on the bookmark in the left pane that you added in step 4 above

(b) Navigate to the page or part of the page that you want the user the see when they click on the bookmark using the controls above. Zoom in or out appropriately, as any zoom factor will also be preserved; the only exception to this is using the “select to zoom” tool in the toolbar, which enables you to select and bookmark any rectangular area in your document and will be denoted by a red outline.

Generally speaking there are 6 possible bookmark types: zoom to fit width, zoom to fit height, zoom to fit page, or select to zoom a particular section of the document. The other two types are a web bookmark, where the bookmark opens a URL on the internet, or a multimedia bookmark, where clicking the bookmark launches a media file.

(c) Go back to the bookmark in the left pane. Right click on it, scroll all the way to the last option in the context menu and select “Set destination” (or click (Ctrl+Alt+A). See screenshot to the right.

(d) Go back to step (a) and do this for all bookmarks that you want to define.

(e) To create a web bookmark, right click on the bookmark and choose “web bookmark” in the context menu.

(f) Once you are done and have defined all the bookmarks you want, test them by clicking on each one in the list. If the document doesn’t scroll down in the way that you intended make sure to fix the bookmark.

(g) Your bookmarks are now defined, but you’re not done yet. Go on to the steps below.

Imagine that after all this work creating bookmarks you find a few typos in the text that force you to re-create the PDF file. By exporting your bookmarks to a text file, you can simply create a fresh, typo-free PDF and re-import the bookmarks to it without having to go through the whole exercise described here again (use “Tools/Load” or Ctrl+Alt+D”.

Note on adding or removing pages: if you need to re-create your document and add or remove pages to it, you can use the “page offset” button in the upper toolbar to shift an individual bookmark or a group of bookmarks forwards and backwards.

To do so, load up your new, modified document with the added or removed pages then import the bookmark file into it. In the left sidebar, select the bookmarks you would like to shift forward or backward by page increments (Ctrl+Click to select multiple bookmarks), then click on the “Apply a page offset” button shown above. You will then have the option to shift the selected bookmarks forwards (positive page values) or backwards (negative values).

All you need to do is download and install the free "Save as PDF’" Office 2007 add-on from Microsoft. Once installed, this add-on will provide save to PDF functionality in all MS Office 2007 programs, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, Visio, Publisher, InfoPath and OneNote (depending on which ones may be insalled on your machine).

To use this feature, download the plugin from this page, then install. From within your Office 2007 application, you can now navigate the office or file menu in the top left, then "save as", then "PDF or XPS" (see screenshot above). Another way to use it is simply to change the "file type" to PDF in any save file dialog, as PDF should now appear in the list alongside other supported file types.

Aside from the sheer convenience of it, once of the things I like a lot about using this add-in to export straight to PDF (vs. using most virtual printers) is that it preserves any live URLs that may exist in the documents as clickable links, whereas most virtual printers do not.

Version Tested: 1.0

Compatibility: requires MS Office 2007. Will not work on earlier versions.

Go to the add-in page to download the latest version (approx 915K).

Can you perform good PDF to Word/Doc/RTF conversions for free? Absolutely. This posting will present and compare a number of different ways to convert PDF files into Word .DOC or .RTF formats, for free and without any watermarks or restrictions. Options discussed include both free programs and free online conversion services.    

If you’ve seen this article before you will notice that some new conversion options have been added while a few that were previously mentioned are gone. This is because since I first wrote this a number of excellent conversion options have become available, and I wanted to focus on the services that offer the highest quality. Ten different programs/services are presented here; 5 desktop-based apps and 5 online conversion services. Of the six options presented in the original article only two remain.    

Desktop-based apps: (1) Free PDF to Word Converter from SmartSoft; (2) gDOC Creator; (5) AnyBizSoft PDF to Word Free; (4) OpenOffice with PDF import extension; and (5) Some PDF to Word Converter.    

Online Conversion services: (6) NuancePDF (7) PDF to Word Free from NitroPDF; (8) Koolwire; (9) Zamzar, and (10) PDFOnline.com.Before I move on to the comparison section, a few issues to address:    

Will the document be editable once it is converted?: typically, yes; however the real answer is it depends on your original document and how it was created. Generally speaking you will be able to edit any converted PDF that was created electronically and published using software, which comprises the overwhelming majority of forms and documents that are on the internet. The exception is if your PDF was scanned from a paper document; in this case most converters will consider this to be no different from a photograph, and when converting will produce images inside a .DOC file rather than text. What you need in this case is “Optical Character Recognition” (OCR) software, or a converter than can do OCR (the only option mentioned in this article that can do OCR is NuancePDF); otherwise what you can use free OCR software such as InstantOCR or TopOCR. These programs can “read” documents based on images and convert them to text, but in most cases it will be somewhat labor intensive to get a good conversion, especially if you have a large number of pages.    

Online vs. desktop conversions: there are two categories of tools for PDF to Word file conversions. The first is a program that you would install on your PC that would convert the PDF file for you and save the output on your hard drive, which is what you would typically expect. The second category are online conversion websites. With these, you would need to email or upload your file that you want to convert remotely to a website. The actual conversion would occur remotely on their server, and subsequently the converted document is either emailed back to you to a valid email address that you provide or a link is produced that you can click to download the resulting file.    

Typically, online conversion services offer a higher quality conversion, although depending on your document that may or may not be the case. Two issues that have to be considered with online conversions are reliability and security. With respect to the former issue (reliability), while most online services will send your converted document within a matter of minutes, it is sometimes the case that your file will arrive hours or even days afterwards. As for the latter issue (security), virtually all of the online services mentioned here promise that your files will be transferred via a secure connection, that your document will not be looked at by a human, and that your email will not be used or shared with any other party. Still, it is up to you to decide whether you are comfortable sending certain private or business documents remotely for conversion.    

Converting to images: if you are interested in converting your PDF to images then you’re in the wrong place. For this try the freeware program aptly entitled JPEG to PDF or use the excellent free PDF reader called PDF X-Change Viewer which has an export to images option.    

To perform this test I converted five documents. The first is a PDF document I created using Open Office’s export to PDF function that had the following elements (1) a two-column table with special formatting, which contained (2) three thumbnail-sized jpeg images. My PDF document also contained (3) working hyperlinks; and (4) it featured text that was bolded; (5) contained bulleted points, as well as (6) a numbered list. For the sake of simplicity my PDF was only a single page. To see what the document looked like click on the screenshot to the right.    

The second document was a simple scanned image that was converted to PDF, to test whether any of the services would perform OCR (optical character recognition) and render an editable document. (only one did). The third document was a trade brochure that contained text, images, charts, and tables, and was 21 pages long, which I imagined would be typical of what most people would need to convert. The fourth document: a single-page PDF I created of a Russian website, for the sole purpose of testing whether any of these services support special characters (none did). Lastly, the fifth document consisted of a bunch of tables full of data, to see how these programs dealt with this.    

The objective was to get a converted document that could be loaded into MS Word where the text/contents could be edited and subsequently saved as .DOC format, which is to say any of the following formats would be satisfactory: .DOC, .HTML, and .RTF.    

#1: Free PDF to Word Converter from SmartSoft: a free, fully functional desktop-based PDF to Word program that produces excellent results. (See my full review of this program here). More info as follows:    

• Interface: very simple interface and straightforward; single-click conversions; drag and drop files in batch.
• Commercial use: allowed; the issue is not addressed on their FAQ or anywhere on their site, therefore it is safe to assume that commercial use is ok.
• Download size: a mere 3.82 megs
• OCR support: none
• Strengths: excellent general PDF to DOC conversion for a desktop app.
• Weaknesses: text is handled via floating windows, no continuous editable stream makes editing large documents cumbersome.
• The results: I give this one 8/10, if just for being a well rounded free converter. Your converted document will generally look like the original. See the results sections below for a detailed discussion and head-to-head comparison against the other software mentioned in this article.

#2: gDoc Creator: a huge 148 meg download that installs a number of things, including gDoc Creator, which is the conversion engine that you want (and which is free). Also installs virtual printers that can convert to PDF and XPS from any application, and optionally MS Office add-ons that allow you to export your documents to PDF or XPS from office apps (also free, and can be quite useful). It also installs gDoc Fusion, a trialware PDF reader with a few bells and whistles which you do not necessarily want or need. When installing, I suggest you do NOT check the boxes to allow associating of PDF and XPS extensions with this app, or integrate it with your browser as the default reader. See my full review of this program here. More info as follows:    

• Download size: a whopping 148 megs
• Commercial use: free for commercial use.
• How to use: run gDoc creator from the start menu, use the dropdown to select the conversion settings you want, then drag and drop your PDFs onto the interface.
• OCR support: none
• Bundled trialware: installs gDoc Fusion, a bundled trialware which you don’t really need. The software will by default launch this program at the conclusion of each conversion process,  which can be somewhat annoying. However, there is a preference (button next to Open…) to turn automatic viewing off.
• Strengths: excellent handling/extraction of continuous editable text if that is what you’re after, fast; drag and drop interface, virtual printers to create PDFs and XPS from any printable document.
• Weaknesses: handling of images and tables is rudimentary (lumps these elements together into a single image for each page). Huge download size. Installs virtual printers to create PDFs and XPS from any printable document (a weakness if you don’t want or need them, that is, but could also be a strength).
• The results: I give this one 8/10. Your converted document will generally look like the original. See the results sections below for a detailed discussion and head-to-head comparison against the other software mentioned in this article.

#3: AnyBizSoft PDF to Word free: this program requires a registration code that you can get for free by providing a valid email address. Note that once you enter the registration code you will be able to perform conversions without restrictions, which is somewhat unclear from the website (but which I can confirm). The only caveat is that you are NOT allowed to use the free version for commercial use.   

This program is very competent and performed an excellent job. More info as follows:   

• Interface: simple, easy, drag-and-drop. Adds a right click “convert PDF to Word” context menu entry, which can potentially be useful.
• Download size: 6.3 megs 
•  OCR support: none
• Commercial use: NOT allowed. If you are using this software for a business/commercial use you will need to purchase a license.
• Strengths: excellent handling of images, and formatting, can convert in batch.
• Weaknesses: text handling could have been better. Restricted to non-commercial use.
• The results: I give this one 8/10. This is a good general PDF to Word converted, and your converted document will look very much like the original. See the results sections below for a detailed discussion and head-to-head comparison against the other software mentioned in this article.

#4: OpenOffice with PDF import extension: if you use OpenOffice you can install the newly release PDF import pluging that will allow you to open PDFs directly into OpenOffice Draw (note: not Writer, which is the word processing module equivalent to MS Word). This does not amount to converting the file to DOC or RTF but allows you to edit the PDF directly, after which you can export it to PDF once more. More info as follows:    

• Download size: a mere 220K for the add-in. OpenOffice itself is about 150 megs download or so. For instructions on how to install OpenOffice extensions go here.
• OCR support: none
• Commercial use: free for commercial use.
• Strengths: instantly open and edit PDFs, good handling of images and formatting, a good option for quick, on-the-fly edits of PDF documents.
• Weaknesses: text is handled via floating windows, not a continuous editable stream (which can make editing large documents cumbersome). Takes a long time (or flatly would not load) a couple of long, complicated documents that I threw at it.
• The results: I give this one 7.5/10 overall. Your converted document will generally look like the original. See the results sections below for a detailed discussion and head-to-head comparison against the other software mentioned in this article.  

#5: Some PDF to Word Converter: another free desktop-based PDF to Word conversions program. Some PDF to Word offers some control over how the PDF will be processed. Results are so-so and depend on your original PDF. See my full review of this program here. More info as follows:  

• Download size: a mere 690K installer.
• OCR support: none
• Commercial use: is not broached on their site, but the program is billed as “totally free” and it is safe to assume that this includes commercial use.
• Strengths: flexible handling of text, fast.
• Weaknesses: handling of images and formatting is considerably poor . Weak rendering of overall look and feel and layout.
• The results: I give this one 5/10 in terms of results. Your converted document is unlikely to look like the original if it contains images and formatting. See the results sections below for a detailed discussion and head-to-head comparison against the other software mentioned in this article.

#6: Nuance PDF: the interesting thing about this online conversion service is that it is integrated into their free NuancePDF Reader (see my full review here). To upload your documents for conversion you would have to install the reader, open your document, and click on the “convert” button, whereby your PDF will be uploaded to their servers for conversion. It is also the only service that offers Optical Character Recognition (OCR), where image-based text is rendered into editable text. It is also excellent in terms of quality. More info as follows    

• Download size: despite being an online service you will need to download the free PDF reader software, approx 19 megs.
• Reliability: good. At the time of this writing it was the most responsive of all online conversion services mentioned here, sending my files back within minutes. However, I previously had to wait for my files to arrive over an entire weekend.
• OCR support: Yes, and surprisingly high quality. This is the only conversion service mentioned in this article that offers OCR.
• Commercial use: allowed. I scoured their website and read their legal notices without finding any specific mention of this issue.
• Privacy: they will not sell or share your email (from their privacy policy, which doesn’t comment on files sent for conversion). Aside from that, their terms of use link was not clickable, which is a strange omission. This is not to say that your files will not be held in confidence and disposed of properly, but that I wasn’t able to read a clear policy that expressly stated this.
• Strengths: excellent handling of images and formatting, OCR support, integration with a desktop PDF reader, good handling of text and images, secure upload connection, can convert PDF to Excel as well.
• Weaknesses: no clear terms of service statement on their site. Response variability, which afflicts most popular online services, although I will say that at the moment this service is being quite reliable. Colors can at times be slightly off in the converted document.
• The results: I give this one 9/10 overall. Your converted document will generally look like the original. See the results section below for more detailed discussion and comparison against the other software mentioned in this article.

#7: PDF to Word Free from NitroPDF: another excellent online conversion service, and definitely one of the best conversion engines mentioned in this article. Results are generally excellent; see my full review of this service here. More info as follows:    

• Reliability: variable. At the time of this writing they were scheduled to update their servers within 2 weeks or so, at which point they promise better responsiveness. In my previous use of this service I generally received my files within minutes but also remember having to wait up to 12 hours for the files to appear.
• OCR support: None.
• Commercial use: is allowed. I scoured their website and read their legal notices without finding anything to the contrary.
• Privacy: they promise to not look at your documents, not share your email, and delete your files as soon as they send you the email response.
• Strengths: excellent handling of images and formatting, as well as text. A related service can also convert PDF to Excel format.
• Weaknesses: images can at times end up behind other elements, giving the impression that they did not make it into the converted document; variability in response time, which afflicts most popular online services.
• The results: I give this one 8.5/10 overall. Your converted document will generally look like the original. See the results section below for more detailed discussion and comparison against the other software mentioned in this article.

#8: Koolwire: this is another web service that allows you to either upload your PDF or simply email it as an attachment (to doc[at]koolwire.com), whereby it will convert and send it back to you by return mail. When this article was first published Koolwire was amongst the best options, however it has since been superseded by some of the other programs and services mentioned above.    

Still, Koolwire does a great job. Here are more notes on this one.    

• How it works: you can email a file that is less than 10 megs in size. Files over 10 megs can be uploaded through the Koolwire website.
• Reliability: variable. One big negative is that it will flatly refuse to convert some complicated files (which the others incidentally had no problems with). Otherwise the files convert either within a few minutes. I previously had to wait up to 5 hours though.
• OCR support: None.
• Commercial use: allowed.
• Privacy policy: their legal blurb states that users will not receive any unsolicited emails at any point. They also maintain “the right (but not the obligation) to verify Content (i.e. view your documents) at their sole discretion”. Files (input and output) will be deleted upon being emailed and/or downloaded.
• Strengths: good handling of text, excellent handling of tables.
• Weaknesses: response variability; will fail to convert some files without explanation, handling of images and tables is rudimentary (lumps these elements together into a single image for each page).
• The results: I give this one 7.5/10 overall. Your converted document will generally look like the original. See the results section below for more detailed discussion and comparison against the other software mentioned in this article.

#9: Zamzar: this is a web-based file conversion service that I first reviewed in Feb, 2007. Zamzar will let you upload a file through its web interface, convert it, then email you a download link. It covers a very wide range of possible input and output formats. More notes as follows:    

• How it works: max uploadable file size is 100 megs in the free version. It will let you upload files in batch, which can be very useful. You will have to specify the desired output format (.DOC) in the dropdown.
• Reliability: good. I was always able to access my converted files within a matter of minutes.
• OCR support: None.
• Privacy policy: your files are deleted once the conversion happens and the converted files are deleted once the download link expires. Also, to quote “files stored for download are only accessible by Zamzar”. Another quote: “Zamzar does not rent, sell, or share your personal information or email address with any other companies.”
• Strengths: good handling of text.:
• Weaknesses: response variability, handling of images and tables is rudimentary (lumps these elements together into a single image for each page).
• Results: I give this one 7/10 overall. See the results section below for more detailed discussion and comparison against the other software mentioned in this article.

#10: PDFOnline.com: an online service that converts on the spot, no email address or waiting necessary. More info below:    

• Reliability: high, since you do not need to wait for a return email and your conversions will occur more or less on the spot.
• OCR support: None.
• Commercial use: seems to be allowed, since the issue is not broached on the site.
• Privacy policy: they will not send you unsolicited email and, to quote their site , “will not monitor, edit, or disclose any personal information about you or the documents you submit for conversion, including their contents, without your prior permission”.
• Strengths: good handling of both text and images, best handling of tables. An excellent overall converter.
• Weaknesses: none that I can think of. This one was surprisingly excellent.
• The results: I give this one 9/10 overall. Your converted document will generally look like the original. See the results section below for more detailed discussion and comparison against the other software mentioned in this article.

Comparison of Results:   

Image handling: a common issue here is that many services blend all images and visual elements on the page into a single page-wide background image, as opposed to rendering distinct images and distinct formatting. This is obviously ok if you are merely interested in editing the text, but will make editing a document holistically somewhat difficult.   

1. Free PDF to Word Converter from SmartSoft: does not create a single background image that lumps all images within it, which is a good thing. Instead it will render distinct, individual images, which can be easily moved around or manipulated. **Excellent**
2. gDOC Creator: blends all images and formatting within a page into a single background image. This makes it difficult and/or labor intensive to edit images or change image placement, but can make life simpler if you just want to edit the text.
3. AnyBizSoft PDF to Word Free: image handling seems to vary but is generally excellent; at times it will combine all images and formatting on a page into a single background image, while other times the images are extracted individually and in the correct placement. It seems to depends on the source. **Excellent**
4. OpenOffice with PDF import extension: images are rendered correctly where they should be, and are generally easy to work with. **Excellent**
5. Some PDF to Word Converter: unpredictable. Will extract individual images at times, while other times it simply will not extract any images at all. In general image placement and layout will most certainly be incorrect.
6. NuancePDF: does not create a single background image that lumps all images into it; rather, it seems to merge adjoining clusters of images together, which actually kind of works well and generally speaking is not a bad way to handle images. **Excellent**
7. PDF to Word Free from NitroPDF: image handling seems to vary but is generally excellent; at times it will combine all images and formatting on a page into a single background image, while other times the images are extracted individually and in the correct placement. It seems to depends on the source. **Excellent**
8. Koolwire: blends all images and formatting within a page into a single background image
9. Zamzar: blends all images and formatting within a page into a single background image
10. PDFOnline.com: image handling seems to vary but is generally excellent; at times it will combine all images and formatting on a page into a single background image, while other times the images are extracted individually and in the correct placement. It seems to depends on the source. **Excellent**

Handling of text and/or text boxes: this is probably the most important element, since it is probably safe to assume that the point of converting a PDF to Doc is to allow for editing the text. A number of issues here; does the text render accurately? To what extent does the converter produce a continuous editable stream? Sometimes the text is interrupted by carriage returns on every line or (worse) each line of the text is placed in its own individual text box, which may requires copying and pasting into a new consolidated text box (and makes editing quite difficult).    

1. Free PDF to Word Converter from SmartSoft: each line of text was its own text box, filling the page with dozens of separate text boxes and potentially making the editing process labor intensive. In some complex documents case can be handled incorrectly (e.g. “PuBlishing firMs” instead of “Publishing Firms”.
2. gDOC Creator: excellent text handling; a continuous editable stream of text uninterrupted by carriage returns where they shouldn’t be. Text always rendered correctly. **Excellent**
3. AnyBizSoft PDF to Word Free: continuous text in a single text box, but with carriage returns at the end of each line, interrupting flow. Text was always rendered correctly.
4. OpenOffice with PDF import extension: each line of text was its own text box, filling the page with dozens of separate text boxes and potentially making the editing process labor intensive.
5. Some PDF to Word Converter: this one allows the user to change the settings for text extraction in order to get exactly what you want (using text boxes, auto merge, deleting line breaks). If you just want to extract the text quickly from a PDF it might be a good option.
6. NuancePDF: a continuous editable stream of text uninterrupted by carriage returns where they shouldn’t be. However, the text case sometimes did not render correctly (e.g. “IncrEasInG portalIzatIon” instead of “Increasing Portalization”).
7. PDF to Word Free from NitroPDF: a continuous editable stream of text uninterrupted by carriage returns where they shouldn’t be. However, the text case sometimes did not render correctly (e.g. “IncrEasInG portalIzatIon” instead of “Increasing Portalization”).
8. Koolwire: seems to handle text well, producing a continuous editable stream of text uninterrupted by carriage returns where they shouldn’t be. However, I couldn’t tell if it had any of the case rendering problems mentioned above because it flatly refused to convert the complicated document where they occured (without explanation).
9. Zamzar: continuous text in a single text box, but with carriage returns at the end of each line, interrupting flow. Also, the text case sometimes did not render correctly (e.g. “IncrEasInG portalIzatIon” instead of “Increasing Portalization”).
10. PDFOnline.com: a continuous editable stream of text uninterrupted by carriage returns where they shouldn’t. Moreover the text case always rendered correctly. **Excellent**

Handling of Tables: most converters simply recreate tables using a combination of text boxes and formatting elements, so you’re editing rows but not columns (i.e. you cannot right-click ’delete column’ or something like in Word that because there are no columns).    

If your document is table-intensive or if tables are your primary focus you would be better off with something that converts to Excel rather than to Word. Check out PDF to Excel Free, an online PDF to Excel service from the makers of PDF to Word Free, or try using”Excel” as the output format in NuancePDF.    

1. Free PDF to Word Converter from SmartSoft: no actual tables produced, but did an excellent job of “recreating” tables using text boxes, including the formatting. But no actual tables produced.
2. gDOC Creator: recreated tables using text boxe and formatting, with an end result that looked quite acceptable.
3. AnyBizSoft PDF to Word Free: recreated tables using text boxes and formatting, but the two elements were not quite in sync and the end result looked somewhat messy.
4. OpenOffice with PDF import extension: no tables, of course, since the editing takes place in the drawing program (OpenOffice Draw).
5. Some PDF to Word Converter: created a complete and total mess. Neither the content no’r the look of the table was preserved.
6. NuancePDF: recreated tables using text boxes and formatting, with an end result that looked quite acceptable.
7. PDF to Word Free from NitroPDF: recreated tables using text boxes and formatting, with an end result that looked quite acceptable.
8. Koolwire: was able to recreate actual tables, as well as recreate the formatting. Very impressive. **Excellent**
9. Zamzar: recreated tables using text boxes and formatting, but the two elements were not quite in sync and the end result looked somewhat messy.
10. PDFOnline.com: was able to recreate actual tables, as well as recreate the formatting. Very impressive. **Excellent**

Working Hyperlinks: i.e. whether clickable links in the PDF were also clickable in the resulting Word document.    

1. Free PDF to Word Converter from SmartSoft: no
2. gDOC Creator: yes
3. AnyBizSoft PDF to Word Free: yes
4. OpenOffice with PDF import extension: no (documents re-exported to PDF did not maintain working hyperlinks)
5. Some PDF to Word Converter: no
6. NuancePDF: no
7. PDF to Word Free from NitroPDF: yes
8. Koolwire: yes
9. Zamzar: yes
10. PDFOnline.com: yes

Optical Character Recognition (OCR): i.e. whether the converter is able to “read” PDF documents based on images and output an editable text.    

• NuancePDF: is the only converter that is able to do this. Check out the image on the right for an illustration.

Handling of special characters: I tested this by attempting to convert a single-page PDF created from a Russian website.    

• Not a single conversion option successfully dealt with this, I’m afraid.

The verdict/recommendation section: including overall score and summary.    

1. Free PDF to Word Converter from SmartSoft: 8/10. If you want a well-rounded desktop-based converter that you could also use commercially this is the one for you.
2. gDOC Creator: 8/10. gDOC Creator’s handling of text is among the best discussed in this article. If your primary concern is editing the text of PDF documents (and you want to use a desktop app rather than a web service) then this is the one I would recommend.
3. AnyBizSoft PDF to Word Free: 8/10. A good desktop converter, but cannot be used for commercial projects (which takes off a point in my scoring system)
4. OpenOffice with PDF import extension: 7.5/10. This one is recommended for quick, on the fly edits. If you use OpenOffice then installing the PDF Import plugin is a must. If you are planning to do extensive editing of large documents, however, you would be better served by some of the other options presented here.
5. Some PDF to Word Converter: 5/10. Use only to extract text from PDFs quickly.
6. NuancePDF: 9/10. Excellent quality conversions, as well as support for OCR. This is your destination of choice if your conversions with other software/services simply renders DOC or RTF files with images inside and no editable text.
7. PDF to Word Free from NitroPDF: 8/10. excellent quality conversions, but hampered by variable reliability. This may change, however, once their promised server upgrade is implemented.
8. Koolwire: 7.5. ok conversions, but not as advanced as some of the other online conversion options.
9. Zamzar: 7/10. ok conversions, but no reason to use this one given that other online services are better.
10. PDFOnline.com: 9/10. This was completely unexpecited. It provides the best quality PDF to Word conversion; will produce a download link instantly and will not keep you waiting. Highly reommended.

Lastly, if you learn of new free PDF to DOC conversion software or service that was not covered here please let me know in the comments section!

Aside from these, Nuance provides many of the features and functions you would expect to see in a program like this but some that you don’t. A few notable features are the ability to highlight, strike-out, and underline parts of your document (and save these edits), the ability to browse your document via sidebar page thumbnails, support for bookmarks, support for embedded flash objects and the option to rotate your view and superimpose a grid and/or ruler views onto your page. Nuance PDF Reader also integrates well with internet browsers for display of online PDF documents.

There are a handful of standard questions that I ask whenever I look into a PDF Reader. But before I do, a quick overview of some innovative features that Nuance offers:

• Online document conversions: you can convert your PDFs to other formats, such as Word .DOC , RTF, and Excel. Nuance does this by automatically uploading your document to the Nuance PDF online service, which it reportedly does via a secure connection, then performing the file conversion remotely and emailing the result back to you (a desktop based converter is available but is not free; hence the roundabout process). I can confirm that the output is of extremely high quality (I did PDF to .DOC, .RTF, and .DOCX); however, whether this is going to be a service you could rely on is another question, as it seemed to be down over the weekend and then – boom – I got all my 5 or so documents all at once. The service even purportedly supported OCR, which I did not test, but in any case I will soon add Nuance PDF to Word conversions in my coming update of the PDF to Word comparison posting, and there will be more information there.
• Sharepoint support: this is a brilliant feature which I’ve never seen before. If your workplace uses Sharepoint (a document sharing and collaboration tool) this might be an invaluable function whereby you can access documents straight from the PDF Reader without use of a browser; most private users however would have little use for this.

But now to backtrack a little bit; here are my 4 standard questions that I ask whenever I test a PDF reader.:

1. Does it allow for filling out forms and saving filled forms to disk?: YES. It can also highlight, reset, and autocomplete forms based on previously entered info.
2. Does it integrate well with browsers for viewing online PDF documents?: YES.
3. Does the reader offer good document rendering quality? YES. This I test by loading my home appraisal report from last year, a complicated document which has microscopic tables within tables (no doubt designed to impress on the reader that these guys know what they are talking about). I found, to my surprise, that some PDF readers handle this document quite poorly; not so with Nuance which gave crisp, high quality rendering.
4. Whether the reader allows for good viewing options, such as fullscreen, continuous, and rotated views. YES.

The verdict: this is an awesome PDF reader that with some nice innovations. I like the way it looks and behaves, and it has a lot of depth to it in terms of being an extremely well rounded player and in terms of the supported technologies (e.g. embedded objects, portfolios, Sharepoint). I especially like the idea of integrating a one-click PDF to Word conversion into the reader, even if it is an online conversion.

I would definitely recommend Nuance as your PDF reader of choice. It compares favorably against PDF X-Change Viewer, which is the other PDF reader that I like. Although the latter has some features that Nuance does not (such as Typewriter mode for quick editing, embedded sticky notes, and export pages to images) Nuance is the more innovative of the two and, unlike PDF X-Change Viewer, does not taunt you with greyed out options in the menu that are reserved for the paid version. Overall an excellent free PDF reader and highly recommended.

Version Tested: 6.0

Compatibility: Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7.

Go to the program home page to download the latest version (approx 19 megs). You will have to register with a valid email address and the download link emailed to you.

If you’ve been reading this blog then you likely have seen previous posts about converting PDF to Word using free software or services (see the comparative test of free PDF to Word options). Generally speaking there are some good solutions for performing PDF to Word conversions for free; however, the best ones tend to be free web services where you upload your document to a web site and download the converted file. For local conversions on your own PC, gDoc Creator is without a doubt one of the best free options available.

This program has a number of notable features, as follows:

1. Can convert to multiple formats: DOC, PDF, XPS. You can use it not just to convert PDF to DOC but vice versa, or convert other Office formats (e.g. PowerPoint) to DOC, PDF or XPS. The program installs virtual PDF and XPS printers that can convert any printable document into these two formats.
2. Multiple conversion profiles: gDoc creator will give you several options for how a document is to be produced. For PDF for example, it offers the following profiles; Retain Page Layout (which is my favorite), Retain Text Editability, and Retain Text Flow. You can alternate using these depending on your needs.
3. Installs MS Office add-ons for saving as PDF or XPS. Although it may be noted that Microsoft has such an add-on for Office 2007. The gDoc creator add ons are supposed to work on Office 2003 as well.
4. Excellent conversion: although you CAN get better conversions (see the ’verdict’ section below), generally speaking the conversions are excellent. Image handling could be much better though; see the test below for more information on quality of conversion.
5. Blazing fast conversions: I could not believe just how fast I was able to convert PDFs and other documents containing several dozen pages.
6. Download size: is a whopping (and somewhat puzzling) 120 megs.
7. Installs browser extensions: that handle PDF files when reading them online. Not bad, but most likely not needed if your browser already opens PDF files; I would recommend unchecking this option when installing the program.

gDoc Creator Free vs. gDoc Fusion Trial: note that while gDoc Creator is free (which is the conversion engine that adds the real value), it comes bundled with a trial version of gDoc Fusion, which is a document viewer and editor in the style of PDF Split and Merge 2, and which for some reason takes way too much time to load. While you do not need gDoc Fusion for conversions, and you do not need to use it in place of your current PDF viewer or editor, gDoc Creator has the annoying habit of using it to open your documents after each conversion. You can certainly live with this, but to go around it I simply renamed the “gDocFusion.exe” executable to something else, and would click “ok” at the end of a conversion when notified that the program was not found.

gDoc Creator’s PDF to DOC conversion tested:

I performed my 4 usual document conversions: (1) the US Form W-4 Tax forms; (2) a typical “read-me” type PDF containing text, images, and links, (3) a table with embedded images and other formatting, and (4) a PDF that is entirely generated from an image source. Here is a summary of the results.

• General layout: excellent; especially using the “Retain Page Layout” profile.
• Image handling: will convert ALL images and formatting in a page to a single big image, which depending on what you need can be very annoying, but it works and keeps the text editable.
• Handling of tables: does not create actual Word tables, but your final output will approximate tables using text boxes and images. Not creating tables is typical of most PDF to Word conversion software. Note that web services PDF to Word Free and PDF to Excel Free will render actual tables in Word and Excel, respectively.
• Handling of text boxes: is generally excellent. Three pre-set conversion profiles that gDoc offers differ in their treatment of text. “Retain Page Layout” renders both the page and text boxes fairly well, “Retain Text Editability” is supposed to do exactly that, except as far as I could see it did the exact same job for the text as “Retain Page Layout”. Finally, “Retain Text Flow” will produce ta single, continuous editable text, but will not convert images, layout, or formatting.
• Handling of text formatting: very good in general, such as font style and shading, although in one of my tested numbered lists were converted into bulleted points.
• Hyperlinks: amazingly, there were working hyperlinks in the output DOC files right were they were supposed to be.
• Handling of special characters: I did not test for this; let me know how gDoc Creater fares with this in the comments if your documents contain these.
• Fast performance: I converted multiple documents containing dozens of pages in a matter of seconds.

The verdict: I would say that generally speaking this software does a terrific job converting PDF to Word, and offers the added benefit of converting MS Office documents to PDF and XPS formats as well. As a local, desktop-based PDF to DOC converter this software is one of the best available. It probably is better or as good as Smart Soft’s Free PDF to Word Converter, although compared to that one the huge 120 meg download and the large local footprint (not to mention the annoying trial version of gDoc fusion) are disadvantages.

And while generally speaking the PDF to DOC conversion is not as good as that provided by the PDF to Word Free web service, especially when it comes to image handling and to handling actual tables in the output DOC, gDoc Converter would be the better choice if (a) you do not care to upload your business or private documents to a web service but prefer to perform the conversions on your own machine, (b) if you have many documents to convert, and would like to get it done quickly, (c) if your primary conversion objective is to get the text into Word so you can edit it, and (d) if your documents are fairly straightforward and not and the layout not too complicated.

Version Tested: 2.1

Compatibility: Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7.

Go to the program page to download this program (approx 120 megs).

If you are in need of a simple yet powerful tool that can split, join, or extract PDF pages and/or provide a number of other editing options then look no more: PDFTools will likely be exactly what you are looking for. PDFTools offers an excellent range of PDF related editing functions, all but two of which worked beautifully in my testing of this program.

I will present quick review of the various functions below, but really all you need to do to grasp what this software can do is glance at the screenshot above. The only function that is somehow missing (and which to me would have been obvious) is the option to add page numbering to a PDF document; and considering this tool already allows you to stamp a message or image anywhere you like on your document I am guessing that they simply did not think of it. Here are more notes on the various functions:

• Performance: I mention this first because it is very notably fast. I tested all the functions using a 250-page text and image intensive PDF ebook and the tool zipped through all the functions.
• Splitting and extracting PDF’s: can save each and every page to its own file, split even or odd pages only, split after a certain page (or after each user defined number of pages), or simply extract a user-defined section/range of pages as its own PDF.
• Join multiple PDF’s: choose your files, re-arrange them if needed, and join. Can merge PDF documents that are portrait and landscape formatted together into a single document without hitch.
• Stamp a PDF: you can insert text or an image anywhere in the document in the background on every page. PDFTools offers placement presets, such as top-right or middle-center, or will allow you to specify x and y coordinates for the exact location you want your stamp to be. Works very well.
• Re-arrange a PDF: *didn’t work for me*. Or I should say that while reversing the order of the pages worked just fine, re-arranging multiple pages on a single page resulted in the top 15% of each page being inexplicably shaved off. If it had worked it would allowed the re-arranging of 2, 3, or 4 pages to fit on a single page (for example for printing purposes to save paper). A handout option whereby the program adds a column on the right for not taking purposes worked very well though.
• Encrypt a PDF: allows you to define user privileges, such as printing, degraded printing, the ability to copy, change content or annotation, and others (see screenshot to the right). Note that you do not have to password protect your file even as you change user privileges.
• Decrypt a PDF: i.e. decrypt it by providing the password, not by cracking it. This developer’s website reports that this feature is broken in v1.3 and that it will be fixed. Mind you it has been a few years since this version was released in 2006.
• PDF Creator: creates PDFs from XML files; to quote the website, it “allows you to create a PDF document by specifying structure in a XML document”. More information on this here. For myself I didn’t delve much into this feature.

Wish list:

• Auto numbering: that empty space on the main interface is just begging for “automatic numbering” to be added there.
• An update with some of the aforementioned issues fixed. The program has not been updated since 2007.

The verdict: the closest thing I have to a criticism is that in order to use PDFTools you need to know ahead of time exactly the pages or page ranges you want to edit (i.e you will need to inspect your PDF’s using a PDF reader first). This is undoubtedly not a big issue given that PDFTools does not purport to be a reader (and offers so much powerful functionality for free), but I am keeping my fingers crossed that we will see a free visually-based PDF editing swiss-army knife style tool at some point (in the style of PDF Split and Merge).

But wishful thinking notwithstanding, I would say that all in all this is a very nice tool for PDF editing with an excellent range of functions. It is very similar to previously mentioned PDFTK Builder although I slightly prefer the user experience that PDFTools provides.

[Thanks to reader Anand for suggesting this review].

Version Tested: 1.3

Compatibility: WinAll.

Go to the program page to download the latest version (approx 2.76 megs).

I’ve written about PDF to Word/Doc conversions before (see the previously published comparative test); and while there are a handful of excellent conversion options available for free, the best are usually web services where you upload or email your PDF and receive the converted file back via email. The handful of local, desktop PDF to DOC apps have typically been more “lightweight” contenders offering far less sophisticated conversions than their web-based counterparts. Which is why Smart Soft’s Free PDF to Word Converter is a very welcome addition to the field; it is a very capable app that can hold it’s own against some of the best PDF-to-Word web services (although still outclassed by PDF to Word Free web service, which is still my favorite).

To test this app I performed 4 conversions (1) the US Form W-4 Tax forms; (2) a typical “read-me” type PDF containing text, images, and links, (3) a table with embedded images and other formatting, and (4) a PDF that is entirely generated from an image source. Here is a summary of the results.

• General layout: this just may be the best desktop PDF to Word conversion app in terms of faithfully recreating the “general layout” and “look and feel” of documents. The only desktop app to output a reasonable Word conversion of the (very complicated) W4 tax form.
• Image handling: is very good in general. MOST of the images in my conversions were imported and placed correctly, with the exception of two images that were inside of tables, which came out blank (although a third such images was inexplicably imported correctly).
• Handling of tables: recreates the “look and feel” of tables but does not create actual Word tables I will say that is more or less the standard treatments of tables in most PDF to Word converters. The only exceptions are web service PDF to Word Free which actually produces Word tables, and PDF to Excel Free (also a web service) which will convert tables to Excel sheets.
• Handling of text boxes: no continuous text; each line of text will be rendered in its own text box, making editing a rather complicated and labor intensive process.
• Handling of text formatting: very good in general; font style, shading, bulleted points, and numbered lists were well preserved.
• Hyperlinks: no working hyperlinks were generated in the output DOC files; this is also standard for most such converters.
• Handling of special characters: I frequently get asked about a PDF to DOC converter that can handle foreign characters (such as Russian) correctly. I did not test for this myself so please let me know how this service fares in this respect if you test it yourself.
• Fast performance: each page within your document takes mere seconds to convert.

The verdict: this program’s PROS include a sleek, well design user interface, and simple, fast, one-click conversions. It also is truly free and is devoid of nags and distractions. A few changes could have made this program much better, including the option to merge text boxes together to create large, editable blocks of text, and better treatment for images inside tables.

Nonetheless, for a desktop freeware PDF to DOC converter this one is probably the best out there. Although as mentioned above you could get better conversions using some of the free web services, there are times when you might prefer to use a desktop program instead (e.g. if you have too many files that may not be practical to upload to a web service en-mass, if the file(s) are too big to email or upload, or if you have privacy or security concerns about uploading or emailing your personal or business PDF documents, just to name a few examples). If you prefer to use a desktop based app rather than a web service Smart Soft’s Free PDF to Word Converter is probably the best freeware option.

Version Tested: 4.2.3.183 (I think).

Compatibility: Windows  XP, Vista.

Go to the program page to download this program (approx 3.82 megs).

How do you convert JPG images into PDF? Typically I would recommend using a virtual PDF printer, which not only can convert images to PDF but any other (printable) file type as well. (Examples of good, freeware virtual PDF printers are: PDFCreator and PrimoPDF.

However, if you just want a quick and easy way to only convert JPG images to PDF, do not particularly care to install a virtual printer, and/or would like to be able to launch this functionality portably from a flash drive (or all of the above), then you should check this out this software. Here are more notes:

• Performance: very fast. Processed 147 JPEG’s (36 megs) into a single PDF file in 5 seconds.
• Output settings: you can specify page size and margins, shrink oversized images, or match image size+margins of the original. Very convenient.
• Formats: "supports the original JPEG/JFIF format, as well as JPEG2000 (.J2K and .JP2) files" – to quote the program website.
• Drag and drop: select the JPG files in Windows Explorer and drag them to the program interface.
• Sorting the images/pages: the best way to make sure that the image files are properly ordered/sorted is to sort them Windows explorer (in the original window), as sorting a very large number of files in in JPEG to PDF isn’t very convenient. To move an image file up or down in the list, right click and select "move up" or "move down". Use Shift+click and CTRL+click to select multiple images within the interface.

Wish list

• Better sorting options: specifically "move to top" and "move to bottom". Auto sort ascending/descending would also be nice, as would sorting by buttons on the interface rather than the context menu.

The verdict: a great little portable tool, especially if you do not want or are unable to install a virtual PDF printer.

I saw a similar freeware app a few months ago that I was testing for a possible review, except I noticed it worked fine for a handful of images but broke down when I loaded about 150. No such problems with JPEG to PDF; it processed the very same group of images quickly and smoothly (plus it has some nice output settings options as well).

Compatibility: WinAll.

Go to the program page to download the latest version (approx 40K).

I’ve written a number of postings about converting PDFs into Word DOCs or RTFs, including a comparison of free PDF-to-Word options. One issue that frequently comes up in comments and emails, however, is that of converting table-intensive PDFs, where someone might have pages of tables full of data in a PDF file that they want to be able to work with freely. For documents like this most PDF to DOC/RTF converters usually do not output something that is easy to work with. Even the best PDF to DOC converters can result in an unstructured jumble of data where columns and rows are not well defined, and where the data would be very hard to distangle without investing considerable time and effort into manually "massaging", re-formatting and restructuring the data, and having to check it against the original at every turn (which, for long documents, is not a practical option).

This is where PDF to Excel Free steps in. It is the first free service that I know of that can deliver high quality PDF to Excel conversions designed specifically to handle large tables of data and to transpose these into Excel with a high degree of fidelity.

The test: to test this service, I created a PDF report that had a number of data tables and other elements (see image to the right) and converted it to .XLS format using Free PDF to Excel. I also converted the same file to .DOC/RTF using three other free services for comparison purposes (Koolwire, PDF to Word Free, and Some PDF to Word Converter).

Needless to say, for the purposes of working with the data in Excel, Free PDF to Excel was the best solution in that (a) it created an XLS file that I could instantly load up in Excel and work with, and (b) was able to translated all tables and data perfectly, to the extent that the merged cells in the original were translated perfectly.

It is notable, however, that both Koolwire and PDF to Word Free were able to create a .DOC/RTF file where the data tables were converted well enough to allow for easy transfer to excel using some manual cut/paste activity. "Some PDF to Word" fared the worst, creating a useless, unrecognizable mesh that was impossible to work with.

Here are some more notes on this Free PDF to Excel:

• How it works: upload your PDF file into the Free PDF to Excel website and provide an email address. It will be processed for you on their servers and a link will be sent back to you where you can download the converted file.
• Results: converts your PDF to .XLS format with a high degree of fidelity for tables and data, as well as formatting and look-and-feel. Images and charts, however, are not rendered as well.
• Performance: very fast. The email with the converted file arrived in a manner of minutes.
• Privacy policy: can be found here. It promises that your files will not be looked at by a human at any point and that they will be deleted as soon as they are converted and emailed. Also promises that your email would be used solely to send your files and for no other reason.
• Max uploadable file size: is unclear. I tried uploading a 43 meg file to test for the usual 10 meg max file restriction; it seemed to accept and to NOT have a size restriction (the upload timed out, but that was probably due to my bad Starbucks WiFi connection).

The verdict: an excellent service. Although most people with PDF conversion needs are probably looking to convert them to Word DOC/RTF files, for those with data tables in their documents this service will prove invaluable. Simply terrific.

Compatibility: All platforms, all browsers.

Go to the PDF to Excel Free site.

PDF to Word Free

I have looked at a number of free PDF to DOC/RTF conversion options (see the previously published comparative test). I will say straight off the bat that this is the most impressive free conversion service that I have come across; their slogan “the most accurate PDF to Word converter”, at least when it comes to free conversion services, is right on the money. I will qualify this statement a little but by saying that this is still in private beta and therefore it is hard to determine whether it will eventually suffer from some of the reliability and/or server overload issues that afflict some other similar services (such as Koolwire which I have recommended elsewhere).

Please note that the developers have generously offered to make private-beta invites available for Freewaregenius readers. Check the “registration” section at the bottom of this posting under “Compatibility” for the invite code.

I used this service to convert a number of documents that contain a number of elements: images, tables, hyperlinks, bullets, numbered-lists, and various text formatting. Here are more notes on this service (as well as results):

• Max uploadable file size: is 10 megs. For larger files you might want to split these into manageable parts using something like PDF Split and Merge or PDFTK Builder.
• Performance: very fast. The email with the converted file arrived in a manner of minutes. It would be interesting to see if this will change once the service is out of private beta and is handling a higher level of traffic and conversion requests.
• Privacy policy: I am paraphrasing their privacy policy which can be found here. It promises that your files will not be looked at by a human at any point and that they will be deleted as soon as they are converted and emailed. Also promises that your email would be used solely to send your files and for no other reason.

Conversion results:

• Image handling: was excellent. The images were imported and placed correctly within the document (even for images inside tables). No non-image elements such as tables or formatting were converted to images (which sometimes happens in other programs/services).
• Tables: handles tables perfectly; the DOC file actually contained an editable table in the right place. This is the only free service/program of its kind that does this as far as I know.
• Handling of text and/or text boxes: produced a continuous text uninterrupted by carriage returns at the end of each line and without being dispersed into random floating text boxes (all of which may be encountered in other conversion services). The resulting text is perfectly suited for editing with MS Word or a similar editor.
• Handling of text formatting: easily the best I have ever seen. Shading in tables was handled correctly, as was font style and color. Most bulleted points and numbered list were correct, although there were some discrepancies here but they were few and far between. It even correctly created working hyperlinks that correspond to the original PDF.
• Handling of special characters: I frequently get asked about a PDF to DOC converter that can handle foreign characters (such as Russian) correctly. I did not test for this myself so please let me know how this service fares in this respect if you test it yourself.

The verdict: in terms of conversion quality this is hands down the best free PDF to DOC/RTF converter that I have seen; there is simply nothing that comes close. What remains to be seen, however, is how reliable the service will be once it is officially launched and inundated with conversion requests. I am hopeful that they will handle the logistics with the same care and attention that they have poured into the product itself. Simply terrific!

Version Tested: beta.

Compatibility: browser based.

Registration: use the invite code “nitro” and a working email address to register (you may need to wait up to an hour or so). If the invite code does not work then it is probably because they’ve maxed out on beta invites they are giving out and you may need to wait for the official launch.

Go to the PDF to Word Free page to use this service.

If you work with PDFs then you’re likely to have found yourself in a situation where, say, you need to extract individual pages or sections from a PDF document, merge pages from one PDF with another, or split your document into pages or sections, etc. There are a number of freeware programs that help you perform these and other functions (e.g. PDFTK Builder, PDF Tools), but this version of PDF Split and Merge (ver. 2) is different from ver 1.x and unique amongst the free PDF editors that I have seen in that it adds a “visual” component where individual pages are represented as thumbnails that you can interact with (so, for example, drag and drop to reorder, or right click to rotate or delete etc).

This software is in alpha: please note that this version of PDF Split and Merge 2 is still in alpha stage and therefore may not be 100% reliable. I will say that in my testing so far it has run flawlessly.

Here’s a summary of supported functions:

• Visual reorder: this function allows you to load a PDF document and then reorder the pages by manually dragging and dropping them in the order that you want. You could also right click to rotate pages or otherwise delete them.
• Merge/extract: a single interface to do both extracting and merging. Allows you to specify which pages from which document should appear in the output file; use page ranges (e.g. 5-10) or pages separated by commas (e.g. 1,5,9), or both.
• Visual document composer: the “visual” version of merge/extract above. It is similar to visual reorder, except you can drag and drop individual pages from many documents that are open simultaneously and use those to create an output document (see first screenshot above). You can also right click to rotate or delete.
• Alternate mix: this function takes 2 PDF documents (and only two) and merges them such that a page from the first will alternate with one from the second. It will allow you reverse the order of either of the two documents if you need to.
• Split: rules-based splitting for a single document. Split into single pages, odd, even, after a certain page, after every nth page, by bookmarks leve, or by size on disk.
• Global options: for all saved documents with PDF Split and Merge it allows you to specify which PDF version to save with (the version of the original document, ver. 1.5, ver. 1.6, or ver. 1.7). It also allows you to specify whether or not you would like output to a compressed PDF document.
• Source code: is available for download.

But is it free? I am not sure if the final (compiled) version of this program will be free, although the source code is freely downloadable. For ver. 1.x the author maintains two versions, basic and enhanced. And while the former is completely free you can obtain the latter in exchange for a donation of any amount, even $1. I am assuming the same will be true for ver. 2.x (and is definitely worth the small donation).

The verdict: a terrific product that works really well. Two things impress; (1) the visual component of dragging and dropping page thumbnails and editing using right-click, and (2) the “page selection” aspect of the “Merge/Extract” function which allows you to extract pages from PDFs and re-combine them in a single operation.

This product lacks some functions which are sometimes found in free PDF editors such as watermarking, adding page numbers, permissions, metadata and bookmark management, and decrypting/encrypting. Keeping my fingers crossed that at least a couple of these will find their way into the final version, yet nonetheless as it is this program still manages in my view to be in a league of its own. Highly recommended!

Version Tested: 2.0.0 Alpha

Compatibility: Windows, Linux, Mac. Requires Java Virtual Machine 1.6

Go to the program page to download the latest version (approx 5.07 megs).

Impressive is a free multi-platform app that can display any PDF file or folder containing image files (JPEG, PNG, TIFF and BMP) as a slideshow presentation. It can be used to present PDFs or images as full-screen PowerPoint-style presentations or it can function as a full-screen reader. “Impressive” also offers a combination of sophisticated slide transition effects and a number of practical presentation tools, including spotlight effects, box highlighting, zooming in, and an overview screen that displays slides as thumbnails and allows for quick navigation.

I attended a conference last year where most presenters, subsequent to giving their presentations, made them available online for attendees. What I noticed, however, was that almost all of the dozens of presentations provided where in PDF format; and not a single one was provided in the original PowerPoint file (although I am certain most where created using the Microsoft program). I noticed the same thing at a recent webinar I attended; the emailed presentation, when it materialized, was published as a PDF.

If you use or publish presentations as PDFs or as image files this program will be a delightful addition to your repertoire of tools. (Or indeed if you use it as a full-screen PDF reader you will like it as well). It does the following:

1. Present any PDF file or images folder full screen as a slideshow in the same manner as a PowerPoint presentation.
2. Will introduce some very nice alpha-blended smooth transitions between slides that greatly enhance the visual experience
3. Provides a handful of very useful presentation tools that most will find really practical.

Here are more notes on this program:

• How to use: the program does not have a GUI interface; you can either drag and drop your PDF file or folder containing images onto the impressive executable or run it at the command line “impressive pres.pdf”. For the command line a number of parameters are available, such as automatic advance in x seconds, specifying the aspect ratio, setting the screen resolution and others. You can also easily create shortcuts that will open your presentations; see below.
• The Overview Screen: pressing tab will display the overview screen (see screenshot above). This allows for quick navigation into any slide you want.
• Other presentation tools: spot-lighting, rectangular-shaped highlighting, and zooming-in.
• Portable: unzip and run, no installation necessary.
• Creating shortcuts that will launch your presentations: (a) place your PDF in the same folder as “Impressive”; (b) right click on Impressive.exe and create shortcut; (c) right click on the shortcut’s “properties”; (d) in the “target” field, add the name of the PDF (including the extension) after impressive.exe, with a single space between them. Finally (e) you can rename your shortcut as appropriate, place it anywhere, and click on it to launch your presentation.

Wish list:

• A GUI: where you could, say, specify viewing parameters for your presentation then save as a shortcut that will launch it.
• Support for compressed folders: i.e. a compressed folder containing images, including comic book archives in CBZ and CBR, which will make Impressive into a comic book reader as well.

The verdict: a very original program that is simply terrific! If you frequently give presentations and use PDF or image formats, this program is definitely for you. You will also like it if you have presentations in PDF format or PDF files that you prefer to watch full-screen as slideshow-style presentations. Or if you simply want a tool that will display folders of images as slideshows with some nice transitions and the ability to zoom in or highlight elements in your slideshow.

Version Tested: 0.10.2

Compatibility: Windows, Linux, MacOS X.

Go to the program page to download the latest version (approx 10.1 megs).

I’ve previously written a comparative review free of PDF to Word DOC solutions, comprising mostly online converting services. I concluded then that the email/online service Koolwire performed the best conversions; however in many cases a local, desktop based program is more desirable than an online service: say, for sensitive business (or other) documents, when you do not have access to an internet connection, when you  simply do not want to send your documents back and forth online for whatever reason (e.g. you  have a great many large size documents that you want to convert), or when the online service you are using is not responsive, which can occur frequently without explanation.

Some PDF to Word converter does a competent job in general. Here are some notes on this program:

• Handling of tables: does not convert tables; rather, the actual table structure is represented as an image, with a text window overlaid on top that lumps all text from all columns together. The treatment adopted here is not my favorite but its quite functional, given that my experience with PDF to DOC converters in general is that tables are always “worked around” in one way or another, never actually converted as such.
• Handling of images: images imported and placed where they’re supposed to be. Note that you will come across PDFs where the pages are in fact images in their entirety and will be processed simply as images, with no extractable text or other elements.
• Handling of text: what’s interesting is that Some PDF to Word Converter allows you to choose whether or not you want to use text boxes (and whether to merge these to get only a single text box); also whether or not to use line breaks. If unsure as to what you want, simply use the default settings.
• Text formatting: varies somewhat with the text handling settings used. In general quite good although in some instances will, for example, bold the entire paragraph instead of the headline. Numbered points in my test converted fine but the bullets disappeared from the bulleted test. Clickable URLs in the original PDF were not converted into clickable links in the DOC file.
• Other formatting: shading was not reproduced in the resulting document.
• Batch processing: one of the coolest thing about this program is the ability to load up a number of PDFs and perform batch-processing.
• Other settings: aside from the text processing settings already mentioned, you can remove all graphs, pics from your converted document, you can define the degree of “zoom” that the doc opens up to, and you can tell it exactly which range of pages from the original document to convert.

The verdict: this is one of only three PDF to DOC conversion programs that run locally (others being email and/or web services), and is probably the best of the three – see my comparison review for the others. I am keeping my fingers crossed that it remains free and, unlike another program that I also reviewed on this site, will not start requiring registration and/or send you to a website before you can use it.

Note: when I first tried “Some PDF to Word Converter” v1.0 it actually produced an error midway through the conversion, but that has been fixed with this newer version. Overall it is a robust product that does what it purports to do and provides very good performance generally.

Version Tested: 1.1

Compatibility: Windows NT/2000/XP/2003/Vista. Internet Explorer 4.1 or later. 800×600 screen resolution.

Go to the program page for more info, or the download page to download the latest version (approx 784K).

Note: after I first wrote this review in January of 2008, a learned a few things about it which were not initially apparent. At a certain point (or after performing a number of conversions, or this might have been added to a newer version than the one I initially looked at), the program will require that you enter a one-off code before performing a conversion. This involves visiting a web page full of ads, solving a math problem, and getting your code. Once you input the code it will perform the PDF to DOC conversion; however, the next time you need to perform a conversion, you will have to go through the whole thing. The net effect is (a) rather annoying, and (b) this prevents you from being able to use this program offline.

However, there are free PDF to DOC conversion options. See this posting entitled How to convert PDF to Word DOC for free: a comparative test

I tested this software by converting a 20-page PDF document that contained images, charts and text into DOC format. At the end of the conversion process (which took mere seconds) the DOC file was created and opened by MS Word. Here are some observations:

• Quality: the quality was generally very good. Overall the converted document looked very similar to the original.
• Program options: you can select all pages or a subset range of pages to convert; whether to retain images and shapes in the converted document; and whether or not to use “text boxes”. Choosing “text boxes” will create multiple text boxes placed all over the document rather than a single, contiguous text (see below for more on this).
• Images: Some of the images were degraded by they were all in the general vicinity of where they were supposed to be.
• Text: the text was generally handled well. In the ’create text boxes’ scenario the converted document contained dozens of text boxes placed all around the document, which more faithfully approximated the layout and structure of the original PDF (and was more manageable when loaded into Word). Converting while the ’text boxes’ option was unchecked, however, resulted in a single block of text that did not conform as well to where the text layout of the original document. (Note: if its just simple text extraction that you want, you might want to try Text Mining Tool).
• Note on filesizes: you are likely to get DOC files that are very large in size in relation to the small size of the original PDF. For the 2.5 meg PDF file I converted I got a 73 meg DOC file.
• Support: Adobe PDF 1-1.6 formats, which, the author asserts, comprises 95% of PDF files available on the internet.
• You do not need MS Word or Adobe Acrobat installed on your machine necessarily for this program to function.

The verdict: although it performs a marginally decent freeware PDF to DOC conversion, the registration key requirement, even when “free”, is rather annoying. Moreover, depending on the kind of output that you need, you might need to invest some time manually tweaking the resulting DOC file, but the output generated by this program right off the bat is surprisingly good in its own right. For more free PDF to DOC conversion options, go here.

Version Tested: 1.1

Compatibility: WinAll.

Go to the program page to download the latest version (approx 1.07 megs).

Rating

Version tested: 1.0

SWF Printer Pro is a virtual printer that can convert any printable document into PDF, standalone flash presentation format (SWF), as well as JPG.

There are several freeware virtual printer programs reviewed on Freewaregenius that convert printable documents into PDFs (PrimoPDF, Bullzip PDF Printer, and PDF Creator, the latter having the ability to convert to image formats as well). What’s interesting about SWF Printer Pro is that it can convert to flash format (SWF) in addition to PDF and JPG’s. Here are some notes on this program:

• Converts anything you can print: installs as a virtual printer, and if your document allows for printing then it can be converted no matter what format it is.
• SWF navigation: you can either set a time period for transitioning the SWF flash file from one page to the next that will apply to all pages (no, you cannot set it for each page individually) or choose to wait for user input before going to the next page. In this case SWF Printer Pro provides a number of pre-set navigation buttons to choose from, and will allow you to customize the placement of these on the page.
• SWF options: you can set the size and margin of the SWF presentation, set background color for transparent areas. Other options: whether or not to set ’full screen mode’, whether or not to allow scaling/enable right click menu/allow keyboard navigation. You can even choose an audio file (MP3 or WAV) to use as background soundtrack. For some reason the resulting SWF files that I generated lacked the .SWF extension in the file names, but worked great once I added that manually into the filename.
• PDF options: include meta info for the document (author, keywords, descriptions, etc.), security options (permissions, protection strength), master and user level password protection. A handful of other options as well such as margins, orientation, etc.
• Print to JPG: generates a separate JPG file for each page in your document. Surprisingly, no options available in this case; by default it generates large hi-res Jpegs that you can subsequently reduce in size if you need to.
• Freeware: not just for personal use but, interestingly, business use as well. I am guessing that there used to be two versions of this program (SWF Printer and SWF Printer Pro) but that at this point the developers are offering the Pro version for free.
• Silent mode: is a mode whereby you can print straight into your default options without having to go through the options menus every time. Unfortunately, setting this up requires manually going in and changing the registry, which I found rather strange (instructions here). On the other hand this option is (apparently) geared towards developers and isn’t something most user would want anyway.

Wish list:

• Different Quality settings: would have been great, especially if they also displayed a preview of the predicted size of the generated file(s). As it is the different DPI quality settings that can be changed from the printing preferences strangely do not seem to have any effect on the quality or size of the generated files.

The verdict: the fact that this program does all three of PDFs, JPGs and SWF sends it high up on my list of must-install programs (it does a great job with all 3 formats.) It is the only freeware virtual printer that I know of that does SWF. If you work with SWF files especially or you want to create SWF files from all manner of source documents then this program is for you.

Compatibility: Windows 2000, XP, VISTA.

Go to the program page to get the latest version (approx 1.76 megs).

Rating

Version tested: 1.1.42

Text Mining Tool is a free program that can extract text from PDF, DOC, RTF, CHM and HTML files without needing to have any other installed programs that open these files such as MS Word or a PDF reader.

If you ever need to extract text out of any of the above mentioned file formats you can use Text Mining Tool to do so quickly and easily. All you have to do is load the source file and it will extract the text and display it for you, afterwhich you can either save the text file or copy it into the clipboard.

Of course, you can always use a free program such as OpenOffice to open and edit a number of these formats, and many PDF readers allow you to select text from the PDF file and copy it into the clipboard. However, if you don’t want to install any programs or have to open these programs and then manually go through the process of grabbing the text, Text Mining Tool can do it all for you in a single click.

The only issue I have encountered with this program is that when I tried to extract text from a .CHM file it did not work, and I got an error message instead. I am assuming that this error will be fixed in future versions of this program. Here are some other notes:

• Hotkeys: all functions can be performed using hotkeys (open/save/copy to clipboard).
• Portable: no install necessary, simply extract and run.
• CLI tool: entitled minetext is included for use from the command line interface.

Text Mining Toolis a nice, simple tool that supports a good range of file types and is 100% free. If you need to extract text from files you will really appreciate this one.

Compatibility: WinAll. Requires Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0.

Go to the program page to get the latest version (approx 8 megs).

Rating

Version tested: 1.0 build 0017

PDF-XChange Viewer is a free PDF viewer and editor that offers a number of useful functions including form filling, typewriter mode (for forms that were not designed for filling), the ability to add annotations and draw shapes into your PDF, as well as the ability to leave comments and embed sticky notes into the PDF document.

Alternatives to Adobe’s free PDF reader were traditionally borne out of a need to have a lean, fast-loading PDF viewing app; PDF-XChange certainly delivers on this, but it also manages to pack a large number of useful functions. Here are some notes on this program:

As a viewer: in addition to the usual viewing tools (e.g. zooming, searching text, highlighting form feeds), PDF-XChange offers Firefox style tabbed browsing, viewing all open docs as thumbnails, and bookmarking pages. The ’pan and zoom’ tool proved to be a surprisingly practical (and pleasant) navigation aide. The side pane on the left hand margin can optionally display thumbnails of individual pages of the document (it can also display bookmarked pages). Compatible with PDF documents versions 1.0 and higher.

As an editor: this is where most of the interesting features are, as follows:

• Manipulate pages: rotate your document clockwise or counterclockwise with the press of a button (a handy way to transform your document from portrait to landscape or vice versa if you wanted to). You can also delete pages and, although I wasn’t able to do it, there is an option for cropping pages (to be implemented in a future version, perhaps?).
• Form filling: fill forms easily with the form filling tool (provided the pdf document is designed form). Works really well but provides no formatting options beyond basic text (i.e. you cannot choose bold or underlined or different sized fonts).
• Typewriter tool: gives you the ability to quickly and easily overlay text on any part of the document. Especially handy when filling out a form that is not actually a PDF form. (This function alone makes this program a cut above the rest in my opinion).
• Add comments: PDF-XChange allows you to leave a comment anywhere on the document. This will typically look like a colored icon with a sticky note attached to it or hovering nearby; otherwise you can highlight a bunch of text and link it to a balloon hovering close to it (see screenshot). I made comments on a test document and found that although the actual comment will NOT be visible on the page once you print it, I was surprised that the icon denoting the location of the comment in fact did print. You can also underline or strike out text anywhere on the document (and yes this will be printed).
• Add objects: including text boxes (with extensive text formatting options), callout boxes, and various shapes such as lines/arrows, rectangles, etc. and even free-form drawing. All objects are editable in terms of border, thickness, color, fill color, etc.
• Stamps: useful for, say, adding your signature in electronic format and ’stamping’ it in the correct location as needed. This option did not work, unfortunately; I’m guessing this function relegated for future versions.
• Export to images: straight into a number of formats including BMP, JPEG, TIFF, and PNG.
• Snapshot tool: allows you to capture any part of the pdf that is displayed on screen into the clipboard as an image in order to paste into another application.

My wish list: there are a number of things that would make this program significantly better

• The ability to ’flatten’ objects and typewriter text that is added to a pdf such that it is preserved when the document is opened in other readers such as Adobe or Foxit. Currently, only the form-filled text and the comments created with PDF-XChange Viewer are preserved when opening the same document with Adobe Reader or Foxit. Ironically I’ve been using the Primo pdf printer to do this before publishing my PDF’s.
• Better Undo: I mistakenly underlined all text in a page using the ’underline text tool’ and found that I could not undo. In fact, I could not for the life of me figure out how to remove the underlining, and opted to close and re-load instead.
• Another icon please: for all of its presumed slickness, this program features a gaudy and unattractive PDF icon to. Here’s hoping they will change it.

The verdict: Contains a plethora of useful editing features compared to Foxit (which only does form filling). PDF-XChange Viewer still feels like it needs kinks ironed out but it easily my favorite PDF reader; I highly recommend it.

Compatibility: WinAll.

Go to the download page to get the latest version (approx 13 megs). Also visit the program home page.

Version tested: 2.3.5

PDFTK Builder (a GUI for PDFTK) can merge, split, decrypt, encrypt and insert a watermark image into PDF documents.

This is a small, simple to use program that does performs the above-mentioned PDF editing operations really well.

• Merging PDF documents: you can add PDF’s singly or in batches. For each document you can specify exactly which pages you want to include (e.g. “1,3,5-10″ will include pages 1,3 and 5 through 10). You can merge landscape and portrait formatted pages within the same document. Note that you can use this same command to split a PDF into distinct chunks; for example, to split a 10-page PDF into 2 parts, select the document , choose page range 1-5, and run. Repeat for pages 6-10 and you’re done.
• Splitting a PDF document: this create a single PDF file for each page in the original document. Simply Point PDFTK Builder to your document, press ’Save’; note that all the new documents will be automatically placed in the same directory as the original file, so you might want to place the original file in the appropriate directory before you run.
• Watermarking/Inserting an image into the background: strangely, this will require a PDF as input for the image that you would want to use rather than an image file. Also, it does not offer any manipulation options for your image such as control over its transparency, size, or color. You will need to (a) manipulate your image outside of PDFTK Builder so its just the way you want it, and (b) convert it to PDF (this you can do easily using virtual PDF printer programs like PrimoPDF or PDFCreator).
• Decrypt a PDF: unfortunately, this requires that you have the original password for opening before it decrypts, which as far as I am concerned makes it completely useless. If you need this function I recommend you use other freeware programs that can decrypt a PDF without the need for a password (Freeware PDF Unlocker, GUI for PDFTK the latter being faster and more powerful).
• Encrypt a PDF: quite a number of options here, including allowing/disallowing printing, degraded printing, password for opening the PDF, and other options (see screenshot). You can also set an owner and user passwords. I tested a document encrypted with PDFTK Builder to see if any of the decrypting programs mentioned above can remove the encryption; they did not.

Although for this kind of program PDFTK Builder is a bit bare bones, that’s almost a strength not a weakness. The main function of merging/extracting pages from PDF documents is very nicely implemented and intuitive. I will say that the watermarking function could have been better implemented though with more options. There is another similar program out there (the aforementioned GUI for PDFTK) that has a larger range of functions but a confusing interface; I chose to review PDFTK Builder instead because (a) it does the job really well, even when it doesn’t have too many esoteric functions, and (b) it has a nice, user-friendly interface design. The only reason I didn’t give this 5 stars is the way decryption is implemented.

Compatibility: WinAll.

Go to the program page to get the latest version (Full installtion approx 1.88 megs; includes the necessary PDFTK as well). Scroll down to the bottom of the page.

Version tested: beta

Zamzar is an online file format conversion service for documents and media files. It will allow you to upload a file up to 100 megs in size and will convert it remotely according to your requirements. It will then email you a link to download the converted file from.

This service is very similar to Media-Convert. Just like Media-Convert, Zamzar can handle an impressive array of file types; it doesn’t quite match Media-Convert’s support for obscure formats, but should cover most of the file formats you would encounter. One notable absence is flash SWF support. For a list of all file formats supported click here.

Max file upload size is 100megs compared to Media-Convert’s 50megs. This means that Zamzar is a much more practical resource for converting video files (albeit still limited by the max upload ceiling).

Here are some observations:

• I did a number of image conversions and all of these went really well.
• I am often asked about a freeware program to convert PDF to DOC, and I am happy to report that this conversion works great in Zamzar
• Audio conversions also went without a hitch.
• The handful of video conversions I attempted (including FLV as source) worked really well and without any audio sync problems.
• Some conversion flat out failed, including converting a Powerpoint presentation (.PPT) into HTML.

My wish list for Zamzar is almost exactly the same as that for Media-Convert:

• This service does not perform optical character recognition; i.e. you cannot convert a JPEG with text in it into actual text (in fact, you can only convert an image file into another image format). If you want to do OCR try Docmorph instead. OCR would have added significant value, as the choices for freeware OCR programs are slim to say the least
• Batch upload. Lets face it, uploading a few dozen JPEGS or PDFs sequentially is impractical, and you’d be better off finding a conversion program that runs locally.
• SWF support; I am always on the lookout for a resource that will convert .PPT to .SWF for free.

There is a wide array of options for freeware file format conversion, including virtual printers like PDFCreator, batch image converters like Multiple Image Resizer.Net, and universal transcoders for media files such as Mediacoder. Most freeware MP3 rippers/encoders also offer audio format conversions (see BonkEnc). Having said this, however, I will also say that I really like this service for the following reasons: (a) it works well, (b) the website looks good and has a nice design, (c) the generous 100-meg upload size limit makes it a good solution for a good range of media files, including most Youtube or Google video, and (d) it is a good solution for converting from PDF to DOC or RTF.

Go to the Zamzar home page.