Best Alternative To Adobe Acrobat

With so many similar functions and uses at a much lower price, it's easy to see why Foxit PDF Editor is the best Adobe Acrobat alternative. Cost effective upgrade: It's more economical to purchase Foxit PDF Editor than upgrade to the next version of Adobe Acrobat – making it the smart choice for Adobe Acrobat alternative. When it comes to PDFs, Adobe Acrobat is the first stop for many. After all, Adobe developed the PDF format, and its applications have become the standard that other software solutions orient themselves around. But Adobe Acrobat alternatives offer other benefits, too: Simple programs with fewer tools are sufficient for many users. 15 Best Free Adobe Acrobat Alternatives in 2021 Down below, you'll see 15 different, yet similar, PDF tools that are great Adobe Acrobat alternatives. Each one of the alternatives has its pros and cons but it might have that one feature that you're looking for so it's important that you check out each alternative closely! This Adobe Acrobat alternative is compatible with both Windows and macOS. The Windows version is available in two versions, for beginners and advanced users. With Foxit Phantom PDF, you can easily read and annotate your PDFs, rotate and resize pages, create fillable forms, and share content. Jun 17, 2021 We have picked 12 most popular Acrobat alternatives in view of features, running speed, user reviews, and price. Best Alternative to Adobe ® Acrobat ® 1. PDFelement (Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android) PDFelement is a premium Adobe Acrobat alternative that offers multiple features in one simple platform. Apart from being multi-featured.

Talk of PDF (portable document files) software and the first name that crosses our mind is Adobe Acrobat. This is one of the many software that is a must-have for all desktop and laptops these days. Creating PDFs, editing, and even sharing them is a breeze with this software. While this software is undoubtedly one of the best PDF software around, it is still not affordable for many due to it's high price tag. Moreover, it's quite complex for the first timers.

Read More:Top 15 Best Free software to Watermark your PDF File

Considering the high price and complexity, there are many who look for easy and cheaper alternatives to Adobe Acrobat. Fortunately, there are many alternatives available for the Acrobat that helps people edit PDFs at a much cheaper price. There are umpteen such PDF software available online and each of one of them claim to be the best. So, to clear your confusion, we have created this list of the best Adobe Acrobat alternative for PDF that can will help you to choose the one that suits you the best.

Sumatra PDF

Sumatra PDF is a trimmed down, open source and free software that supports a whole lot of other formats also along with PDF such as DjVu, EPUB, XPS, CHM, CBR, CBZ, MOBI for Windows. It emphasizes on simplicity and minimalistic design more than having a lot of features. Designed for portable use, it comes with just a single file with no external support that helps it to work via the external USB drive.

Supported Platforms: Windows XP and later

Best Alternative To Adobe Acrobat

Price: Free

Get it here: https://www.sumatrapdfreader.org/

iSkysoft PDF Editor 6 Professional for Mac

iSkysoft helps you to convert PDF files into Word files, Excel, HTML, PPT, EPUB, photos and more. What we like about this software is the interface which is easy to use making it effortless even for the beginners. Within a few minutes, you will be an expert in editing and altering PDFs.

It also comes with a bonus feature named Redaction. This helps redact/edit texts and images in PDF files and can even allow you to limit access. Using this feature, you can block private information on PDF files from unwanted access.

Supported Platforms: Windows and Mac OS

Price: Free trial available; Upgrade starts at $89.95

Get it here: https://pdf.iskysoft.com/pdf-editor-6-pro-mac.html

Foxit Pjantom Pdf

Also known as the PhantomPDF, it's available in business, standard, and education versions. It's a free and lightweight, cross platform PDF document viewer that suits the need for business, consumer, government agencies and even educational organizations. It's a compact yet super-fast software that helps you to open, view, sign and get a print of any PDF file. What's interesting is that it's the only PDF reader that offers a full creation solution in high volume while offering the PDF creation facility for all desktops. What's more? It also comes with a complete protection against any security concerns, helping to keep your system safe.

Supported Platforms: Mac OS X, Windows, Linux, Android iPhone, iOS

Price: Free

Get it here: https://www.foxitsoftware.com/

Nitro Pro 9 (Windows)

Nitro PDF is a lot similar to the Acrobat PDF reader and is perhaps one of the best alternatives to Adobe Acrobat. It allows you not just to create PDF, but also to add, shuffle, and delete pages. You can also create bookmarks and links helping you fill forms. Bonus – it allows you to add comments and different other markup options to the documents. You can even secure your PDF using a digital id.

Once installed, this software adds a PDF printer to the printers list in the PC automatically thereby, making the PDF creation as easy as printing a file. Nitro comes equipped with some of the pro features that are available only in the paid version of Acrobat. It's an easy to use and easy to understand software especially for the people familiar with MS Office.

Supported Platforms: Windows 10, 8.1, 7, XP.

Price: Free version available; pro version starts at $$159/user

Get it here: https://www.gonitro.com/pdf-reader

Evince

Evince document viewer is especially targeted for GNOME, however, it's also available for Windows 10. While it allows to create PDF, it also supports multiple document formats like DVI, PostScript, djvu, TIFF, XPS, cbr, cbz, and more. The aim is to change the document viewers on the GNOME desktop to only one application. Some of its great features are the capability of displaying, adding, and editing PDF annotations.

The software is primarily written in C++ and it's USP is its interface which is clean and clutter-free. Bonus – you can also customize the toolbar with individual tools.

Supported Platforms: Windows 10, 8.1, 7, XP

Price: Free (Open Source)

Get it here: https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Evince/Downloads

Wondershare PDFelement

If you are a looking for aa premium alternative to Acrobat reader then, Wondershare PDFelement can be your choice. It's a feature packed software boasting multiple features on a single platform. PDF viewing, editing, and printing are some of the usual features to name a few. What's interesting is that it these features are integrated with advanced features like PDF creation, conversion, and making the documents searchable using OCR. It also allows you to work on forms and templates within the software.

Among its many advantages are, different editing modes helping you to edit PDF documents easily, offering OCR function in over 20 languages enabling edit scanned PDF, and getting data from multiple duplicate PDF forms into one Excel sheet and making it accessible in seconds.

Supported Platforms: Windows and Mac

Price: Free Trial available; Pro version starts at $79.95

Best Alternative To Adobe Acrobat Professional

Get it here: https://pdf.wondershare.com/

ApowerPDF

ApowerPDF is equipped with all the must-have features of a reliable PDF editor. You can use this software to create or modify any already existing PDF files or forms. It also allows you to manage PDF pages and so, you can remove, extract, crop, or even rotate a certain section of the PDF document.

Bonus – it allows users to add passwords and signature PDF file thus, securing the document. Moreover, it comes with OCR technology that allows each user to edit any PDF that's been scanned and is photo based. Not just that, it also allows you to change a document into an editable version in formats like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.

Supported Platforms: All versions of Windows

Price: Free Trial available; Upgrade starts at $39.95

Get it here: https://www.apowersoft.com/pdf-editor

PDF Architect

If you are looking for an affordable alternative to Acrobat Adobe then PDF Architect can be your best bet. Although it lacks the user-friendly approach and some advanced features, it's still a good option for those with a budget. This helps you create PDF, edit and even convert the files. Given that it's an economical software, you can purchase the products that you would use most often.

You have to download and install the software on your desktop. It can then combine with multiple cloud services that allows you to access files from different location over the cloud.

Supported Platforms: Windows 10 (Desktop App), Windows 8 (Desktop App), Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP

Price: Free version available; Upgrade starts from $49

Get it here: https://www.pdfforge.org/pdfarchitect

PDF-Xchange Viewer

Also known as PDF-Xchange Editor, it allows you to view PDFs and even annotate them. best part is, you can also add text to your PDF file, sticky notes and other types of annotations and then save them to the file. This saved file works with the standard version of Adobe Acrobat Reader.

As a bonus, it also helps you convert those PDF files that are non-text searchable to text-searchable.

Supported Platforms: Windows XP or later

Price: Free version available; Pro version starts from $93.50

Get it here: https://www.tracker-software.com/product/pdf-xchange-viewer

PDF Studio (Mac, Windows, Linux)

PDF Studio is an easy to use software and a great alternative to Adobe Acrobat that's priced half of the Adobe PDF. It offers all the required features of a good PDF application, while it meets the compliance standards of the PDF document. Among its features are annotation of PDF, apart from being able to create PDFs out of Word documents, texts and images. It also supports document format in the form of Google Drive SharePoint.

Supported Platforms: Windows, Linux, Mac OS, Unix

Price: Free Trial available; Pro version starts at $89

Get it here: https://www.qoppa.com/pdfstudio/

PDFescape Dektop

PDFescape Desktop is another alternative to Adobe Acrobat that offers some of the features identical to Acrobat. For instance, the ability to add, modify, remove, and crop the PDF pages. As a bonus, it also offers security for your PDF contents by allowing you to password lock the file. You can also change the information tag of the PDF and use scanned signature to sign the PDF files.

If you just want to do some basic modifications within the PDF file, this software is perfect for you. For the desktop version, you need to upgrade to the premium version and then use the services.

Supported Platforms: Windows® 7 / 8 / 10

Price: Free version available; Get quote for premium version and up

Get it here: https://www.pdfescape.com/what/desktop/

Nuance Power PDF Advanced

This is an affordable alternative to Adobe Acrobat and comes with 95% features of the Adobe. Nuance Power PDF Advanced comes at with a user-friendly interface and offer pretty good support for creating, securing, and manipulating PDFs. It also enables to create forms and collect data for analysis. Moreover, you can also add notes from Dragon Notes. But, you cannot convert the PDF to ePubs. However, it allows you to convert scanned files and several other documents to PDF and ice a versa. Additionally, you can also integrate files, add videos conveniently, create interactive PDFs using Javascript and add multiple markups.

Supported Platforms: All versions of Windows

Price: Free trial available; Upgrade starts from $99

Get it here: https://www.nuance.com/

Okular

A universal document viewer, Okular is designed by KDE. This software works with all platforms making it easier for you to convert PDF files on any OS. It features some excellent functionalities while supporting multiple document formats for example, PDF, ePub, CHM, Postscript, XPS, DjVu, and more.

Supported Platforms: Linux, Windows, Mac OS X, *BSD, etc.

Price: Free

Get it here: https://okular.kde.org/

PDFpen Mac

PDFpen is a PDF editor that's for the Mac OS users. It offers fundamental features of a PDF editor that includes functionalities like modifying typo errors in text documents, adding images, signatures, and texts. It also supports OCR technology that helps users to transform images into editable text document.

Supported Platforms: Mac

Price – Free trial available; upgrade starts at $30

Get it here: https://smilesoftware.com/pdfpen

Mac Preview

This one is again especially for the Mac users. which is a lot identical to Adobe Acrobat. Preview is a PDF editor that's developed for the convenience of Mac users and is perfect for creating and editing new PDF documents. This program allows you to modify several different sections of a PDF text and even crop at the same time. You can even label different pages together.

The functions are fast and easy to use that makes it an able substitute of Acrobat.

Supported Platforms: OSX

Price: Free]

Firefox PDF Viewer

PDF Viewer by Firefox is the latest ground-breaking tool that utilizes web-based technologies. This allows you to display nearly all PDF files found on the web within Mozilla Firebox web browser without the need of any plugin.

Supported Platforms:

Price: Free (open source)Mac, Windows, Linux, Chrome, Firefox, Opera

Get it here: https://mozilla.github.io/pdf.js/

MuPDF

MuPDF is a light PDF and XPS viewer with no frills. It comes with absolutely no frills means there is no need of editing, skip to pages, or printing, and best of all, there's not even an interface! All you need to do is to double click the mupdf.exe and search for the file you want to open. You can simply scroll or navigate from page to page using the arrow key. While having no feature usual features of a regular ODF editor is indeed a setback for many, but in a market where the primary focus is on loads of features, MuPDF does stand out with its minimalistic approach.

Supported Platforms: Windows, Linux, Android, iOS

Price: Free (open source)

Get it here: https://mupdf.com/

While there are many more alternatives to Adobe Acrobat out there in the online market with the features like creating, modifying and sharing PDF files, there are only few that stand out in the competition with some distinctive features. So, choose your program based on your requirement and create great PDFs.

I find passion in writing Tech articles around Windows PC and softwares

Edited by Nataly Bogorad

September 29, 2020

When you're writing an essay for your homework assignment, filling out an application form for a new position, or preparing an activity report for your boss, you probably have to work with PDF files. You don't only need to review PDFs in Adobe Reader, but you may also need to add images or text, highlight information, or use Bates numbering. To take care of these tasks quickly and easily, you need a good PDF editor.

You can turn to the well-known Adobe Acrobat PDF editor. It'll provide you with all the necessary tools to create, convert, and edit PDF documents. But it's not the only game in town ー there are plenty of programs similar to Adobe Acrobat, too.

If you've been wondering how to edit a PDF without Adobe software, read our article below. The questions 'what can I use instead of Adobe?' and 'is there a free version of Adobe?' will no longer be a mystery to you.

We've made a list of some of the best Adobe Acrobat alternatives with different prices, functionality, and operating systems. They are as effective for professional and personal use as Adobe Acrobat DC Pro. Check them out!

Comparison Table of the Best Adobe Acrobat Alternatives

The Best Alternatives to Adobe Acrobat in 2020

PDFChef by Movavi

PDFChef by Movavi is a lightweight, easy-to-use application. Its minimalist interface is accessible for beginners as well as professionals. It will be useful at all stages of your work with PDF files. You can create, convert, edit, export, and present your PDFs, add text or images, rearrange and extract pages, and sign documents. A free trial version enables you to try all these tools to the full.

Pros:

• Offers good value for its cost
• Full editing control over PDF files
• Available for Windows and Mac users

Cons:

• Maximum of three pages per conversion in the trial version

Soda PDF

Soda PDF is an effective, all-in-one PDF editor that enables the conversion of PDF files to various formats. You can use this program not only for creating, viewing, commenting, and editing your files but for document revision, filling out forms, e-signing and bates numbering. With a broad set of tools, Soda PDF makes PDF files completely customizable. It is available both as an online and a desktop app.

Pros:

• A versatile range of editing tools
• Integrated cloud storage

Cons:

• Available for Windows 10/8/7 only

Sejda PDF

Sejda PDF Editor was originally online, freeware that enabled users to manage PDF files. Now it has both an online and a desktop version with a ton of editing tools. Sejda needs less RAM than other programs similar to Adobe Acrobat. It makes working with PDF documents faster and easier. You can use this application to apply watermarks, highlight text, sign, split, merge, or compress PDF files.

Is there a free alternative to Adobe Acrobat? Yes, there is, and it is Sejda.

Pros:

• An easy-to-navigate interface
• Compatible with Windows, macOS, Linux

Cons:

• Free editing of files is limited to 200 pages or 50 MB and three tasks per hour

Nitro Pro

Nitro Pro is another replacement for Adobe Acrobat. Unlike other alternatives to Adobe Acrobat, this software is for more advanced and professional users. Cloud integration facilitates the working process and enables you to access and share files quickly. The application supports scanning paper documents and converting typed or handwritten text into a machine-readable format.

Pros:

• Integrated cloud storage
• A clear and well-designed toolbar

Cons:

• Expensive in comparison to other Adobe Acrobat alternatives
• Available only for Windows 10/8/7

Wondershare PDFelement

Wondershare PDFelement is an intuitive PDF editor. It combines a standard set of PDF editing functions with advanced tools, including font recognition, e-signing, combining different format files, filling out forms, and file sharing. Try this program if you want to boost your productivity.

Pros:

• Editing PDFs without affecting original formatting and fonts
• Simple navigation

Cons:

• Needs more computer memory than other similar programs
• A watermark is added to output files in the trial version

Foxit Phantom PDF

Foxit is fast and powerful PDF editing software. This Adobe Acrobat alternative is compatible with both Windows and macOS. The Windows version is available in two versions, for beginners and advanced users. With Foxit Phantom PDF, you can easily read and annotate your PDFs, rotate and resize pages, create fillable forms, and share content.

Pros:

• Integrated encryption and OCR tools
• Easy conversion to and from standard file formats
• A 14-day free trial period

Cons:

• An overloaded toolbar

PDFChef by Movavi

Everything you need from PDF Software!

• Different PDF-editing modes (4-in-1 page arrangement, text editing, and object editing)
• Digital signature solutions

Disclaimer: Please be aware that Movavi Screen Recorder does not allow capture of copy-protected video and audio streams.

* The free version of PDFChef by Movavi has the following restrictions: 7-day trial period, watermark on the output PDF. Learn more