Best free PDF utilities
From paper to searchable PDF on the cheap
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By
Becky Waring
You don't have to shell out $500 for software that converts scanned paper documents into searchable PDF or Office files. One of the three programs I tested is the clear winner in turning all your scanned images into fully indexed documents. |
Ditch the software bundled with your scanner
I'm addicted to the quick and streamlined (and free) Copernic Desktop Search utility. The program finds past articles to help me research new ones, it locates that six-year-old e-mail from my sister, and it looks up forgotten serial numbers. Basically, Copernic unlocks all the data floating around on my hard drive.
But I have a ton of data sitting untouched and forgotten simply because it resides only on paper: my print magazine articles, financial statements, letters from friends and family, etc.
I've been looking for good, low-cost software that can turn my scanned paper into searchable PDF or Word documents. I'm not willing to drop a cool $400 on ABBYY FineReader Professional or $500 for Nuance's OmniPage Professional, the two leading optical-character recognition (OCR) programs for translating scans into text. Nor can I afford $300 for Adobe Acrobat Standard.
My five-year-old scanner — which was top-of-the-line when I bought it and is still very good — came with third-party OCR software, but the program doesn't work with Vista and lacks upgrade privileges. I can scan documents, but if I want to translate those scans into searchable text, I'm on my own.
Even newer scanners, particularly cheap multifunction models, may lack OCR software. Or worse, you might be stuck with a poor-quality recognition engine. OCR is all about accuracy. If you have to open every page to correct a lot of scan errors manually, it will cost you a great deal of time and aggravation. You're better off spending a little money on a program that does the job right the first time.
The best all-round scan-conversion tool
For all-round accuracy, formatting prowess, and depth of features, Nuance PDF Converter Pro ($99.99) is the clear winner.
Nuance is also the developer of OmniPage, so PDF Converter Pro's OCR chops are to be expected. What did surprise me were the extremely powerful additional features packed into this relatively low-cost tool, such as PDF editing and creation (including fillable forms support). It also offers 128-bit encryption and password protection of converted files.
The program even lets you create a searchable PDF archive of Outlook e-mails in one step. PDF Converter Pro is not only the best conversion tool, it's the best value to boot.
Nuance also sells PDF Create, a $50 program that can do OCR on scanned PDFs, but the program can save the results only as PDFs, not as Office files (.doc, .xls, etc.). Also, PDF Create lacks PDF Converter Pro's powerful editing features, so it's useful only for packaging existing documents as PDFs. Unless you have very basic scanning needs, PDF Converter Pro is well worth the extra expense.
PDF Converter Pro has a free 30-day trial version. The software comes as both a standalone program and as plug-ins for Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Internet Explorer, so you can open and convert a document on the fly right within Word, for example.
If you right-click a file in Windows Explorer, you can convert it by choosing the option the program adds to the context menu. There's no need to open the program first. I like to be very selective about my toolbar add-ins, so I used PDF Converter Pro's Custom install option to choose exactly which Office and Windows integration features I wanted.
After I ran my test scan file through the converter, I output the results as a Word document (Office 97, 2000, 2003, and 2007 are all supported). The test scan consisted of three pages, all pretty severe tests of OCR capability:
• A complex page from a Consumer Reports review, complete with headlines, photos, captions, white-on-black text, and both two- and three-column material on the same page;
• A bank statement with varying format tables and some areas of shaded background;
• A business letter with graphic logo and signature plus some bold, italic, and underlined text.
PDF Converter Pro delivered the best overall results in converting my test scan to Word. The text was nearly error-free, and the program did an amazing job of reproducing the document's format, including columns, justification, font selection, and bold and italic text.
The program handled white-on-black text without a hitch and kept graphics in the right places. The conversion was speedy, taking less than a minute. As with all the programs I tried, conversions are so fast you'll spend more of your time doing the actual scanning.
The one place PDF Converter Pro fell short was the bank-statement scan, where it had problems reproducing the text in shaded areas. Probably a more OCR-friendly scan would solve the problem.
Bonus tip: For best results with text recognition, scans should be done in black and white (or grayscale, if you want to keep graphics) at 300 or 400 dpi. Higher-resolution scans just slow things down and require more storage space. Also, keep scans straight so the document is not skewed on the page, and adjust contrast and brightness so that the background is bright white (eliminating the lines in ruled paper, for example).
Figure 1. PDF Converter Pro did an amazing job of converting this scan of a Consumer Reports page (top) to Microsoft Word (bottom).
Since all three of the programs I tested have the ability to convert standard nonscanned PDFs — such as those you might download from the Internet or receive from a colleague via e-mail — to Word, Excel, or PowerPoint formats, I also tested conversion of a three-page tutorial PDF from FileMaker.
PDF Converter Pro did a beautiful job here — as you would expect, given the "perfect" source material. The flaw was a scattering of extra spaces in the middle of words here and there. Interestingly, the second-place performer, ABBYY PDF Transformer, put extra spaces in exactly the same spots, despite being based on the FineReader OCR engine, OmniPage's direct competition.
You can find and correct these errors easily using Word's spell-check tool, but they should have been avoided entirely — as the third-place converter was able to do.
The quickest and easiest tool is also one of the best
While PDF Converter Pro was the overall winner, ABBYY PDF Transformer Pro ($99.99) was a close second on accuracy. Also, ABBYY's program has the best user interface by far: All options are clearly laid out in one window, and two big buttons are helpfully labeled 1 and 2 for opening your scan file and then transforming it. Tips for better conversion results are prominent as well.
Installation of PDF Transformer's 15-day/50-page free trial went smoothly. Again I used the Custom option to select exactly which Office integration add-ons I wanted to install. Embedded conversion buttons are available for Word, Excel, and Outlook.
You can also use PDF Transformer to create searchable PDFs from Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Visio documents, including password-protected and permission-controlled PDFs. However, the program has fewer "extra" features, such as PDF editing, than PDF Converter Pro.
ABBYY also makes a $50 program called ScanTo Office that converts scans to PDFs, but this program can't convert PDFs to Word format and doesn't create searchable PDFs from nonscanned PDFs. Again, unless you have very basic scanning needs, the extra money is worth spending for the Pro version.
PDF Transformer did a good job with my test file, handling the bank statement better than PDF Converter Pro did, but the program tripped on some of the images and captions on the Consumer Reports page. Another flaw was that some phrases that should have been entirely in bold were formatted with just a few characters in bold here and there.
The business letter converted nearly perfectly, however, and the conversion from regular PDF had only the same problem with scattered extra spaces as PDF Converter Pro experienced.
One other peeve was that PDF Transformer does not ask you to rename your files when you convert them, as the other two programs do. But overall, I really like this program's ease of use and might have chosen it over PDF Converter Pro if not for the extra features PDF Converter Pro offers for the same price.
The least-capable converter is the accuracy champ
If not for one redeeming quality, I would have passed completely on Investintech's Able2Extract Pro ($129.95). The program lacks Office integration, fails badly in formatting and graphic retention, and has virtually no extra features. It's also more expensive than the other two converters I looked at. However, Able2Extract delivered the most accurate text conversion of the three.
In my test documents, the financial statement was reproduced almost perfectly, with layout in place. The Consumer Reports page and business letter had a single small error on each page (in areas the other two programs did much worse on).
All these errors can be corrected in just a few minutes. However, bold and italic formatting was lost in the conversion, graphics did not come through at all, and all the text was in a single font. Basically, if you need only accurate text rather than fully formatted pages, Able2Extract Pro wins.
Similarly, in the FileMaker PDF conversion test, Able2Extract was the only one of the three programs that did not insert random spaces into the middle of words (proving that it's possible to avoid this problem). Annoyingly, the program makes you click through two dialog boxes for each conversion.
Since Able2Extract is based on Nuance OCR technology, it's hard to understand why the results were so dramatically different from Nuance's own PDF Converter Pro, but they were.
Able2Extract has a seven-day free trial that converts a maximum of three pages at a time, so you can try it out and see whether the accuracy overcomes its other limitations. There's also a $69.95 Able2Doc version that converts only to Word/XPS and can't output to Excel, PowerPoint, or PDF formats.
Becky Waring has worked as a writer and editor for PC World, NewMedia Magazine, CNET, The San Francisco Chronicle, Technology Review, Upside Magazine, and many other news sources. She alternates the Best Software column with Windows Secrets contributing editor Scott Spanbauer.
Seven commercial PDF to doc converters tested
Last month I looked at free PDF to DOC options. At the end of that article I asked subscribers with commercial products to download my test PDF file and send the converted DOC files to me so I could compare the commercial product performance with the freebies.
I received over 30 files covering seven different commercial products. Many thanks to all those who participated. The results were fascinating:
First, no product did a perfect job on the conversion.
Second, the products varied markedly in what they did well and what they did poorly - there was no single area wherein all products consistently performed well or poorly.
Third, the most expensive product, Adobe Acrobat Pro, produced one the worst results. (To be fair, Acrobat Pro does a lot more than convert PDFs to DOC)
Finally, and most importantly, Zamzar, the free web conversion service I mentioned last month, produced one of the best results. I'd rate it overall second best out of the eight products I looked at.
Given that even the best product was imperfect, I think the answer is clear. Most users who have only a casual need to convert PDFs to DOC should save their pennies and use ZamZar rather than buy a commercial product.
However, if you have an ongoing need for such conversions, the convenience of being able to do this offline on your own PC may be a factor you need to consider.
So if you want to buy a product, what do I recommend? That's a tough ask because I haven't used any of these programs, I've only looked at the converted test files. Furthermore, some of the products have more recent versions than those used for the conversions that were sent to me.
The DOC file produced by Able2Extract [1] was the only one with all the layout right, even though the text font size was a bit too small. You could fix this manually, so overall I gave it the top ranking.
Of all the converted files, I thought the one produced by Nuance [3] looked the best but, unfortunately, it messed up the footers. That blooper aside, it produced some of the best results, which is all the more impressive when you take into account that it was the cheapest commercial product.
Based on conversion quality alone, I'd rate the other products roughly in the order listed below.In the coming weeks I'll look at other factors, including product features and the editability of the output. When completed, I'll put up the full review on my website.
[1] Able2Extract $100
http://www.investintech.com/prod_a2e_pro.htm
[2] Zamzar Online Conversion Service. Free
http://www.zamzar.com/
[3] Nuance's PDF Converter Pro 5 $50
http://www.nuance.com/pdfconverter/converter/
[4] ABBYY PDF Transformer $99
http://www.pdftransformer.com/
[5] SolidConvertor v2.0.doc $99
http://www.soliddocuments.com/products.htm?product=SolidConverterPDF
[6] PDF to Word Professional V3
Possibly discontinued
[7] Adobe Acrobat V8 $449
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobatpro/
[8] Omni Page Pro V15 $499
http://www.nuance.com/omnipage/professional/
How to convert PDF files to word doc files for free
Sooner or later you will need to convert an Adobe PDF file to a Microsoft Word DOC file. They are, after all, two of the most common document file formats around.
The reverse conversion from a DOC to PDF is, of course, a piece of cake; there are any number of free PDF writers [1] that allow you to output a PDF file directly from Word itself.
Converting from PDF to DOC is trickier, particularly if you want to preserve the document layout and/or your PDF file contains images.
If layout and images are not important, then all you need to do is copy and paste the text from your PDF Reader into Word. The text will copy fine and some font style elements will be retained but all layout and any images will be lost . And if the original PDF is in multi-column format you will get a real mess.
Your best free option for preserving format is to use an online conversion service. With these services, you upload your PDF file, then download the converted file.
I tried a number of these services, including one offered by Adobe, but in the end I could only recommend two. Each, however, was excellent.
My first choice is ZamZar [2]. This is an excellent general file conversion site, and PDF to DOC is one of the many conversion options available.
Usage couldn't be simpler: just surf to the site, select your conversion output type, point to the file you want uploaded for conversion and type in your email address. Some time later you will get an email with a download link for the converted file.
For my 107KB test PDF file, the download email link came back to me within one minute, which was pretty impressive, though I have heard that sometimes you may have to wait for quite a while.
My test file [3] is in multi-column format with breakout boxes in various font styles and has embedded images. Converting this is quite a challenge.
ZamZar did well, though [4]. The two column layout was preserved, the images were reproduced in their correct locations and the varying fonts rendered well, given that Word had no exact matching fonts. Importantly, all the text could be edited from within Word
On the downside the image quality was reduced and the article's large opening drop capital was displaced. Not bad though.
My second recommendation, KoolWire [5], works very similar to ZamZar. There are, however, some differences: First, the converted KoolWire file comes back as RTF, not DOC format. That's not a problem though, as Word can easily read RTF files. Second, the KoolWire site suggests that if the file being converted is less than 10MB then you should email the file rather than directly upload it. This is rather less convenient, so I told a white lie and selected the "more than 10MB" option, in which case I was able to directly upload the file just like with ZamZar.
There was another minor annoyance. The KoolWire site is in Italian and, although an English option is offered, it is less than complete. Still, it's not hard to work out what you have to do.
Conversion quality was good, but on my sample file the converted RTF file [6] was not quite as good as ZamZar. Two of the document's pages mysteriously ended up as tables, and the image quality was poorer. On the other hand KoolWire got the big drop capital correct, though at the expense of messing the left justification of the paragraph that contained it. At 869KB, the converted file was similar in size to the 829KB ZamZar file.
Overall, both these free conversion services are good though not perfect. Which one gives the best conversion will probably depend on the document being converted, so why not try both?
I haven't tried any of the many commercial PDF to DOC programs. If you own one then why not download my test file [3] and email the converted DOC file to me at editor@techsupportalert.com along with details of the program used. I'll publish the results in a future issue.
[1] http://techsupportalert.com/more/extended.htm#48[2] http://www.zamzar.com
[3] http://techsupportalert.com/download/E1312.PDF
[4] http://techsupportalert.com/download/E1312-Zamzar.doc
[5] http://www.koolwire.com
[6] http://techsupportalert.com/download/E1312-Koolwire.rtf
How to make booklets from PDF files
This is pretty simple but could be quite useful. Booklet Creator is a free web service that allows you to upload a PDF file and have it converted to another PDF file that, when downloaded, can be printed as a book. That is, double sided with alternating pages. I tried it and it worked like a charm, except that the downloaded file didn't have a PDF extension. I just tacked on .pdf to the file name and it worked fine. There are some restrictions: the file can be only 10MB maximum and the document must be in portrait mode. I know some fancy printers can do this automatically, but not everyone owns one. Thanks to Jerry DeNigris for the suggestion.
http://bookletcreator.com/
Problems with freeware unzippers and PDF readers
Subscriber Tim Jones writes "Gizmo I've been using IZArc [1] as my default "unzipper" for years. Sometimes I'd encounter a file that I couldn't unzip and always assumed it was corrupted somehow and just deleted it. Recently however, I read an article on the web by a freeware "junkie" who wrote in his blog of similar experiences with files that couldn't be unzipped by IZArc. One day he decided to try an alternate tool. He tried using 7-Zip [2] and was pleasantly surprised to find that the file that IZArc failed to unzip could indeed be unzipped with 7-Zip and was not corrupted at all. After reading the article, I tried the same thing; the next time I came upon a file that IZArc had trouble with I gave 7-Zip a try and "presto" my file was unzipped without a hitch. I have found that more than half of the files I could not unzip with IZArc, I've been able to unzip with 7-Zip. It doesn't happen often, but for anyone who does a lot of downloading, it can save quite a few files. I had the same experience with the Foxit PDF Reader [3]. I downloaded some PDF files that it just couldn't open. So I tried the even lighter and quicker Sumatra PDF reader [4] and lo and behold, the PDF files opened." Thanks Tim, I've had similar problems with IZArc but can't comment on the Foxit problem as I don't use it. It makes sense though; there are a lot of different versions and variants of PDF files so I'm not surprised Foxit can't read them all. It's also possible Foxit may be able to read some that Sumatra can't.
[1] http://www.izarc.org/
[2] http://www.7-zip.org/
[3] http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/rd_intro.php
[4] http://blog.kowalczyk.info/software/sumatrapdf/
Tiny free PDF reader
I've used the free Foxit PDF reader for more than a year because it's smaller and much faster than the Adobe Acrobat Reader, but recently I've been using the free Sumatra reader that is even smaller and faster. It's also Open Source and portable. Yes, the interface is a little cruder than Foxit and no, it hasn't got quite as many features, but 99.9% of the time all I want of a PDF reader is to be able to read PDFs. I guess I must be strange :>) Free Open Source, Windows compatibility unstated, 802KB
http://blog.kowalczyk.info/software/sumatrapdf/