I've Found it! My Free PDF Editor!

I’ve finally found it! Free PDF editing software. Not the same high-powered editing as Adobe Acrobat, but PDF XChange Viewer had all I needed.

I like to be able to use PDFs for writing workshops, and I know a lot of folks who pretty much exclusively use it. (As you may know, I’m a heavy MS Word user.) But it’s nice to convert a document into something “unchangeable” and then be able to mark it up in a way that doesn't alter the original content. It makes it easier to protect your work when put out on the great big Interwebs. But I’m a bit squeamish about paying full price for Acrobat, or anything for that matter.

A few months ago I spent a couple hours online looking up free PDF software. But all I could find for free was PDF CREATORS. The next best thing I found for free was a software that let you highlight ONLY in PDFs. This didn’t do me very much good because my requirements were to be able to add my comments to the document. I couldn’t find any editing software for less than $100. Which is slightly better than acrobat.

Finding nothing, I satisfied my immediate need with a free trial of Foxit. Used it once, then it expired. Now I’m looking at another project that will require PDF editing, so I spent a lazy Sunday morning with a cup of tea repeating my research exercise. And I found it, the PDF XChange Viewer. When the description said free, and editing in the same line, I’ve fallen into that trap before, but proceeded to the website to see exactly what they offered for free.

And all of it was, in fact, free and you can really edit. You can highlight and add comments, throw down a handful of useful rubber stamp messages, rotate, add and delete pages, and finally it gets along with Word!

So go for it, guys, send me your PDFs.