Adobe Acrobat Pro (Cloud?) alternative

[kiddingguy]

Since Adobe has upped their pricing to their Cloud-line...

what's a good alternative to Adobe Acrobat Pro (to edit, password protect files [printing allowed], combine, merge, key in PDF forms etc) for a reasonable one-time down payment  (including upgrades and/or upgrades to higher versions) or subscription-based with all updates/upgrades included?

Also, some handy tools like Photoshop or InDesign might be part of the deal, but are not mandatory to me.

Must be running on Windows 11 [I don't have a Mac]

[Circaflex]

Honestly, it depends on your usage. My organization last year moved away from Adobe and went with Nitro for our PDF solutions, but it hasnt been a seamless move. In my industry, Health Care, there are industry standard PDFs that will not function in Nitro so we ended up having to again purchase ad-hoc subscriptions for Adobe Acrobat Cloud because there was no way around it (most of these are FDA supplied PDFs). So now we have a mix and match of Nitro and Adobe users which is annoying to support and troubleshoot when necessary.

[Brandon H Supervisor]

Foxit or Nitro are the two alternatives I usually recommend considering.

[kiddingguy]

Do you guys know/have experience with 'EaseUS PDF Editor'?
Is it any good?

It looks like it can do all of the abovementioned.

[LittleNeutrino Veteran]

We have been using Foxit PDF Editor for rather a few years now in my company, its Super cheap and you only pay once per person.

[kiddingguy]

On 21/09/2023 at 19:12, Geoffrey B. said:

We have been using Foxit PDF Editor for rather a few years now in my company, its Super cheap and you only pay once per person.

For individuals Foxit offers "perpetual licensing". Does this include updates/upgrades to higher versions? [also for compatibility with updates to Microsoft/Office 365 as well as Windows]

[+sphbecker MVC]

No, the perpetual license lets you buy once at that current version number, no updates, like most, they are trying to move away from that model. My company just moved to Foxit as well, we went with the subscription model. So far it works pretty well with only a few minor quirks. The pricing was about 1/3 of renewing with Abobe.

[pololy07]

On 9/21/2023 at 8:23 PM, kiddingguy said:

For individuals Foxit offers "perpetual licensing". Does this include updates/upgrades to higher versions? [also for compatibility with updates to Microsoft/Office 365 as well as Windows] aviator-fun.com

from Foxit's website:

"Perpetual licenses include free upgrades and updates for the life of the product. This means that you can continue to use your Foxit PhantomPDF perpetual license even after new versions of the software are released. You will also receive all compatibility updates to ensure that Foxit PhantomPDF works with the latest versions of Microsoft/Office 365 and Windows."

[+sphbecker MVC]

On 22/09/2023 at 07:44, pololy07 said:

from Foxit's website:

"Perpetual licenses include free upgrades and updates for the life of the product. This means that you can continue to use your Foxit PhantomPDF perpetual license even after new versions of the software are released. You will also receive all compatibility updates to ensure that Foxit PhantomPDF works with the latest versions of Microsoft/Office 365 and Windows."

True, but mind their very careful wording. You will get free upgrades and updates "for the life of the product." When you buy Perpetual, you are buying a product called "PDF Editor for Teams 13." You will get all updates to that product, but at some point they will release a version 14, and yes, you will still get whatever updates they release for version 13, but as far as I know, your perpetual license will not grant you access to version 14.

[kiddingguy]

On 22/09/2023 at 15:35, sphbecker said:

True, but mind their very careful wording. You will get free upgrades and updates "for the life of the product." When you buy Perpetual, you are buying a product called "PDF Editor for Teams 13." You will get all updates to that product, but at some point they will release a version 14, and yes, you will still get whatever updates they release for version 13, but as far as I know, your perpetual license will not grant you access to version 14.

Exactly my point. So the best option is subscription I guess. But than again, it ain't that much cheaper than Adobe (just Acrobat). And for compatibility I think I better can use Adobe...

[+sphbecker MVC]

On 22/09/2023 at 09:05, kiddingguy said:

Exactly my point. So the best option is subscription I guess. But than again, it ain't that much cheaper than Adobe (just Acrobat). And for compatibility I think I better can use Adobe...

Yeah, it is a pretty big change for a small (in the terms of a business) amount of money.

Make sure you complete Standard to Standard and Pro to Pro, FoxIt should be less than half the price. We decided to take the jump, but we have 135 users. The saves seemed big as a percentage, but in total dollars it wasn't a lot.

What I can tell you is that compatibility is not your concern, FoxIt has no issues there. Even features seem very complete. The biggest struggle will be user adoption. The interface is totally fine...but it is different, and you know how users are with change. We have been using it for about 3 months now with no real issues. One VP insisted we buy Acrobat back for her group, but that was not due to problems, that was a preemptive request before we even went life with FoxIt.

Here are my complaints to date (as you can see, these are mostly minor).

• SAML SSO support works, but doesn't use the default browser, so you still have to sign-in on first use. Adobe's system was a true SSO, user didn't even realize it authenticated them.
• Users got a random UAC prompt on first use, but it could be cancelled without consequence. They just released a new version, not sure if that is still an issue.
• FoxIt saves the Window location to the registry on close, cool I guess, but causes an issue if that monitor is no longer connected next time you open it. We wrote a script that runs to delete that registry key.
• The paid software can't be used freely as a reader if you don't sign-in. To be fair, Adobe only added this VERY recently, but it is nice because it allows you to use the same install for everyone. Under Foxit, we had to go back to having the reader in our base image, and then let InTune replace it with the Pro install if you are in the correct group.

[kiddingguy]

On 22/09/2023 at 16:32, sphbecker said:

Yeah, it is a pretty big change for a small (in the terms of a business) amount of money.

Make sure you complete Standard to Standard and Pro to Pro, FoxIt should be less than half the price. We decided to take the jump, but we have 135 users. The saves seemed big as a percentage, but in total dollars it wasn't a lot.

What I can tell you is that compatibility is not your concern, FoxIt has no issues there. Even features seem very complete. The biggest struggle will be user adoption. The interface is totally fine...but it is different, and you know how users are with change. We have been using it for about 3 months now with no real issues. One VP insisted we buy Acrobat back for her group, but that was not due to problems, that was a preemptive request before we even went life with FoxIt.

Here are my complaints to date (as you can see, these are mostly minor).

• SAML SSO support works, but doesn't use the default browser, so you still have to sign-in on first use. Adobe's system was a true SSO, user didn't even realize it authenticated them.
• Users got a random UAC prompt on first use, but it could be cancelled without consequence. They just released a new version, not sure if that is still an issue.
• FoxIt saves the Window location to the registry on close, cool I guess, but causes an issue if that monitor is no longer connected next time you open it. We wrote a script that runs to delete that registry key.
• The paid software can't be used freely as a reader if you don't sign-in. To be fair, Adobe only added this VERY recently, but it is nice because it allows you to use the same install for everyone. Under Foxit, we had to go back to having the reader in our base image, and then let InTune replace it with the Pro install if you are in the correct group.

Thx for the thorough explanation/elaboration!

[MS Bob 11]

I use Infix PDF Editor.

[JustGeorge]

What does everyone think of PDF-XChange? I've downloaded the demo that lets you try out its features (watermarked). I've installed it on a few user's PCs to ty out. Not much feedback as of yet. As previously mentioned here, the GUI is different from Adobe, which is a concern. There are some how to vids on YouTube, but you won't get nearly as many as with Adobe. The program sure is faster/lighter than Adobe. 

So far it seems stable with a lot of features. They offer good discounts to non-profits (supplying proof). Its a perpetual license, BUT you gotta pay up for 1,2 or 3 years of support for version upgrades, assuming I read correctly.