Utility software applications are ubiquitous. Some, however, are indispensable. I would argue the PDF (Portable Document Format) is one of them. Introduced in the early 1990s by Adobe Corp., PDF has become an industry standard.
The advantage of PDFs are striking. They can be used across all platforms and meet all the legal requirements to stand up in a court of law. That’s because a PDF file cannot be altered without leaving an electronic footprint. Thus if you receive a PDF file, you know that it’s an original. No one has messed with it, and in an age where security is paramount, having this confidence is incalculable.
In 2008 it became an open standard allowing much broader use. What this means to the user is important. You can acquire other apps that are essentially clones of the original.
This brings us to Adobe Acrobat DC, the latest incarnation of the original PDF editing program.
Acrobat DC is integrated with another new program, Adobe Document Cloud. This integration allows you to create, manage, review, approve, sign and track documents from any device, be it mobile or desktop. If you begin working on a PDF on your desktop, you can move it effortlessly to your tablet and complete your work.
One of the underlying ideas behind Acrobat DC is to eliminate the hassle of dealing with paper — whether it is for a $1 billion M&A deal or to simply track a $100 medical prescription for your dog. The concept makes a whole lot of sense for businesses that have a paper trail to attend to. With all our data being in the “cloud” these days, it’s possible to use any mobile device to work on your docs.
Note that this product is probably going to be more useful for an “enterprise” business or smaller endeavor such as a law firm than the average home office user. That said, it’s a system many businesses in Hawaii should seriously look at.
Prices begin at $12.99 a month for the standard version, if purchased annually, or $22.99 if purchased month to month. The subscription includes 20 GB of cloud storage.
PDF clones
If you don’t need the cloud capabilities, there are lower-priced options.
As an open standard PDF, editors are available from different vendors with a wide range of features. One of the better alternatives is Qoppa PDF Studio. The standard version of PDF Studio 10 has all the basic features of Adobe Acrobat, providing most everything that an individual user could want. One of the extra strengths of PDF Studio is that it works across all systems from Windows and Mac to Linux. One license covers its use on all systems at a full price of $89 with support and no subscription required.
The PDF Studio Pro version adds full Optical Character Recognition for making scanned copies searchable and the ability to handle large-format documents such as plans and “blue” prints plus advanced document splitting and merging.
The Pro version also includes batch processing of documents, precision measurement and permanent redaction. Full-form creation from scratch or from existing forms stands up well to Adobe Acrobat. These are clearly business and professional features. I’ve used PDF Studio Pro for several years and found it the equal or better of Adobe Acrobat. Even with all its features, the full price of the Pro edition is only $129. That’s hard to beat.
Mike Meyer, formerly Internet general manager at Oceanic Time Warner Cable, is now chief information officer at Honolulu Community College. Reach him at mmeyer@hawaii.edu.
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