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PDF Converter Pro 6.0
Autor Air
- PDF Converter Professional 6 lets you create 100% industry-standard PDF files, from virtually any PC application, that are fully compliant with other PDF viewers
- Instantly and accurately convert PDF files into fully-formatted Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, XPS, and Corel WordPerfect documents–complete with text, columns, tables and graphics
- Easily edit directly within PDF files–correct typos, edit and annotate both text and graphics directly
- Convert static PDF forms into fillable PDF forms that you can complete, save, and email
- Toolbar shortcuts for Microsoft Office allow you to make a PDF copy of your documents with a single click
Product DescriptionCreate, Convert, Edit and Share – Better PDF for Business. PDF Converter Professional 6 is a complete, industry-standard PDF solution built specifically for the business user. Create PDF files from virtually any PC application – or convert PDF files back into fully-formatted, editable Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, XPS, and Corel WordPerfect documents. A full array of security, annotation and editing tools enable you to edit directly within PDF files and t. . . More >>
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April 29, 2010 -
Business & Home Office -
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Nuance’s PDF Converter Pro aims to be the one and only tool needed for viewing, creating and converting in and out of a PDF document. I work with PDF files a lot but mostly as a consumer of PDF documents and only as a light creator of such objects. My views and my evaluation will therefore biased toward ease of use, performance and convenience when performing light tasks rather than completeness of features and handling of complex documents.
I would like to note that I installed PDF Converter Pro on a Vista Enterprise machine and I tested its integration and operation with several Microsoft Office 2007 components.
INSTALLATION
The installation is quick and there are few issues. I had to enter the serial number more than once, to provide an email address and to access a URL that came with the email to activate the registration but these are common annoyances in the world of software and no demerits will be granted on that account.
Things get a little interesting if one pays attention at ‘what’ is installed. Besides Nuance’s product, I noticed that Microsoft Visual C++ is installed as well. Following installation, I noticed a new ‘program’ in the ‘All Programs’ list, mysteriously named ‘Software Update’. Removal was difficult because there was no mention of the software in the Control Panel’s ‘Programs and Features’. Further investigation revealed that this was a product named FLEXnet Connect by ACRESSO and that it was, in fact installed by Nuance together with Converter without telling me that it was doing so and why. The ACRESSO site stated that “FLEXnet Connect is a solution that ACRESSO sells to software vendors that is designed to help you stay connected with your customers after they install your applications. Keeping software updated is one of the many benefits of FLEXnet Connect, but Acresso also recommends that software vendors build in an option to disable automatic update checking. ” One wonders what the other benefits of installing this little spy-like module might be.
To my surprise, the ’software vendor’, Nuance in this case, decided to remove the ‘disable automatic. . . ‘ option and, whether I wanted it or not, my computer was going to call Nuance every day at 10 a. m. , just to say ‘hi’, I suppose. To their credit, ACRESSO has an ‘uninstall’ utility at their own site and, hopefully, the the process was successful but I do NOT appreciate Nuance’s insistence of staying in touch with my computer, whether I wanted it or not and without asking for my permission. The Reference Guide does not mention ACRESSO, FLEXnet Connect or the fact that some third party software was installed.
DOCUMENTATION
There are no physical manuals in the box, only the CD. There is a 42-page, illustrated Reference Guide that can be accessed from the Help menu and it seems to cover the product’s installation, operation and uninstallation. A Help file that’s indexed and searchable and also fairly complete can be accessed from the Help menu or by pressing F1. Links to the product’s own web site and to the Nuance’s online store are also available from the Help menu.
OPERATION
Upon installation, Nuance offers to become the default PDF file reader. An integrated solution was tempting and I accepted the offer. Shortly after that, I reverted back to the Adobe Reader as the default because I decided that I preferred the Reader’s ‘clean’ interface when reading a document to Converter’s busy abundance of multi-colored icons and menu bars (yes, we can do it all) which tended to distract my reading.
In the end, it turned out that I had very little use for the product’s standard interface but I will discuss that later. As a light PDF user I was more interested in creating documents off a Word or Excel file than converting a PDF into something else but, for the sake of reviewing this product, I gave the ‘conversion from PDF to. . . ‘ a try. As expected, Nuance can’t convert documents that don’t allow copying, printing or modifications. In my case, close to 100% of the documents that I receive happen to be protected. After locating a couple of ‘open’ PDFs I found that converting them to Microsoft Word was relatively quick – hundreds of pages in a few minutes – and generally accurate. I blame the few format malfunctions such as text in speech bubbles breaching the bubble’s boundaries to the original PDF not carrying the rare font. Other than that, the headers and footers were properly placed and the converted document looked very much like the PDF original.
My interest, however, was the ability to create protected PDF documents myself and do it so quickly and easily. This is where, as far as I am concerned, Nuance’s product excels. (see next)
OFFICE 2007 INTEGRATION
The Converter offers to install itself as an add-on to the specific Office modules as they are start. The options are to allow it to happen permanently, only for the duration of the session or to refuse the offer – in which case the user is prompted again the next time the app starts.
Once installed, a new tab labeled ‘Nuance PDF’ is added to the menu bar. The 3 buttons that reveal themselves under the tab are for creating a PDF, creating a PDF and E-mailing it and a third button that controls just about every aspect of the PDFs that are to be created from document security to the color in which links are to be displayed. Once the settings are tuned to one’s satisfaction, creating a PDF is as easy as pushing one of the other two buttons that would either create a document or create it and offer to email it as an attachment through the default E-mail client.
ADDITIONAL FEATURES
Converter has many features I will probably never use myself but it’s good to know they are there. Besides Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint), WordPerfect and XPS files are also supported. It allows for PDF documents to be assembled from a collection of files, has the ability to handle forms, allows for scanning directly to a PDF and can convert a specific area from a document.
RATING
I found the integration with Microsoft Office to be the strongest feature because it allows for easy, quick and, apparently reliable conversion to PDF. This happens to be the feature I’m interested in and it’s probably a small subset of Converter’s capabilities. Operating the Converter through its own interface is not something I’d be likely to do very often, probably because what passes for documentation and manuals is not very well organized and the interface is not the most intuitive or the most elegant. I am NOT pleased with Nuance’s attempt to take over a piece of my computing environment by installing an app that would communicate with Nuance’s mothership on a daily basis and do so without my permission. It would be good if software publishers would learn to let go of their products once they sell it and receive money in return.
This package loses 3 stars for the attempt at intrusiveness, for the lack of a good manual and for the poorly designed interface. One star is recovered for the excellent Microsoft Office integration so, the final count will be 3 stars but reluctantly so.
Rating: 3 / 5
I bought this product as part of a promotion. All the conversions I’ve attempted with it have been failures. The result either has blank areas or lots of gibberish. Unfortunately I was busy at the time I acquired the software and didn’t fully check it out in the first 30 days so that I could get a refund. I didn’t have an immediate need for the product. Now that I finally did have a need for it, I discover it’s very buggy.
Their tech support is paid, so basically I’m just going to chuck this product and will buy someone else’s when I need it again in the future.
I always test physical products when I first get them to make sure it’s not DOA, but I didn’t do that with this software. I could not have imagined how mediocre this product turns out to be.
Rating: 1 / 5
This is not the perfect program I hoped it would be. It installed easily, but without even a “quickstart” guide I needed to fumble around to figure out how to convert a PDF. Once I did, the results were workable, but not as good as I had hoped. The formatting changed way more than I expected. I could handle things like check boxes turning into “, but what surprised me was that some of the colored bars that defined sections of the original document were missing. Not all, but some. I had hoped to convert a form, fill it in, and print it and get a paper that looks very close to the original. That was not the case. The amount of formatting I would have to do to achieve the result would be much more work than printing the PDF and completing it by hand.
This may be wonderful for converting plain text PDFs, but the forms I tried were not usable.
Rating: 3 / 5
Works fine for me, but I am not a “power user”. I simply use pdf for a bit of editing, reformatting, etc. So maybe some of the higher end uses have bugs like the other reviewer indicates. I can’t address that.
Rating: 4 / 5
Well, I work a lot with PDF–saving Word documents, editing saved PDFs, etc. Its often a hassle, even with Adobe Acrobat. I also have to frequently submit Word docs to a printer as PDFs–and this is often a hassle to be sure it all conforms to what is required (CMYK, embedded fonts, true black, etc).
So I was eager to try this.
Unfortunately, there were some warning signs on installing–signs that Nuance was reconfiguring Word and possibly other software (including ADOBE CS3, which I use all the time).
Now, since it changes Word docs to pdfs this probably makes sense to Nuance but wouldn’t always be desirable to a user. When I made a PDF in Word, the PDF it created did not match the printing standards that I require (as previewed in Acrobat)–and there is no way to tell how to make the needed changes (at least none that I could find).
If “Nuance” included a manual–or had an FAQ website–this wouldn’t be such a problem.
Bottom line: If you have Word, and no PDF-generating software, and want to make and edit your own PDFs, this is probably okay (and, of course, is much less expensive than Adobe). For anyone else, I think the “bugs” would discourage me from trying it–at least until Nuance provides better documentation and help.
Rating: 3 / 5