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When I started writing my own books, I realized I also needed to format them. At first, I worked with a graphics artist who handled that for me and sent me a PDF file, ready for upload to CreateSpace.
A few weeks after uploading the manuscript, realized I needed to make a few changes. Readers had noticed a few typos and notified me. I had made a couple of extra changes myself. And later on, I decided to change the numbering of my books.
It soon became clear I couldn’t bother my poor designer every time I needed to edit something. So, I started looking into ways to edit my PDF manuscript myself. To my surprise, there didn’t seem to to be an easy, affordable way of doing so. Adobe’s own software, Acrobat DC, is priced at almost $20/month; a deal that was unaffordable. I don’t like subscription-based software in general, and it’s not like I needed to make changes at such a rate as to make a monthly subscription worthwhile.
I ended up buying a PDF editor called Nitro PDF. It cost me over $150. But when I changed computers a few years later, the version of Nitro PDF I’d bought would no longer work on the new one. To get a new version was as expensive as buying a new license. Even worse, the old version was no longer supported. In the end, I kept my old computer for the sole purpose of editing PDF documents; hardly an ideal situation.
PDFelement
That’s why I was so excited to discover PDFelement by Wondershare; an affordable–yet extremely powerful–way of editing PDF documents. Priced at only $59 for the standard version, it lets you do pretty much everything an author wants: open a PDF document, edit text, insert/remove images, crop your document, insert headers and footers, insert a background, and even insert a watermark. It also lets you organize pages (i.e. move them around), combine documents, insert and extract pages, split a document into multiple ones, etc.
If you’re looking for a collaborative tool, it also lets you annotate and bookmark your documents.
And if you wish to share, it lets you export to MS Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and even ePub! That way, you can better preview your manuscript.
Finally, it supports forms, something that may be useful for your communication with publishers or people helping you with your book. It also lets you protect your document, sign it digitally, and password-encrypt it.
The only downside I could find with the software is the long time it takes to get started, at least on my computer. Depending on how many PDF documents you edit, it may make sense to keep it running in the background to save some time.
PDFelement Standard vs. Pro
I’ve been using PDFelement Pro (priced at $89) for a few days now.
The main difference with the standard version is the addition of OCR. This lets you scan your handwritten manuscript into JPG images, then PDFelement automatically converts these into text. You can save the result into an MS Word document or in any of the formats mentioned above. For writers who like using notebooks (I have a stack of them), this JPG-to-Word conversion can be a godsend.
Below is a list of the differences between the two versions. As you can see, even the standard version is a pretty powerful tool for authors. With the addition of OCR, it becomes a far better product than anything I’ve used so far.
As I’ve been looking for an affordable, yet powerful, PDF editor for ages now, I just had to share the news as soon as I found out. Both versions are available for Windows and Mac and offer a free 30-day trial period, so you can try them out for yourself. I hope you find it as useful as I have!
You can find out more on the Wondershare website.
Note: As always, this is my honest opinion and I’m only sharing because I genuinely liked the product. Wondershare gave me a free evaluation copy and provided me with trackable — but NOT affiliate — links.
Charles Yallowitz said:
PDF has always been a pain. Years and years ago I had something that helped edit them, but I lost it. Think it was a free copy of Adobe that someone gave me and it did what you said with not transferring over. Glad there are more affordable programs now.
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Nicholas C. Rossis said:
I’m now dating myself, but I was there when Adobe first announced the creation of the PDF format (in a conference in Scotland). Ah, good times… 🙂
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Charles Yallowitz said:
How did people react to that?
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Nicholas C. Rossis said:
They cautiously embraced the idea, although most assumed it wouldn’t catch on. Mind you, that was the same conference where Sun announced the creation of Java. Most people there thought Java was going to rule. So that goes to show you not to make predictions 🙂
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Charles Yallowitz said:
Forgot about Java. Barely remember what it did. Does seem like predictions have a history of being wrong in tech.
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Alethea Kehas said:
Great info, thank you!
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Nicholas C. Rossis said:
I hope you find it useful 🙂
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The Story Reading Ape said:
Reblogged this on Chris The Story Reading Ape's Blog.
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floridaborne said:
Thanks for the information. Please keep us informed — especially about any instances where you had to contact customer support. Like N.C.R., I’m reluctant to put money out until I have more information.
The reason for my reluctance:
I tried Nitro years ago, on a friend’s computer (he still had the older edition) and liked it so much that I paid for a year’s subscription for my office. The first year I had Nitro, customer services was excellent.
The second year, I was reluctant to purchase it because I was going to retire. I explained the situation to customer service and asked if it was possible to puchase the subscription for 6 months instead of a year (since the price was listed as “per month”). I was told that they didn’t have monthly payments, and I would have to pay for an entire year, but they would pro-rate it so I could get my money back for the months I wouldn’t be using it.
The “new and improved” rendition was nowhere near as good as the older one! And the (so-called) “customer service” was WORSE than non-existent. Not only did they lie, but every time I tried to find assistance for problems I was referred to the “community” and when — 6 months later — I tried to get “customer service” to honor their agreement for a partial refund (an agreement sent to me via email), I was sent a robo-reply. When I tried to return the reply, I was told that I had to send an entirely new email (a clever way to prevent having a continuous email string). After a “supervisor review” I was told I wasn’t eligible for a refund because I’d used their product past the one month trial period. I wrote to the corporate offices (the address was not easy to find) and never received a reply.
Now I use a browser that opens PDF’s and I leave the software problems to my editor.
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Staci Troilo said:
I hate subscription software. (I’m not a fan of Adobe in general, actually, after a nasty exchange last year. Their customer service is dreadful.) Nice to see a review of an affordable alternative.
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rijanjks said:
Oh how cool! Yes, editing a PDF can get expensive when you pay Adobe for use of their software, but that is what I did at the first of last year when I pulled down my book, “Flowers and Stone” and did a rewrite. This information is golden! Thanks for sharing, Nicholas!
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Nicholas C. Rossis said:
Yay! So glad you found it useful, Jan 😀
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John Maberry said:
Sounds intriguing. Not sure if I need it yet, but I’m going to bookmark this and look it over–maybe get a trial version. I also want to get the newest mid-range version of Dragon to try out–could be good for that new laptop I want to buy to replace the 13 year old one running XP that I haven’t used in five or six years. 🙂
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Nicholas C. Rossis said:
I first used Dragon when it first came out. I’m sure it’s gotten a lot better by now!
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kimwrtr said:
Reblogged this on Kim's Musings.
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marymichaelschmidt said:
Reblogged this on When Angels Fly.
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Don Massenzio said:
Reblogged this on Author Don Massenzio and commented:
Check out this post from Nicholas Rossis blog on the topic of PDFelement: An Alternative to Adobe Acrobat DC
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Anna Dobritt said:
Reblogged this on Anna Dobritt — Author.
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kimwrtr said:
I hate subscriptions too and it seems to be the way all the software companies are going. Instead of getting a huge amount from each person at purchase they’ve figured out a way to get a smaller amount continuously. Guess it’s like income security. I have a subscription for virus protection, a subscription to Microsoft, etc. where I used to just purchase the software and be done with it. However, the upside is they keep it updated and those updates come with the subscription price. I still prefer to purchase outright.
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Nicholas C. Rossis said:
Same here. For some reason, all these subscriptions make feel I’m in a hostage situation 😀
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kimwrtr said:
I know. We have a propane tank and they won’t sell it to us, we have to rent it for an annual amount. Cost to have it removed too. So we’re stuck with the same propane provider even if they’re charging more than the others.
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Nicholas C. Rossis said:
Now, that sucks…
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