This recently updated package is in essence, a bundle of ScanSoft's PDF Create 3.0 and PDF Converter 3.0. The basic deal remains the same - PDF Converter Professional 3.0 comprises a printer driver that lets you create a PDF (portable document format) file, plus a conversion utility with which you can extract PDF content for editing.
This year's model sports some potentially useful bells and whistles. As well as running a bit faster, it allows you to convert PDFs into WordPerfect WPD files as well as Word DOC and Excel XLS formats. You can add mark-up comments and stamps, which is useful for collaborative working. And it features a slightly revamped graphical user interface, with a flat, borderless appearance.
As before, PDF Creator 3.0 adds a PDF virtual printer to Windows so you can generate documents from any program through its Print dialog window. The installation also adds a PDF Create menu and toolbar to Word, Excel and PowerPoint.
Creating a PDF couldn't be simpler.
It is just as easy to edit PDF files, which means that if you want a PDF to stay the way you created it (for invoicing purposes, for example) you'll need to password-protect it, which Converter Pro can help with. This time you can edit in native PDF mode - there's no need to convert out to, say, Word and back again. Format retention is of a high order and conversion out and back to PDF reveals only a few minor changes.
The PDF Converter Pro 3.0 bundle uniquely features PDF Form Typer, a tool which analyses PDF forms, inserting editable fields. We tried out this potentially strong feature on several DVLA forms with mixed success - it correctly identified plenty of fields, but it also missed a significant proportion.
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