Best PDF Annotators for Windows
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Compare the Top PDF Annotators for Windows as of June 2025
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What are PDF Annotators for Windows?
PDF annotation tools are pieces of software designed to allow users to add notes and highlight text on PDF documents. They can be used by students or professionals to mark up documents, make comments, and organize information in an intuitive way. Annotations may also include drawing shapes or adding images. The annotations can then be saved with the document for easy sharing and future reference. Compare and read user reviews of the best PDF Annotators for Windows currently available using the table below. This list is updated regularly.
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Apryse PDF SDK
Apryse
Apryse, previously known as PDFTron, takes document solutions to the next level, making work better and life simpler. Bring PDF viewing, annotating, editing, creation, and generation to any web, mobile, desktop or server framework or application. As a global leader in document processing technology, Apryse gives developers, enterprise customers and small businesses the tools they need to reach their document goals faster and easier. Our product portfolio includes Apryse SDK, Fluent, iText and XODO. Apryse technology works with all major platforms and a wide variety of unique file types. -
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Nutrient SDK
Nutrient
Nutrient is the comprehensive solution for all your PDF needs, offering tools that effortlessly integrate and operate PDF functionality across any platform. 1. SDK PRODUCTS Integrate robust PDF functionality into iOS, Android, Windows, web (JavaScript), or any cross-platform technology, providing capabilities such as PDF viewing, markup, collaboration, and more. 2. LIBRARIES Utilize our potent .NET and Java libraries to boost your backend applications with batch processing of redactions and PDF forms, OCR’d scanned text, and editing of PDF documents, directly from your application server. 3. PROCESSOR Our dynamic PDF microservice, Processor, enables swift generation of PDFs from HTML, including HTML forms, along with Office-to-PDF conversions, OCR, redaction, and XFDF merging and exporting. 4. PDF API Use hosted PDF API to generate, convert, and modify PDF documents in your workflows. We manage the development and server administration, letting you focus on what you do best. -
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Adobe PDF Library SDK
Datalogics Inc.
Shorten development times & get to market faster with Adobe PDF Library. Global OEMs, SaaS and enterprise end-users rely on Adobe PDF Library to automate the creation, editing and management of PDFs. An Adobe partner, our SDK uses the same source code as Acrobat for stability, reliability and quality results. Adobe PDF Library gives developers flexible programming language and platform options, and is currently available in .NET, .NET Framework, Java and C/C++ on Windows, Linux, MacOS, as well as via NuGet and Maven. Our extensive documentation includes getting started guides, API references, and hundreds of sample code examples on GitHub to help developers precisely create and define PDF workflow solutions. Pricing for Adobe PDF Library is based on your business model & software usage. Free trial includes access to our PDF technology experts who can help with proof of concept as well as extend your free trial license if needed. Download and get started today! -
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MobiPDF (formerly PDF Extra)
MobiSystems
MobiPDF (formerly PDF Extra) is an intuitive and powerful PDF editor and reader designed for today’s modern user - the cost-efficient alternative to Adobe Acrobat Pro you’ve been looking for. FEATURES OVERVIEW: PDF Viewer and Reader: Switch between page views or use "Read Mode" for distraction-free reading. Create and Edit PDFs: Modify text and images or start with a blank PDF. Convert to Office Formats: Easily turn PDFs into Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and image files. Leverage OCR: Transform scanned documents into searchable PDFs. Organize PDFs: Combine, split, reorder, and compress documents. Markup and Comment: Highlight, annotate, and add bookmarks or stamps. Fill PDFs: Seamlessly fill forms or create ones from scratch. Sign PDFs: Sign your documents anywhere—no ink required! Secure Your Work: Protect files with passwords, digital signatures, and 256-bit encryption. Offline Mode: Full functionality without internet access. Translate PDFsStarting Price: $49.99 -
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SwifDoo PDF
SwifDoo Software
SwifDoo PDF is a comprehensive, all-in-one PDF tool that offers features that most users often require. This free software comes with a user-friendly interface where most of its main features layout and can be easily recognized and accessed on the main screen of the program. SwifDoo PDF - the most functional PDF editor that can be successfully used by novice users and experienced professionals. Beginners will enjoy the simplicity and certain intuitiveness of the interface, as well as the ability to edit PDF files without much effort. SwifDoo PDF has a number of special features for scanning copy convert. Besides many convert features. PDF Reader PDF Annotation (Including Stamp) Picture/image Extraction (only need copy and paste from PDF) PDF Edit PDF Compress PDF Merge PDF Split PDF Signature System Requirements: Windows 10/7/8/vista/XP Edition: SwifDoo PDF 2.0.0.6Starting Price: $0 -
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RAD PDF
Red Software
Add a fully functional PDF editor to your ASP.NET website in minutes! Compatible with 99% of desktop & mobile browsers, from Internet Explorer 6 through the latest iOS Safari release, RAD PDF simply works. No plugins or other software needed. RAD PDF natively supports the most commonly used PDF features. Beyond a PDF reader, RAD PDF equips web applications with a browser-based PDF editor & PDF annotator. Features not even available in Adobe Acrobat Reader can be used to provide advanced PDF functionality. By enabling PDF form filling, PDF redaction, & PDF signing directly in the web browser, RAD PDF users can utilize PDF features without worrying about having the right platform or software installed! Allow your app to design new PDF forms, protect content, sign PDFs, & more using an intuitive graphical user interface (GUI). Client (JavaScript) and server APIs allow for endless possibilities .NET Core, Framework, & .NET 5+ supported Try editing any PDF with RAD PDF, FREE!Starting Price: $299 per developer -
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PDF Studio
Apryse
PDF Studio is a powerful and affordable PDF editor that effortlessly caters to both simple and complex PDF tasks. From adding text, various annotations, watermarks, and digital signatures to filling out forms and converting MS Office to PDF, it covers all your needs. The PDF editor is perfect for companies and organizations looking to seamlessly automate their PDF editing and eliminate repetitive daily tasks with batch processing of multiple documents. Empower your team with perpetual PDF software at a fraction of the cost compared to competing subscription-based solutions like Adobe® Acrobat®. NEW: Qoppa PDF Studio 2023 released! The latest version, PDF Studio 2023, offers impressive enhancements, including support for Dropbox Team Spaces, improved enterprise deployments, expanded multi-document functions, a new highlighter marker tool, and optimization options for smaller document sizes. Available on Linux, Windows, macOS, and other major platforms.Starting Price: $99.00 -
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jPDFPreflight
Qoppa Software
jPDFPreflight is a Java library to verify PDF compliance with different standards, including PDF/UA, PDF/A and PDF/X and to convert documents to these standards. jPDFPreflight can check compliance with the following profiles: -PDF/UA Verification -PDF/A-1b Verification -PDF/A-2b Verification -PDF/A-2u Verification -PDF/A-3b Verification -PDF/X-1a:2001 Verification -PDF/X-1a:2003 Verification -PDF/X-3:2002 Verification -PDF/X-3:2003 Verification (including ZUGFeRD) jPDFPreflight can convert existing PDF documents to make them compliant with the following profiles: -Convert from PDF to PDF/A-1b -Convert from PDF to PDF/A-2b -Convert from PDF to PDF/A-3b Features: -Verify compliance of PDF documents with several standards -Convert documents to make them PDF/A compliant -Produced detail report of all non-compliant items -Add annotations to documents to highlight non-compliant items -Works on Windows, Linux, Unix and Mac OS X (100% Java) -
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PDF Studio Viewer
Qoppa Software
PDF Studio Viewer is a cross-platform PDF reader that is reliable and easy to use. PDF Studio Viewer can annotate PDF documents and fill interactive forms. For more editing features, Qoppa Software publishes PDF Studio Standard and Pro editions. Features: -Display PDFs with high fidelity -Annotate & Markup PDFs -Fill & Save Forms -Render Digital Signatures & Layers -Advanced User Interface -Advanced Print & Search Options -Document Storage Integrations -DocuSign© Integration -
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jPDFWeb
Qoppa Software
jPDFWeb is a Java library to convert PDF documents to SVG / HTML5. The library can save to the local file system or to an output stream to be able to serve the document directly to a client browser when working within a J2EE server. jPDFWeb is built on top of Qoppa’s proprietary PDF technology so you do not have to install any third party software or drivers. Since it is written in Java, it allows your application to remain platform independent and run on Windows, Linux, Unix (Solaris, HP UX, IBM AIX), Mac OS X and any other platform that supports the Java run-time environment. Features: -Convert PDF Documents to HTML5 / SVG -Convert Microsoft Word & Excel Documents to HTML5 (when combined with jOfficeConvert) -Convert Text -Convert Images -Convert Vector Graphics -Convert Annotations, Links and Form Field Data -Convert Digital Signature Validation Status -Export Page Thumbnails -Support for CJK fonts -Support for latest PDF format -
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Adobe Acrobat Reader
Adobe
View, sign, collaborate on, and annotate PDFs with our free Adobe Acrobat Reader. Only with Adobe Acrobat Reader you can view, sign, collect and track feedback, and share PDFs for free. And when you want to do more, subscribe to Acrobat Pro. Then you can edit, export, and send PDFs for signatures. Do more than just open and view PDF files. It’s easy annotate documents and share them to collect and consolidate comments from multiple reviewers in a single shared online PDF. Work on documents anywhere using the Acrobat Reader mobile app. It’s packed with all the tools you need to convert, edit, and sign PDFs. You can use your device camera to capture a document, whiteboard, or receipt and save it as a PDF. Acrobat Reader is connected to Adobe Document Cloud, so you can work with your PDFs anywhere. You can even access and store files in Box, Dropbox, Google Drive, or Microsoft OneDrive.Starting Price: $1.95 per month -
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PDNob PDF Editor
Tenorshare
PDNob PDF Editor is an advanced, AI-powered solution designed to simplify and enhance PDF management for users on Windows and Mac. Offering a comprehensive suite of tools, it empowers users to view, annotate, edit, convert, perform OCR, organize, protect, and summarize PDFs effortlessly. Its intuitive interface makes navigating and managing documents a breeze, whether you’re working with simple files or complex projects. One of its standout features is AI integration, enabling intelligent document summarization and translation for seamless global communication. The Optical Character Recognition (OCR) tool converts scanned documents and images into fully editable and searchable files, turning paper-based workflows into digital efficiency. PDNob PDF Editor also excels at file organization, allowing users to merge multiple PDFs, split documents, compress file sizes, and rearrange pages with ease. Security is a priority, offering password protection and encryption.Starting Price: $35.99/year/1 user -
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Foxit PDF Reader
Foxit Software
Whether you're a consumer, business, government agency, or educational organization, you need to read, create, sign, and annotate (comment on) PDF documents and fill out PDF forms. Foxit PDF Reader is a small, lightning fast, and feature rich PDF viewer which allows you to create (free PDF creation), open, view, sign, and print any PDF file. Foxit Reader is built upon the industry's fastest and most accurate (high fidelity) PDF rendering engine, providing users with the best PDF viewing and printing experience. Available in English, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish. Sign documents in your own handwriting or utilize eSignature and verify the status of digital signatures. Be safe from vulnerabilities by utilizing Trust Manager/Safe Mode, ASLR & DEP, Disable JavaScript, and Security Warning Dialogs. Integrate with leading cloud storage services and popular enterprise CMS.Starting Price: $8 per month -
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Drawboard PDF
Drawboard
Drawboard PDF is the most intuitive PDF editing and markup app for Windows, iOS, macOS, android and web. Powerful PDF tools that feel good to use. Drawboard PDF – Get all the essential free. Mark up and edit any PDF with the ease of pen and paper. Drawboard Pro toolset - Upgrade to use advanced tools and Store+Share with your team. MARK UP AND DRAW All the drawing tools you need to mark and collaborate with the feel of pen and paper. INSERT Insert elements into your documents like, text, notes, callouts, signatures, images, audio notes, and more. MEASURE Take accurate measurements of elements on-page with technical measurement tools and calibration. MANAGE Local and Clouds PDFs in one place. Merge, split, reorder and compress COLLABORATE Real-time collaboration on-page in real time with instant syncing CROSS-PLATFORM Work from anywhere on any device, in real-time!Starting Price: $5.99 per month -
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PDF-XChange
Tracker Software Products
The smallest, fastest and most feature-rich free PDF viewer/editor on the market. Create, view, edit, annotate, OCR and digitally sign PDF files - and that's just the beginning. Please see below for a breakdown of the main features of PDF-XChange Editor. More than 70% of the features in PDF-XChange Editor do not require a license to use. The remaining features, which are clearly identified, will place a 'trial' watermark on output if they are used without a license. PDF-XChange Editor Plus includes additional functionality for the creation and editing of fillable forms, the creation of customizable dynamic stamps, and an Enhanced OCR plugin.Starting Price: $46.50 one-time payment -
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PDF Reader Pro
PDF Technologies, Inc
Back to School Bonanza! Enjoy 50% OFF on PDF Reader Pro and Filmage Screen Buy PC Version, Get Mobile Version Free Aug.15. 2024 - Sept.5. 2024 PDF Reader Pro is powered by PDF Technologies®, founded in 2014, which is a leading software provider of affordable, secure Out-of-Box PDF solutions on Windows, Mac, iOS, & Android. SMBs, IT service, and knowledge workers increase their productivity by using PDF Reader Pro to make workflow smarter. As the best alternative to Adobe® PDF solution, PDF Reader Pro is a PDF powerhouse that will fulfill all your document needs. We offer free Trial and education plans, as well as PDF Technologies’ Software Development Kits (ComPDFkit/SDKs) to help developers reduce costs and improve productivity by integrating industry-leading PDF technologies into application workflows. Welcome to try. If you are interested in being our reseller or distributor, you can check our official site->Business->Partnership Program.Starting Price: $19.99/one-time/user -
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Systweak PDF Editor
Systweak Software
Systweak PDF Editor is a powerful, easy-to-use PDF management tool for Windows that lets you view, edit, convert, merge, split, compress, and secure PDF files effortlessly. Whether you're a student, professional, or business user, this all-in-one PDF solution covers everything you need. You can edit text and images directly in your PDF, convert files to and from formats like Word, Excel, and JPG, and organize pages with drag-and-drop ease. With built-in OCR, you can extract editable text from scanned documents. Add annotations, comments, watermarks, and protect your files with password encryption or digital signatures. Batch processing makes handling multiple PDFs quick and efficient. Systweak PDF Editor is compatible with Windows 11, 10, 8.1, and 7, and offers a clean, intuitive interface ideal for all user levels. Experience a smarter, faster, and more secure way to work with PDFs.Starting Price: 34.98 -
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UPDF
Superace Software Technology Co., Ltd.
UPDF supports editing, annotating, and managing PDF seamlessly on for Windows, Mac, iOS and Android. You can get every tool you need to edit, annotate, and organize your PDF files in one premiere all-rounder smart application. It is explicitly designed to meet the desire of most users for a stunning yet very comprehensible interface that is not just only for beginners. Key Features: 1. Edit PDF Document - You can add or delete texts as well as edit the text's properties and formats such as its font style, font color, and size. - You can also crop, rotate, replace, extract or delete images. 2. Annotate PDF - Easily highlight, underline, and strike out those parts. You can also add shapes, sticky notes and text boxes for a quicker and easier means of adding texts. 3. PDF Page Management - Rotate, delete, extract and rearrange PDF pages as you need. 4. View and Navigate PDF Files - Flexible reading mode such as single page mode or double-page mode.Starting Price: Free -
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MuPDF
Artifex Software
Add powerful PDF functionality to all of your software application projects. MuPDF is a highly versatile, customizable PDF SDK that can be used as a PDF renderer, viewer, or library. The tiny footprint and lightning-fast performance make MuPDF a perfect fit for mobile browsers, eBooks, and embedded applications where small size is key. MuPDF supports a variety of interactive features including annotations, form filling, digital signatures, redactions, text search, and progressive loading. The wide range of input and output formats and our full range of platform support deliver a flexible solution to easily and successfully fulfill your project’s unique needs. MuPDF supports PDF, XPS, OpenXPS, EPUB, FictionBook 2 and CBZ. The MuPDF API easily integrates with all of the major platforms including Android, iOS, Linux, macOS, OpenBSD, and Windows. C++ and Python bindings have been added making it easy to use the MuPDF library from these languages.Starting Price: $749/per platform* -
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Able2Extract Professional
Investintech.com
Convert, create, edit, OCR, compare, and sign PDFs. Customize the interface language and its appearance from light to dark themes for working with PDFs comfortably. Tailor your conversions by selecting a page, a paragraph, or even a single line for conversion. Custom PDF to Excel conversion to convert complex PDF table data to Microsoft Excel with pinpoint precision and a Smart Layout Detector for keeping table styles intact. Edit PDF text and pages. Annotate and redact PDF content. Sign PDF documents. Fill, edit and create PDF forms. Split documents into even parts. Convert scanned PDFs in English, French, Spanish, and German. Automate the batch PDF conversion process by queuing up a large volume of PDF files and even whole directories. Batch create PDF from a wide range of formats and merge all PDFs into one file. Create secure PDFs from blank pages or existing documents by adding passwords and file permissions. Able2Extract Professional: Your Swiss Army Knife for PDF files.Starting Price: $149.95/one-time/user -
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PDFgear
PDFgear
PDFgear is an all-in-one PDF solution that helps users view, edit, protect, convert, sign, annotate, organize, OCR, Copilot, organize PDF files, and make more possibilities on Windows, MacOS, iOS, and iPadOS. PDFgear offers all expected functions in its clean and straightforward interface so users could enjoy their document reading and editing experience without disturbance. PDFgear Copilot provides more possibilities as a personal document assistant. As it's powered by AI, users could easily manipulate all PDFgear functions and chat with PDFs by asking PDFgear Copilot. Get lost in various functions and comprehensive document content? Don't worry! Just ask Copilot! It will cover everything. With PDFgear and Copilot in it, processing PDF is like a walk in the garden.Starting Price: Free -
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KDAN PDF Reader
Kdan Mobile Software
KDAN PDF Reader is your all-in-one PDF solution. Edit, sign, OCR scan, convert, annotate, and fill forms in PDF documents. With innovative AI features, speed up your document workflow! Designed for Mac, iPhone, and iPad, KDAN PDF Reader is trusted by millions for its comprehensive features and efficiency. **Spring Sale: Work smarter with KDAN PDF Reader—get 40% OFF Document 365 AI+, our AI-powered, cross-platform subscription. Offer ends May 8. AI FEATURE • Analyze and extract key information or tables from a PDF, then convert the data into spreadsheets for further analysis or visualization. • Chat with PDF and get document analysis, advice, new ideas, or content summary • Text redaction - automatically identify and block sensitive information in a documentStarting Price: $59.99/year (billed annually) -
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novaPDF
Softland
Using novaPDF Pro you can easily create high quality searchable PDF files in an affordable and reliable way from any Windows application. It installs as a printer driver and helps you generate the PDF files by simply selecting the "print" command from any application (you can convert Word documents, Excel sheets, PowerPoint presentations, AutoCad drawings, emails or web pages). You can password protect the PDF files you create and permissions can be restricted to prevent the document from being viewed, printed, modified, copied or annotated. Your PDF files will be secured with 40-bit and 128-bit encryption algorithms. Features include: customizable resolution, PDF security, PDF links, PDF bookmarks, text/image compression, profiles and more. novaPDF also includes a PDF SDK for developers that want to integrate PDF creation capabilities in their software.Starting Price: $19.99 (one time payment) -
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AmindPDF
AmindPDF
AmindPDF's user interface is very user-friendly and makes the operation of PDF easy. It can recognize PDF text as paragraphs or whole blocks of text, allowing users to edit text directly and smoothly, like in MS Word. for PDF protection, it allows adding passwords, setting document permissions, placing signatures, adding watermarks to PDF It also supports batch operations to process files, such as merge/split tool, compression tool, creation tool, Bates numbering tool, and conversion tool, so users can process multiple PDF files at once. AmindPDF is available for a number of platforms: Windows, iOS, and Android. Users are able to use the same PDF tool on a computer or mobile phone. So AmindPDF let you process or edit PDFs anytime, anywhere.Starting Price: $9.90 -
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Conholdate.Total For .NET
Aspose
Conholdate.Total for .NET is the complete package of all .NET APIs as offered by Aspose and GroupDocs. It empowers the developers to perform a wide range of document processing tasks from within their own .NET based applications. This .NET package is an all-in-one solution for all types of document managements systems because it offers the ability to create, edit, print, view, annotate, compare, sign, automate, search and convert between a wide range of popular document formats. Process a Multitude of File Formats - Conholdate.Total for .NET empowers you to build an incredibly versatile file processing system capable of handling many popular file formats. You can easily open, create, modify and convert file formats. Conholdate.Total for .NET currently supports following file types: Microsoft Word documents Microsoft Excel spreadsheets Microsoft PowerPoint presentations Adobe PDF documents Microsoft Outlook Microsoft Project files and more than 100 other file formatsStarting Price: $4,999 -
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PDF Annotator
GRAHL software design
Add notes & annotations to any PDF document - comments, corrections, signatures, highlighting, even photos, designs and drawings. Comments, corrections, signatures, highlighting, even photos and drawings. Share them with coworkers, email them to clients, partners or back to authors. Remove or hide all markup with a single click. Combine documents, copy, re-order or remove pages. Deliver outstanding interactive presentations in meetings or lectures with PDF Annotator as your "digital whiteboard". Make a short comment on a long document. Fill in or sign a form or agreement, and return it by email. Proofread, review and correct a document right on your screen. Make notes and drawings right on the pages. Grade student papers right on your PC, laptop or Tablet PC.Starting Price: $69.95 -
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LiquidText
LiquidText
Review documents faster. Find facts effortlessly. See the connections others miss. Go past the limits of paper with LiquidText. Note-taking and document analysis tools have changed little from the margin notes, highlighting, and sticky notes we have used forever. Most apps today try to duplicate paper, but, in spite of this, over 80% of knowledge workers still prefer paper at work and school. LiquidText moves beyond paper. It captures your reading, notes, highlights, annotations and observations just like paper; but goes further to reveal their connections, to source materials and each other in a way that documents and maps your project in a clear and shareable form. We connect related notes into ideas, and we connect your ideas into reports. Every note, idea and observation can be connected to others, and a single tap can show those relationships and original context.Starting Price: $7.99 per month -
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JPedal
IDR Solutions
JPedal is a versatile Java PDF Library for displaying, converting, printing, and parsing PDFs in Java applications. With over 20 years of development, it supports a wide range of PDF files. Key features include: -PDF to Image Conversion: Converts PDFs to images in various formats. -Java Swing PDF Viewer: Offers multi-page display, search, printing, and annotation editing. -Text and Image Extraction: High-quality extraction of text and images from PDFs. -PDF Search: Supports searching with wildcards and regular expressions. -Form & Annotation Handling: Supports XFA and AcroForms, enabling form data access and annotation editing. -Document Manipulation: Allows deleting, merging, splitting, and optimizing PDFs. -Security & Performance: Runs locally without third-party dependencies, processing PDFs up to 3x faster than alternatives.Starting Price: $950 one time fee -
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PDF Enhancer
Apago
No matter whether you perform a couple of tasks or a complex multi-step production, PDF Enhancer provides the functionality to automate the process and save you time and money. With over 500 commands controlled through a simple user interface, you control nearly every aspect of the final PDF from annotations to Unicode font tables. All with PDF Enhancer’s fast, queue-based, batch processing environment. Or if you need to control the process programmatically, PDF Enhancer is available with a Java interface or scriptable command line interface on all supported platforms and as a COM object on Windows. But don’t take our word for it, download the free trial and convince yourself. It’s fully functional for 10 days with extensions of up to 30 days if you need it. PDF Enhancer is a high-volume software utility that optimizes PDFs for a particular purpose. PDF Enhancer automates the most common document assembly and preparation tasks.Starting Price: $349 one-time payment -
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LightPDF
Wangxu Technology Co.,Ltd.
LightPDF was designed to allow everyone to process PDF documents in the easiest way possible. Indeed, LightPDF comes with an easy-to-use interface. With this program, you can perfectly read PDF, edit or convert PDF. Built-in PDF editing features: Modify a PDF: add texts, annotate, insert links, add headers and footers. Convert PDF to other formats: Word, Excel, PPT, JPG, PNG, HTML, etc. Manage PDF pages: insert or delete pages, rotate pages, extract, replace, split or merge pages. Sign a PDF: add a manual or digital signature. Lock PDF: Add a password to your PDF document. Other tools: OCR, compress PDF, add background, etc. This all-in-one online PDF solution includes over 20 practical PDF tools which may simplify your digital work and boost productivity. You are able to edit, convert, compress, merge, annotate, watermark and manage PDFs or use the OCR functions without a hitch.Starting Price: Free