However, these free or bundled tools usually only offer the bare bones. If you’re looking for an all-in-one PDF reader, creator and editor, the latest release of Nitro PDF should provide you with all of the features that you need without breaking your budget on a product from Adobe.

With Nitro Pro 7 you can create a PDF from one or more different file types, convert PDFs to other file types, extract key data from documents, edit documents and apply secure access requirements PDFs. In the next two week, we’re giving away 50 free copies of Nitro Pro 7 worth a whopping $6000 in total!

User Interface

The first launch of Nitro Pro 7 will display a “Getting Started” screen which highlights some of the application’s features. You can easily disable this via the Do not show at startup checkbox but it is worth spending a moment looking at the various tasks on offer.

Everything is organized using the familiar ribbon menu that you might find in Windows Explorer or the different Microsoft Office applications and as such the features on offer are sensibly presented. For instance if you wish to convert a PDF to another format you will find the buttons on the Home tab; editing a PDF is possible via the Edit tab and adding passwords and redactions is via the controls available in the Protect menu.

Meanwhile via the Forms tab you can create forms on your document that comprise of text fields, radio buttons and checkboxes, as well as export and import data to and from a form on a PDF.

Protecting Your PDF

As the PDF format has become more and more widely used so the requirements for protecting and validating the contents of such documents has become increasing paramount.

Accordingly, Nitro Pro 7 features effective password, certification and redaction tools that are suitable for use in all levels of business. Found on the Protect tab, the redaction tool can be used to highlight text that should be blocked out from unauthorized viewing, and removed completely using the Apply all Redactions option.

Meanwhile Digital IDs and Signatures can be applied to a document, useful for establishing trust between yourself and the recipient of a PDF document that you have created.

Elsewhere, the Password Security setting allows you to set various passwords and profiles for the document, each with different privileges; for instance you can set a PDF document as being read-only for a specific password and even block printing altogether.

Combining PDF Documents

It so happens that I have a pretty important PDF-related task which I need to resolve. I have three documents, all in PDF format but each with a different page format that I need to combine into a single document.

Can Nitro Pro 7 help me out?

As it happens, yes it can. Using the Combine button on the Create section of the Home menu, I was easily able to merge the three documents – plus a cover – into one.

The process is simple, requiring you to first browse for the PDF files (or indeed any other file type) and add them.

Following that, all you need to do is save the combined document – with a meaningful file name, of course!

The preview view above shows two of the combined files – you can see the differences in artwork between the strips. Note that you’re not restricted to PDF documents here as you can also combine other document types into a PDF. For instance, you might wish to combine a Word document with an Excel spreadsheet.

Editing a PDF

If you’ve ever found yourself having to recreate a PDF document from scratch because the source file was lost then you will know that this is often a long and drawn out process that pretty much requires you to type the document into a word processor and save or convert it to a PDF.

PDF editing tools have been available in the past but they can prove to be difficult to use and expensive. Fortunately Nitro Pro 7 features an easy-to-use editing tool which delivers good results. Available via the Edit tab, you can begin editing text by selecting the Edit button which opens the Text Tools Format view. Using this you can select sentences, append or amend, add and remove images and even watermark the document. If you have problems editing an OCR tool is provided to convert the text so that it can be edited.

As pictured above, right-clicking a block of text and selecting Edit Text will also allow you to edit the document’s contents.

Note also that pages can be deleted and inserted or even rotated – useful if you have a page-sized image that would look better oriented in a different way.

Document Conversion

While PDF is a popular format, it isn’t the only one suitable for e-books. Sadly it isn’t possible to accurately convert a PDF document to all current e-book formats, but fortunately Nitro Pro 7 features the ability to convert PDFs into a format that is more flexible in this respect: Microsoft Word’s DOCX format. In fact, documents can be converted and exported into plain text and rich text formats, as well as images.

The results of a conversion to DOCX – performed via the Convert section of the Home tab – can be seen above. When in this state, the document can be reformatted and then converted into a variety of formats depending on your requirements.

Conclusion

Nitro 7 Pro is certainly as good an option as any of the Adobe PDF creation applications and certainly among the best of this type of software. As you can see from the screenshots above the results of my own PDF editing project were extremely favourable; this software has enabled me to perform a task that has for a long-time proved difficult and time-consuming.

Additional features that allow text editing and password protecting documents is similarly accomplished, resulting in a PDF solution that is every bit as good – if not better – than anything Adobe has ever released. Download a fully-functional trial now and take it for a spin.

As a special treat to MakeUseOf readers, we’re giving away 50 copies of Nitro Pro 7 worth $6000 in total over the next two weeks. Here’s how you can score a copy for yourself.

How do I win a copy?

It’s simple, just follow the instructions.

Step 1: Fill in the giveaway form

Please fill in the form with your real name and email address so that we can get in touch if you are chosen as a winner. Click here if you can’t view the form.

Step 2: Share!

You’re almost done. Now, all that’s left to do is to share the post. There are 2 options to choose from or you can do both!

This giveaway begins now and ends Friday, February 17th. The winners will be selected at random and informed via email.

Spread the word to your friends and have fun!

Interested in sponsoring a giveaway? We’d love to hear from you. Get in touch with us via the form at the bottom of this page.

If there’s something PDF files aren’t really supposed to be, it’s editable. The format, originally created as a way to transfer data from a computer to a printer, is essentially a digital piece of paper. Sure, there are tools that kind of do the job, but most of them end up converting the PDF to some other file before letting you re-export them. We highlighed tools for editing PDFs before, and they basically do this or something like it.

PDF Mod isn’t a tool like that – it allows you to edit your PDF files directly. This is possible because of its limited functionality. You can’t make changes to pages, but you can move pages around or remove them altogether. Basically, it lets you re-shuffle pieces of paper the way you can in real life.

It’s always best to avoid editing PDF files, assuming you have access to the source files. If something was made in Libre Office, for example, it’s a lot easier to edit the Libre Office document then it is to edit the PDF. If you just need to quickly re-arrange or remove some pages in a PDF, though, this is your go-to Linux tool.

Using PDF Mod

Open a PDF with PDF Mod and you’ll instantly see all of your pages.

Do you need to see more? You can quickly zoom in and out using the slide at the bottom of the window. Re-arranging pages is easy – just click and drag. You’ll also find buttons in the menu for removing pages, and another for extracting images from a given page.

Do you want to add pages from another PDF? There’s a button for that too. This is a quick and easy way to combine two PDFs into a single file. You can also rotate pages.

Do you want to change the author’s name, and other details? Just click the “Properties” button.

You can also quickly edit the bookmarks in your PDF. Remove, add or change the references, it doesn’t matter.

Like I said, you can’t make changes to the text, or move images around on a given page. PDFs aren’t really meant to be edited that way, just like a piece of paper. You can re-arrange things, though, and that’s what this program is for.

Installation

Do you want to install this program on your Linux computer? Check out your distro’s package manager, because it’s probably there. Ubuntu users can simply click here to install PDF mod, though users of older Ubuntu releases might find this doesn’t work.

Can’t find PDF mod in your package manager? Check out the PDF Mod website, where you’ll find a few packages and some source code you can compile yourself.

Conclusion

This simple tool is great if you ever need to make quick changes to, or to merge, a couple of PDF files. It’s got a simple interface and runs quickly. Like I said, it does one thing and does it well.

Have you made use of this? Let me know for what in the comments below. Or you can tell me about how PDFs are totally easy to edit.

A few years ago, I stumbled upon Twournal which can put your latest 3,200 tweets into a PDF or paperback book. When you see your Twitter content archived in one document, you gain a better appreciation of what it means to be a published author. Twournal allows you to create, buy and sell books printed from your tweets. Registering on the site and creating your first book is nearly as easy as signing in and allowing Twournal to access your Twitter timeline, going back to as far as your very first tweet.

InvderMedia, the developers of Twournal are gracious enough to provide your Tweet collection for free in PDF format. Dozens of twitter users take advantage of this feature every day because the process is so simple, and it is a great way to archive your Twitter content.

Creating Your First Book

To create a Twournal, simply sign in with the Twitter account you want to use, and select if would you like to include photos posted to your timeline (via Twitpic, Yfrog, Flickr, Instagram, etc.)

Your Twournal includes a standard multicolor cover, but you will probably want to customize it with your own photo. Before clicking the Finish button, you have several other options to consider for creating your book, including what years to include and not include, and whether or not you want to remove replies, URL links, hashtags, and retweets.

After you submit your book, you will be e-mailed within 24 hours a link to a free PDF version of your book. Even if you plan to purchase a paperback copy of your Twournal, you should definitely order and view the PDF first.

Writing Your First Book

When I first considered ordering a Twournal book, I wasn’t quite sure if it would contain the kind of content that I wanted. What I discovered early on was that few of my tweets included photos, which I felt was essential for my book.

Photos help break up the pages and pages of tweets, and of course provide visual context. So in 2011 I started using my iPhone to snap and upload them directly to my Twitter timeline.

There is nothing really special you have to do in order to write “good” Twitter content. Though you’re communicating on Twitter with your contacts, you mainly post what is important to you and not someone else. However, if you would like to make your Twournal the sort of memorable diary or journal of your thoughts and experiences, you might very well put some thought into the types of tweets you are posting.

For the last several days I have been reading back through my tweets from 2010 to 2011, and though there a great mixture of links to articles I was reading on the net, I noticed that I tweeted quite heavily about important issues that mattered to me – e.g. the death of singer and songwriters Teena Maria and later Gil Scott Heron, the execution of Troy Davis, my thoughts and participation in the Occupy Movement, and posts about goals and accomplishments I made in my day-to-day life.

It looks as if I never went more than three days without posting something to my Twitter timeline, and that was probably the key to making a useful and memorable Twournal.

By the end of last year, my Twournal came to 325 pages – starting from March of 2010.

I also noticed that what makes my Twournal worth reading is how often I made comments about issues and topics I’m concerned about, instead of just retweeting tweets and headlines.

Including Photos

With a smart phone camera and a Twitter app, it is quite easy to post photos directly to your timeline. You might take and post photos of events you attend, special meals you cook, and projects you’re working on.

But you need not limit yourself to camera images. My Twournal consists of over a dozen images composed of desktop screenshots and photos I grabbed from websites.

Memorable Artifact

In the digital age, we often take for granted that the digital content we produce will always be available to us online or on some personal storage device. While that might surely be the case, producing paper documents and artifacts from our digital content is still important.

Whether you purchase a Twournal book or print your PDF, you will appreciate your collection of tweets a lot more when viewing them in hand, in paper format. I’m actually reading through my Twournal as I do any other book, except this time, it’s my own.

For other articles about Twitter, check out our directory of articles that includes tips and recommendations for using the microblogging site.

Let us know what you think about Twournal. Do you plan to create your own?

Ubuntu is a free/libre, open-source computer operating system with 20 million users worldwide. But it’s also so much more than that: it is an ethos, a collaborative project and, first and foremost, Ubuntu is a community of people.

If you’re reading this guide, you’re probably interested in moving away from proprietary operating systems such as Windows and Mac OS X; perhaps you’ve already installed Ubuntu on your computer but are not sure where to start.

Migrating to a new operating system can be daunting, especially when faced with unfamiliar words like ‘FLOSS’, ‘command line interface’ and ‘kernel’. Many people are intimidated by the technical jargon of a non-commercial operating system and believe it’s too advanced for them. Well, that is simply not true. Ubuntu is easy to install and simple to use. Best of all: it’s completely FREE!

DOWNLOAD Ubuntu: An Absolute Beginner’s Guide

The guide is free but password-protected. Gain access to the password by:

1- subscribing to our newsletter (you may do this on the download page itself, link above). Existing subscribers will receive the guide via email in the next couple of hours.

OR

2 – Simply join our Facebook page. Quick and easy.

This complete, free guide will teach you:

• What Ubuntu is, in every sense of the word
• What makes Ubuntu free, as in freedom
• How Ubuntu and Linux are related
• How to install Ubuntu for absolute beginners
• Where to find free support for Ubuntu questions
• How to use the Unity interface
• How to find software in Ubuntu, and which software to use

DOWNLOAD Ubuntu: An Absolute Beginner’s Guide

The guide is free but password-protected. Gain access to the password by:

1- subscribing to our newsletter (you may do this on the download page itself, link above). Existing subscribers will receive the guide via email in the next couple of hours.

OR

2 – Simply join our Facebook page. Quick and easy.

For instance, I am a voracious user of Slideshare, and sometimes I like to save a neat illustration or graphic for my personal use. Then there are some professional reports which come packaged as a PDF and you might come across the need to use a graphic from there in a presentation.

We had taken an earlier look at 6 Ways To Convert A PDF To A JPG Image. But over here, I am looking for something specific – extracting images only from PDF files. The solutions offered in the previous article are full-fledged converters. Here, the focus is more pinpointed.

Let’s check out a few ways to extract images from PDF files.

The Manual Way

Extracting images from PDF files is not a problem if you have the commercial Adobe Acrobat. It allows you to extract all the images (in multiple image formats) in a PDF file with a single click. Some free PDF readers like the earlier reviewed Nitro PDF Reader also have this feature. If you have the free Adobe Reader installed, then you have to slog it out by either using the Print Screen button on an individual image or using the Take a snapshot feature from the Edit menu. In both cases, you have to paste the copied image from the clipboard into a graphic editor.

The Photoshop Way

Okay, Adobe Photoshop isn’t a free product, but some of us do have it installed because it is the Big Daddy when it comes to image editors. Photoshop allows you to open a PDF document and start importing the text or the images in it. The Import PDF dialog appears as below:

You can select the images you want to extract. Click on OK and then save (or edit) the image as you would normally do. CorelDRAW also offers a similar functionality.

The Freeware Way

Well, you don’t need to get thumbprints on the Print Screen button or plonk down serious case on Photoshop if you regularly extract images from PDF files. Let’s bring up Some PDF Image Extract for the job at hand.

The 885 KB free software runs on Windows and is very handy for extracting image files from PDF documents. Plus, it comes with a few bells and whistles that give some control over what you are going to pull out from the PDF file. Installation is a breeze; just be careful to deselect the option which asks you to install the Blekko search engine as an option (i.e. if you want).

The interface of Some PDF Image Extract looks like this and using the image extractor doesn’t need you to consult any help file (though there is one).

Some PDF Image Extract allows you to extract images from PDF files by using any or all of the following features…

1. The free software can batch process PDF files and extract their images in individual folders in one go. If you have more than one PDF file to work on, this is a time saver.

2. Some PDF Image Extract comes with image format options (JPG, BMP, PNG, GIF, TIF, TGA, and PCX). In case of the JPG output option, you can also control the quality of the extracted image.

3. You can choose the page range as well as an individual page if you want to extract only specific images from the file.

4. Some PDF Images Extract can work with password protected PDF-files too. The conversion tool has a field where you can key in the password during conversion.

Some PDF Image Extract does its conversion bit quite rapidly and smoothly. It works with Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista, and probably Windows 7 too though I haven’t tested it out on that.

PDF image extraction has quite a few uses. What are yours? How do you extract images from PDF files? Tell us your choice of method.

Well now, if you’re heavy user of Dropbox like I am, you might be interested in a new online service, Dropbox Automator, that can automatically perform all sorts of tasks when you add files to your designated Dropbox folders.

The developers at Wappwolf.com have created an online application that automatically performs tasks on files added to a Dropbox folder, such as converting text files to PDF (or PDF to text), emailing a file to a designated recipient, renaming or encrypting/decrypting files, or sending information to your Twitter or Facebook timeline. (See entire list below.)

These types of folder automations are typically done with applications like Apple’s AppleScript, Automator, or Hazel, but now they can be performed with Dropbox online, without any knowledge or use of computer coding. It takes several minutes to set up, but you gain all that back when it begins performing actions for you.

Setting Up Dropbox Automations

To get started with Dropbox Automator, click this link to go over to the site and login into your Dropbox account. Dropbox Automator will of course need to access your account in order to do it’s thing on folders you designate.

Next, select a folder (or create a new folder in your Dropbox account) to attach an action to.

If the number of folders in your Dropbox account is like mine, you will need to scroll down to the end of the page to click the “Next” button, which will take you to the “Choose an action” page of the  application. This is where you select one of a few dozen actions to attach to your selected folder. This is the entire list:

So for example, you may choose the email action which when set up will automatically send a file you drop in your designated folder to the email box of your preselected recipient.

Another useful automation is Downscale, which automatically resizes any picture file, say to 640×480 for web posting.

After you add an automation, scroll to top of the page and select “finished?” or select to add another action to attach to the folder. When you’re finished, Dropbox Automator will confirm the automation you have set up on your designated folder.

When Dropbox Automator runs an action, it typically creates two folders in the designated folder–a “processed” folder for the files that actions were performed upon, and a “result” folder for processed copies of the original files.

Dropbox Automator Account

You can also sign up and create an account on Wappwolf.com to view all its free and paid actions. You can select actions as favorites, view a history of the actions performed on your designated Dropbox folder(s), as well upload files directly to your account to have them processed.

So far, all the listed actions are free except the “Send postcard with your photo” action, which requires the purchase of credits to use.

With Dropbox Automator account, you can perform actions from other sources, including direct upload, your Google Docs account, and other websites.

Wappwolf App

Wappwolf also has its own iPhone and iPad app for file and document handling, from your Dropbox account or other sources.

I tried several Dropbox Automator actions and most worked as described; however, the send to the Twitter action never seemed to work for me.

Let us know how well Dropbox Automator works for you. And for other Dropbox related hacks and tutorials, check our list of articles here.

Great! But for me as a lay reader, the one thing that strikes a discordant note when I am using the free Adobe Reader X is the absence of a bookmarking feature. Just how the heck am I supposed to start from where I left off reading a 1000 page ebook?

Why Adobe would nix out such a basic feature is beyond me, but that forced me to look for solutions as a workaround.

The Easy Way to Remember a Page in Adobe Reader

Adobe Reader does not let you create and place new bookmarks, but there’s one little setting you can apply that will help the software remember the last page that was opened by the PDF reader. It is ‘technically’ not a bookmark, but it’s a handy workaround that takes just a checkmark. Follow the steps below to enable the native feature.

1. In Adobe Reader, go to Edit – Preferences (or CTRL + K).

2. Click on Documents under the listed categories on the left.

3. As shown in the screenshot, enable the feature that says – Restore last view settings when reopening document. Click OK and exit.

Now, open any number of PDF documents; Adobe Reader remembers the page you left it at. This may not be a bookmarking solution, may not give you the option to mark out multiple points in a book, but is a simple elegant answer to our basic requirement when we open up an ebook in a PDF reader.

JavaScript Has the Answer

Call this a plug-in or an Adobe back, but it is the only solution I could find to deliberately introduce a bookmarking feature in Adobe Reader. The small 5KB JavaScript file is packaged in a downloadable ZIP file at PDF Hacks.

1. Download and unzip the small file. Copy it into your Acrobat Reader JavaScript’s directory. In my Win XP machine it is located at – C:\Program Files\Adobe\Reader 10.0\Reader\Javascripts.

2. Open any PDF file with Adobe Acrobat Reader and open the View menu. Four new items are clearly visible under the menu – Bookmark this page, Go to bookmark, Remove bookmark and Clear bookmarks. The numbers (5,6) next to the top two options refers to the keyboard shortcut keys.

3. The functions are pretty much self-explanatory. From the page you want to bookmark, click on Bookmark this page. The following box opens up and you can assign a name to the bookmark.

4. Clicking on Go to bookmark opens up a floating box and a click on each takes you to each successive bookmark you have set. You can bookmark as many numbers of pages as you want.

5. Remove bookmark allows you to remove a single bookmark and Clear bookmarks wipes out all the bookmarks in one go.

Note: For some PDF files, the hack works smoothly. In others, you might get an internal error notification. Right click on a page in the PDF file and click on Page Display Preferences. Under JavaScript, make sure the boxes on the right are checked as in the following screen.

Inspite of the larger memory footprint of Adobe Reader in comparison to other (free) alternatives, there are some benefits like better rendering of PDF documents. The new Sandbox feature has also improved security. But the missing feature of user-bookmarking is an irritant when it comes to readers like you and me. These two simple, no hassle solutions allow us to use Adobe Reader and enjoy a few of its merits.

Do you know of any other way to bookmark ebooks in Adobe Reader? Did these two tips solve your PDF bookmarking issues? Let us know.

When Apple released the iPhone back in 2007, it was different to anything else on the market. It wasn’t the first touchscreen phone, but it was the first one to be so pretty. But as gorgeous as the hardware was, that wasn’t what made the iPhone so great, or what shook the cellphone industry. It was the software which made the iPhone what it was.

Now iOS 5 has been released, providing updates, tweaks and brand new features to make the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad even better and easier to use than before. Want to know what it brings to the table? Download this manual to find out.

DOWNLOAD Using iOS: Your Guide to the Latest and Greatest Mobile Operating System

The guide is free but password-protected. Gain access to the guide by:

1- subscribing to our newsletter (you may do this on the download page itself, link above). Existing subscribers will receive the password via email in the next couple of hours.

OR

2. Simply share the guide on Facebook, Twitter or Google+ on the download page. Quick and easy.

Download this free MakeUseOf guide to learn:

• What iOS 5 is, and which devices you can use it on.
• New features in iOS 5, from reminders to Twitter integration.
• Mastering the new, Android-style dashboard.
• Using the new messaging to send texts for free over WiFi, even from an iPod touch.
• Device-specific features, such as Siri.
• iCloud: what it is and what it does.

DOWNLOAD Using iOS: Your Guide to the Latest and Greatest Mobile Operating System

The guide is free but password-protected. Gain access to the guide by:

1- subscribing to our newsletter (you may do this on the download page itself, link above). Existing subscribers will receive the password via email in the next couple of hours.

OR

2. Simply share the guide on Facebook, Twitter or Google+ on the download page. Quick and easy.

There is a built-in way to read PDFs on the iPad, but it’s not a very good one. But there are lots of free PDF readers in the app store, so how can you know what’s good? Here’s a list of the best PDF readers for the iPad that are totally free and will upgrade your reading experience.

Adobe Reader

Adobe Reader is a simple yet useful PDF reader. Open your PDF file either through e-mail, Safari, or any other app with an “open with…” option (Dropbox, for example). You can’t do anything but read and search with this app, but there are two reading modes: continuous and single page.

The former is a vertical smooth scroll through the document, and the latter lets you turn pages horizontally by tapping the edges. This method skips to the next page rather than scroll through it.

If the PDF has bookmarks, tap the bookmark icon on the bottom right to browse them. You can also create some yourself while you read.

neu.Annotate PDF

neu.Annotate, as the name suggests, is a strong PDF and image annotating tool that is absolutely free. You can’t control how you turn pages here, you can only scroll vertically or tap the arrow buttons at the bottom, and the page doesn’t take up the whole screen which renders the actual PDF somewhat small. But the strong annotating tools make this easy to forget.

With neu.Annotate, you can add text, stamps, shapes and even draw freely directly on your PDF. You can choose from 30 different colors, adjust opacity and choose from 9 different pen widths. You  can use the app to open any saved picture on the iPad and annotate it as well. You can even add and delete pages from the file.

If you need annotation, this is the app for you; if you’re just looking to read, try one of the others.

CloudReaders

CloudReaders is a solid reader which can also open CBZ, ZIP, CBR and RAR files. The reading experience is smooth and done by tapping the right or left side or by sliding your finger on the screen. The page is almost full-screen which makes it easy to read.

As for controls, you can control brightness, lock screen rotation from within the app and switch the entire file to read from right to left, which is a really cool feature if you’re reading in RTL languages.

You can add files by opening through other apps, through iTunes and even through Wi-Fi.

PDFMate

PDFMate is another extremely simple reader which still managed to surprise me with one unique feature. But before we get to that, PDFMate is a full-screen reader with vertical scrolling only (sliding or tapping buttons), which also features brightness controls and the ability to jump from page to page using a scroll bar.

The thing that makes it slightly different is its lockable horizontal position. This means what whatever file you’re reading, you can adjust the zoom to have it full-screen and then lock the horizontal position. The file will stay exactly the way you want it and only vertical scrolling will work.

Load files into PDFMate using iTunes, e-mail or other apps with “open with…” function.

Stanza

If you need your reading experience to be just right, Stanza is hands down the strongest PDF reader of the bunch. Files are truly full-screen which gives an awesome reading experience. Page turning is very smooth and immediate, done by tapping the sides of the screen.

And this is only the beginning of what Stanza can do.There are multiple themes to choose from, night mode reading, search, social sharing and much more. There is, however, no way to annotate a PDF.

If you’re looking for a simple app, this is not it, but with Stanza you can get that perfect reading experience if you just put some thought into it. It might be well worth it.

pdf-notes

 pdf-notes is a useful reading and annotating app. It’s interface is somewhat non-intuitive, but once you jump over that hurdle, pdf-notes is quite fun to use. To start, I couldn’t open my file to pdf-notes directly from Dropbox, but I could link Dropbox to the app. If you do this, you’d have access to your entire Dropbox from pdf-notes. Once you open a file, the pages are big and readable and you turn pages by swiping left and right.

There are several types of annotating tools: pens, markers, colorful sticky notes and an eraser. You can switch colors, control pen width and undo/redo your steps. The interface, as mentioned, is not very intuitive, and at times you’ll find yourself stuck with a tool and unable to get the toolbar to appear again. In this case, find the tool icon at the top left corner and tap it to disable the tool. You will now be able to get your toolbar back.

pdf-notes also lets you control brightness, lock screen rotation, save in multiple formats, easily browse your files’ chapters/bookmarks and tweak multiple other settings. The free PDF reader app is ad supported but the ads are very small and do not disrupt reading.

Final Note

Ready for some reading action? Head over to the App Store and try some of these out. If you’re wondering where iBooks is in this list, well, it certainly can be used for PDFs, but it’s very well known and doesn’t offer anything that these apps don’t. If you’re interested, you can read Bakari’s Best Tips for Using the iBooks as a PDF Reader on Your iPad or iPhone.

Do you know of some more free PDFs readers that were not included? Let us know in the comments!

Image credit: Shutterstock

No need to fear! While Adobe is hush about it, there are a number of different ways to create and edit PDF files for free without using one of Adobe’s paid products. Let’s find out how this is possible.

Using LibreOffice/OpenOffice

LibreOffice/OpenOffice is quite a powerful office suite which you can get for free. While it doesn’t match Microsoft Office’s features 100%, it does include a few of its own. With the free suite, you can edit any document you wish and then export it to PDF.

The only way you can do the same thing directly with the Microsoft Office package is if you have Adobe’s paid tool installed, which will place a plugin into Office.  Or alternatively, if you have Office 2007 or Office 2010 already pre-installed on your system, you can save files as PDF’s there as well.

Converting From PDF To Word

While you can easily create PDFs, editing existing ones is a bit more difficult and requires an additional step. You can use sites like this one to convert any PDF to Doc format, which you can then edit in LibreOffice and export to PDF when it’s complete.

Converting From Word & More To PDF

If you’d prefer not to install a separate office suite just to export documents to PDF format, you can also use an online converter as well. I like this site very much as it does a very good job of converting Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, and PowerPoints as well as images, webpages, and other unnamed file types into PDF format.

To use the site that I mentioned, you are not required to enter in an email address (even though it looks like it does). Instead, you can just choose the file you wish to convert and wait until the process completes, where you can then download the finished PDF.

Use An Online Editor

Speaking of online tools, why even use a converter when you could also create PDFs entirely online without ever needing Office or LibreOffice? You can use tools such as PDFescape to do just that. The service only requires that you use a supported browser (which you are more than likely already using at this very moment). You do not even have to be registered to use it, although registering does offer a couple of benefits, the main benefit being the ability to save PDFs to your online account. Registration, of course, is also free.

Conclusion

Those tools should be enough to cover your needs in terms of editing PDF files for free. Word document editors are powerful enough to do a large variety of formatting. Therefore, for the needs of most users, this should be a very good start to PDF editing. Without much time, you’ll be able to start creating professional looking PDF files that you can distribute to numerous people for whatever purposes.

How easy do you find this process? Do you know of a free tool that handles “advanced” PDF features? Let us know in the comments!