Wondershare PDFelement

Not everything related to professional PDF editing has to be connected with an Adobe license fee. Wondershare PDFelement is proof of it.

This comprehensive and professional PDF utility is capable of creating, editing, converting, and protecting any PDF file with the same efficiency and even with greater simplicity than most of its competitors, including Adobe Acrobat.

The program’s official website claims that editing a PDF file using PDFelement is as simple as editing a text file using Microsoft Word. And they are not exaggerating—changing fonts, substituting existing words or entire paragraphs, and adding images and shapes couldn’t be more intuitive. The results are equally outstanding, far from the rigidness that its Adobe counterpart shows in a number of instances.

The claim that, compared to its main competitor, PDFelement ‘provides equally powerful features’ is not extremely accurate. Actually, Wondershare’s program includes features that I can’t find in Acrobat — or, when also present, pale in comparison — and lacks tools that some of us consider of great importance when dealing with PDF files.

An example of the former is the option to create a new PDF file from scratch. Present in both monster tools, the one offered by PDFelement is just as intuitive and rewarding as its editing tool. Hence, the comparison with Word when talking about editing is also true here — creating a new PDF is as simple as creating a new text-based file.

As for the latter, PDFelement lacks the entire Accessibility section present in Acrobat. This may not be as well-known as other features, but it is a full package that allows PDF editors and creators to produce PDF files that can be read and enjoyed by persons with a print disability (with the logical limitations imposed by the image-based nature of a PDF file). PDFelement does come with an OCR engine, which can at least make a scanned PDF file ‘readable’ in some way for those who can’t see.

The license fee required is certainly not as high as its main competitor’s flagship tool, making it an excellent alternative for businesses, but some individual users will still find it a bit on the high side. However, we all know that professional tools are not cheap, and those who yield high-quality results are meant to be more on the expensive side. Having said that, PDFelement is probably the best alternative tool to the mother-of-all-PDF-editors I’ve come across so far.