PDFelement is an all-in-one PDF solution allowing users to edit, convert, and optimise documents securely and without any hassle.
At many times, we need to perform a range of operations on PDF documents such as editing and combining them. Various tools exist on the market for this particular reason out of which Wondershare’s PDFelement happens to be one coming up with their latest release for Windows.
This latest release has been proven to have better performance than its predecessor with notable differences such as the software opening time being reduced from 4.5 to 1 second. For this reason, we decided to try our hand at the tool to see how it competes with others.
Editing Functionality
To start with, after downloading & installing it, we’re presented with a home screen in the software which presents us with different options as shown below:
The user interface here comes across as refreshingly simple without being bloated by un-needed features and having a consistent color scheme.
Then, after opening a document using the “open files” option, we have a toolbar that allows us to perform different functions including adding text and editing it using basic functions such as underlining, highlighting areas, adding annotations, adding headers and footers, adding images, adding watermarks and backgrounds, hyperlinking, cropping the document, creating shapes, and much more.
A cool feature was the option to add stamps with pre-defined and custom designs as shown below with the “draft” and “review” stamp added:
Conversion & Optimisation
Moving on, you could convert the existing pdf into other file formats as well including Excel, PowerPoint, images, plain text, a word document, an EPUB document, a rich text file, and even HTML. Batch processing is also available.
On the other hand, for compressing the document to reduce their space, 3 different options were available as shown below:
This is pretty useful, for example, we all may optimize images when uploading them to websites in order to prevent the page from slow loading but PDFs are rarely dealt with in the same way bringing a good choice to the table.
On the other hand, if you need help editing an un-editable PDF document, the software can help you now use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to extract text by scanning the PDF.
Securing Documents
Coming to the security side under the protect tab, we have the option to redact parts of the document either directly or by automating it using the “search and redact” option. This is great for those dealing every day with sensitive documents that need to be published.
For example, if we as a cybersecurity magazine need to publish a leaked document when covering a news piece, we could redact sensitive portions like credentials. However, I did have some difficulty getting the tool to work hinting at the need to increase the ease of use.
Lastly, in the page tab, we have the option to treat the entire document as a canvas getting a decent “overview” of all the pages with the option to add blank ones in between. Things like labels could also be assigned to the pages.
Collaboration
While working on a document alone is quite easy, it can get tricky when others need to collaborate with you. Thankfully, this new version makes it easy to do so by introducing a cloud-storage function that allows you to share the document with unlimited users and get their input such as electronic signatures on the document.
What’s even better here is that read-made templates are available and you could also send the document to get signatures otherwise if not through the cloud-storage function.
Explore more new features in Wondershare PDFelement.
To conclude, the software is a decent one with cool options and plenty of functionality but needs to focus on the fact that with the availability of online options, many may not decide to go through the hassle of downloading it and may just go the easy way. If we see it as an alternative to Adobe Acrobat as the company states so, then it makes sense why they went this route.
Secondly, they need to work on the user interface to make it easier and more relevant with existing design norms. As for Apple & Android users, it is available on the two platforms as well. During the Christmas season, you can enjoy up to a 50% discount on this complete PDF solution.
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