Best Brands of PDF Software Made for Businesses

Documentation is a vital part of a business. It doesn’t only serve as a form of formality, but it brings benefits to an organization.

But in a survey conducted by BP Trends in 2020, only 1.5% of organizations document all their processes. Meanwhile, less than 25% model and document.

Most organizations or businesses avoid documenting all their processes as it is a tedious job, requiring effort and even an additional cost. But documentation, especially in some industries like finance, healthcare, and insurance companies, is vital.

There is plenty of PDF software in the market, and it delivers advanced features that can transform what businesses thought of documentation management.

But what qualities would you need to consider if a PDF software program is good enough for carrying out business documentation?

As stated earlier, there are plenty of PDF applications you can choose from, which is an advantage and disadvantage at the same time. With multiple competitive choices, it would be hard to narrow down which one can provide your business what you need. However, on the other hand, it gives you options to try other products when one software doesn’t work.

Elements or Features to Consider when Choosing a PDF Software

Easy to Use

There is nothing much better than working on software programs that are easy to use or requires less effort and time to learn. You and your employees value your time when working, so a software program that can provide you with simple features can help you move on with your business.

Features seen in PDF software should be straightforward and requires less time to find and learn.

Permits Collaboration

Collaboration is what all businesses need for a more efficient and productive outcome. Collaboration among employees can bring positive output and changes to a business. Therefore, using a PDF tool that promotes productivity should be a feature to consider.

It should allow multiple users to manage, edit, and view a single document. In addition, it includes shared review and annotation as part of an effective software program.

Security

Business documents contain essential and confidential information. Therefore, when choosing a PDF program, it is crucial to check on its security feature. PDF applications should have the ability to protect your documents by adding limited access ability, password, certificate protection, and ability to give or revoke editing permission.

Scanning and OCR Ability

Manual paperwork is tedious. It may provide benefits, but going digital or paperless outweighs the advantages. PDF software nowadays can turn your paperwork or physical documents into an editable PDF. Hence, it reduces the time to encode the whole document.

Furthermore, Optical Character Recognition (OCR) is an advanced technology incorporated in PDF programs to convert images of your documents into editable and searchable content. It can also identify the words or alt text within the image.

Allows Viewing, Editing, and Sharing

You don’t only use a PDF program to read your documents. You’ll need one that gives you the ability to read, edit, and share it with your team. PDF documentation software that works best for your business should be flexible to allow editing of its content from text to images, conversion of files to formats that can be shared and view in other programs, insertion of digital signature, and more.

Affordable

PDF Software programs for individual use are affordable but are less likely to support those who need them for business purposes. Advanced and Enterprise plans are the best options for organizations that require document management software.

There are business PDF programs that are made affordable. Some software brands offer a one-time payment option, while others have a subscription plan.

Choosing an affordable option depends on your budget or need. One-time payment can be best if you are looking into avoiding monthly costs and work with your documents without worrying if you have paid your plan. Meanwhile, subscription plans are easy on the pocket and get the latest updates when available.

24/7 Support and Customer Service

Having accessible and premium quality support and customer services can help whenever you have questions about the software. Of course, you’ll need support or a technical team available to offer help when needed.

Most software for businesses includes premium technical and customer support.

Now you have an idea of what you need on a PDF software program. It’s about time to look at top brands of PDF software.

Kofax

Kofax is one of the leading names in document management, invoice processing, and automated software that uses Robotic Process Automation, OCR, Intelligent Automation, and digital technology to create a better business solution.

Multiple industries have trusted Kofax to manage their documents, from the healthcare sector to the financial industries.

Kofax Power PDF

Kofax offers different Power PDF plans from their Standard to Enterprise solutions. Each has features that are unique and designed for businesses and organizations.

Power PDF provides powerful tools, such as Kofax scanning, collaboration features, and highly secured documents.

• Power PDF Standard
• Kofax Power PDF Advanced
• Kofax Power PDF Enterprise (contact for pricing and quotation)

All Kofax Power PDF versions have the same basic features. But as you upgrade your plan, you get advanced features designed for your business.

• Create Different File Types

Power PDF allows the creation of files or documents and converting them to your desired file type. You can save and convert it to a Word, Excel, or PowerPoint format. You can also convert PDF files without running any Microsoft application and turn images or media into a searchable and editable PDF file format.

• Collaboration Made Easy

Whatever device you use, you can share your work with your team and in the cloud for faster and easier collaboration. It comes with an Intelligent Search feature to scan for content like email address, Social Security number, and more. You can also highlight or underline content automatically, compare with other documents, preview PDF attachments on Outlook, add and view comments, use markup tools, and migrate comments.

• Multiple Editing Options

Power PDF gives users an easy way to edit their documents. In just a few steps, you can add, edit, and do more. You can Batch process multiple documents, edit directly in Power PDF like a Word Processor, perform any command (copy, paste, resize, move, and so on), fix PDF/A compliance issues, and more.

• Kofax Scanning

Kofax is compatible with multiple scanners and mostly industry-leading types. Furthermore, it utilizes the Kofax OCR to use the most advanced scanning technology. Turn your physical documents into digital copies without the need to encode the whole document. Get every detail into a digital copy and convert them to editable PDFs.

• Kofax OCR

OCR is a vital technology that businesses can use for scanning and preparing digital documents. Kofax’s built-in OCR scan through PDF files and make content searchable, even images. It reduces the time-consuming task of re-typing the whole document.

OCR is more than turning your documents into digital copies. It helps in safeguarding files, data entry automation, and indexing documents for search engine purposes.

For businesses, OCR proves to bring a lot of advantages, and here are some of them:

• Helps in customer services
• Conversion made easy
• Improves productivity
• Automation of invoices
• Easy retrieval of data or information

All Power PDF is compatible with Windows devices. Mac is only compatible with Kofax Power PDF Standard.

If you own the old version of Power PDF, whether it’s the Nuance Power PDF, Power PDF 3 Advanced, and Standard, you can get an upgrade of Kofax Power PDF. Those using Nuance Power PDF get a discount coupon for a Kofax upgrade. Since Nuance has been bought by Kofax, it isn’t available anymore.

You can try the Power PDF (Advanced and Standard) for free for 15 days.

OmniPage Ultimate

Another Kofax product that’s worth investing in for managing documents is OmniPage Ultimate. It is an OCR software that can help save time for you and your employees. The Ultimate package is designed for small to large-scaled businesses, transforming paper files and documents into an editable and sharable format.

• OCR Solution

Transform your paper documents and other important files into an editable and sharable format to enhance productivity for you and your team. With Ultimate’s sophisticated and highly exceptional OCR technology, you get to convert your paper documents to an accurate digital form. Furthermore, you can convert the digital document into various formats.

• Work with Any Scanner

No matter what scanner you use, an all-in-one printer, mobile scanner, desktop scanner, and multi-functional printers, it is compatible with OmniPage. Also, you can use a digital camera or a mobile phone camera to take photos of documents and convert them into editable text documents.

• PDF Search

The eDiscovery Assistant can accurately create searchable PDF documents, whether it’s a single PDF or batch PDFs. Now, you can be more productive as you can manage multiple files.

• Batch Processing

OmniPage Ultimate enhances productivity by managing a large volume of files. You can set a schedule to process documents in folders and email in real-time.

• Launchpad

OmniPage’s Launchpad makes conversion faster and convenient to various document formats and easily access files on any device.

• Supports Various Formats and Languages

Work with any language as Ultimate can recognize up to 120 languages, and it allows editing and sharing any format from PDF to ePub.

OmniPage Ultimate is only compatible with Windows users only.

Adobe

Adobe Acrobat is the ultimate PDF software and the leading name in the industry. It works powerfully as Kofax products. But, it does have other features that make it stand out from its competitors. Adobe Acrobat is the most commonly used PDF program by businesses and even for home use.

Adobe offers a subscription plan and a one-time purchase license. So, you get the option on how you want to pay for your software. One downside to Adobe product is that it is expensive and has far more complicated features that require some time to learn.

• Adobe Acrobat Pro DC
• Acrobat DC for teams
• Acrobat DC for Enterprise

Adobe Acrobat Pro DC Features

• PDF Editing

Acrobat allows editing of files, whether its text or images, add highlights, merge PDFs, rotate, and perform other editing properties.

• Convert Files

The use of OCR technology allows you to scan and turn physical documents into editable and searchable text and images. Moreover, Acrobat supports the conversion of PDF to other forms such as Word, PowerPoint, Excel, JPG, and vice versa. It also supports the conversion of HTML or web pages to PDF form.

• Sharing and Collaboration

Collaborative tools are a vital feature in PDF software. It helps team members work together in a single document to finish on time and enhance productivity. Acrobat supports sharing of files, commenting, and viewing. Furthermore, you get to protect your files by allowing access to those who can editing, copy, or print your file. You can also opt to add or remove the password for protection. Get real-time changes and comments.

• Signature

With Acrobat, you can add e-signature to your files for legal binding, add certificate signature, create fillable PDF forms, add stamps to your PDFs, and even reduce the size of your file by changing its settings.

Acrobat DC for teams

It has similar features as the Pro DC version with the addition of the following:

• Add or reassign licenses
• Get 24/7 premium tech support
• Works with Microsoft 365 and SharePoint
• Deploys users using Adobe ID
• PDFs are protected with Microsoft Information Protection solutions
• With customization wizard

Acrobat DC for Enterprise has all features present in Adobe DC for Team with the addition of the ability to assign multiple admins and deploy with users using Federal ID (SSO), Enterprise ID, and Adobe ID.

ABBYY FineReader PDF

Abbyy FineReader is known to be one of the best PDF software alongside Adobe and Kofax. PC Mag gave Abbyy a 4.5 rating out of 5.

It offers plans for individuals, small businesses, and enterprises.

What makes ABBYY FineReader an Outstanding PDF Software?

• Edit Documents

View files in a convenient way, edit content, and merge files with no difficulties. You can copy and paste content from other PDF documents without changing the format and search content easily, as FineReader converts all a document’s content using the OCR technology to make it searchable. Furthermore, you can turn scanned forms into fillable PDF forms.

• Collaboration

Work with your teammates effortlessly as Abbyy FineReader provides flexible and user-friendly tools to improve collaboration and enhance productivity. Use Mark up and Annotation tools to add or modify comments or a section of your PDF. The Comment tool allows team members to share ideas and comments for better discussion and collaboration. Share documents to others, search comments, and add stamps.

• Secure and Protect Files

Permanently remove sensitive information or comments on PDF files, get rid of hidden data from text layers added by OCR, protect or restrict access with a password, and authenticate files by adding a signature.

• File Conversion

Create various PDF files using different formats, whether it’s from a paper document. You can also turn PDF to Word, Excel, or PowerPoint and convert paper documents to editable files.

Abbyy offers a one-time payment plan -FineReader PDF 15 Standard, Corporate, and FineReader Pro for Mac. Meanwhile, their business plan offers licensing volume, solutions for remote users, and network licensing.

WonderShare PDFelement Pro

Another competitive name in documentation and PDF management is WonderShare PDFelement. It’s one of the most flexible PDF programs as it is compatible with Windows, Mac, and iOS devices. Furthermore, it is the most affordable document management and PDF program in the market, with an option to own the license for less than $200 or lease it.

The Pro version is designed for small businesses and enterprises. It is packed with easy-to-navigate features and allows users to access their files anywhere they go.

• PDFelement Pro allows seamless editing of files with different formats, including scanned files.
• Convert your PDF files and vice versa to desired formats. Commonly known formats it can convert to are Word, Excel, and PowePoint. It won’t affect the original format of the document.
• Collaborate with your team by commenting or annotating files in a single pane.
• Get real-time updates or comments on the file.
• Add signature for authentication and contract execution.
• Convert or create fillable forms.
• Secure files by controlling who can access, view, edit, print, or copy your file.
• Delete sensitive information permanently.
• It is equipped with OCR technology.
• It supports Microsoft Office plugins (from Office 2007 to the latest edition).

For PDFelement Business, it includes deployment on MSI through GPO, Windows SCCM, CitrixTM, and more. It allows licensing management and has premium technical support.

Conclusion

Using PDF Software to manage your documents and turn your paperwork into digital format can help businesses in multiple ways. It secures files, allows collaboration and sharing, permits editing, and utilizes advanced technology such as OCR to build and help businesses improve.