How Adobe Reader Stacks Up to Alternatives

by Larry Seltzer

When they call it “Reader,” they mean it. Alone among the PDF viewers in this story, Adobe’s does not let you save any changes to the document.

Other products touch on the use of digital signatures, but Adobe Reader has the strongest support for it, including enterprise tools for ensuring the trustworthiness of documents from inside and out.

Foxit is strong as a reader and has a good selection of markup tools, letting you make a document of your own.

PDF-XChange Viewer has a more elaborate selection of markup tools–but also some weaknesses in filling out forms.

CoolPDF has a slideshow mode that shows users all the pages in a document without having to press a key.

Too elaborate for a viewer and not powerful enough for a professional editor or producer, CAD-KAS PDF Reader might appeal to those looking for a low-end editor.

With that Office 2007 look to it, soft Xpansion Perfect PDF Reader 5 is great for reading PDFs, but it includes some unrelated features, such as listing fonts. The program can eat memory with the best of them.

I tested the English version of soft Xpansion Perfect PDF Reader, but the Help program was in German, and the user guide it showed was just a cover sheet.