The Portable Document Format (PDF) is Adobe’s standard, thanks to which document files can be easily exchanged with other users. The big advantage is that the documents look the same on every device. If you deal with such files, you need a viewer. The best known is the software solution from Adobe; alternative readers are often slimmer and promise increased security. The applications not only display PDFs, but also create them themselves, combine them and share them. Unlike Adobe, no paid subscription is required for this. Below are the best programs to master the format.

Included are special encryption tools that ensure access protection. One of the tools even does this without having to enter a password in the future.

These tools open, create, edit and convert PDF files

Create and edit PDF files

Opening PDF files is not difficult on the recent operating systems. If you want to create and edit such documents, you need additional software like the PDF24 Creator. The tool generates PDFs via the program’s own interface or virtual printer. An OCR engine (Ooptical Ccharacter Recognition, text recognition) makes PDF files searchable by adding a text layer to them. Another function compresses the documents and thus reduces their storage space requirements.

Download PDF24 Creator

PDF24 Creator alternatives

alternatives are PDF Creator and Nitro PDF Reader, with which you can also produce PDFs. With the Nitro program, you work in a modern ribbon interface and edit PDFs, adding notes and coloring text. Note that the Nitro PDF Reader requires the 32-bit version for Windows 32-bit and the 64-bit version for Windows 64-bit. While 64-bit programs like Nitro software generally do not run on Windows 32-bit, 32-bit programs actually work on 64-bit operating systems, with the exception of Nitro. You should therefore only use the PDF reader if its number of bits matches that of Windows. Nitro PDF Reader 32-bit therefore does not work under Windows 11, as this is only available with 64-bit. Below you can download the current and modern 64-bit version of Nitro PDF Reader.

Download Nitro PDF Reader (64-bit).

PDF Mixer: Change PDF page order and remove pages

With the PDF Blender rearrange the pages of PDF files. After importing a file, you can see its individual pages and arrange them in any order. You can delete individual pages if you wish. In this way, you can keep the size of the file as compact as possible, for example for sending by e-mail. Documents can optionally be provided with a password to restrict opening by other users. Only those who know the phrase look at the content. In view of free software, praiseworthy: the solution does not watermark newly created PDFs. The user interface is not very clear, but functional.

Windows printer driver & PDF browser features

Incidentally, the importance of a file format is shown when Microsoft integrates support for it into the operating system. Happened with PDF 2012: Windows 8 displays corresponding files with its viewer app, since Windows 10 the Edge browser takes care of it. Edge Legacy used to do that, now Chromium-Edge. The first Microsoft system with PDF export was Windows 10: It has the printer driver “Microsoft Print to PDF”; call up the print dialog in a printable program with Ctrl-P, start a (virtual) print and transfer the result to a file.

do something similar PDF24 Creator, PDF Creator and Nitro PDF Reader – which produce new PDFs in an identical way under Windows 7/8.1. Under Windows 10 and Windows 11, the tools are worthwhile because of their higher number of functions compared to Microsoft’s Print to PDF.

Modern browsers are equipped for PDF generation: Google Chrome pushed ahead here years ago. The program has an entry in the print menu (press Ctrl-P) that virtually prints out the currently open website. This redirects to a file. Then you have a PDF copy. Opera also offers this, in addition you can create a PDF backup in the Chrome twin by right-clicking on a loaded website thanks to a context menu entry. Firefox didn’t offer a PDF creation option for a long time, but Mozilla changed that with an update some time ago.

Merge PDFs

For applications, cover letter, curriculum vitae and scanned certificates must be combined as a PDF. PDFsam (PDF Split and Merge) turns several of these files into one complete file – or separates long documents into individual files. When merging PDF files, you determine their order in the new document. In the past, an installed Java runtime environment was required for use, but no longer. You can find instructions in the article “Merge PDF: How it works for free”.

Download PDFsam (PDF Split and Merge).

Windows 10 and 11 handle numerous PDF-related tasks better than their predecessors, but they only master the portable document format in a very rudimentary manner. This includes sharing PDFs. You can do this by printing out a PDF several times in the print dialog and only considering certain pages (areas) – but that’s not fun. Additional software such as PDFsam makes it much easier to use.

Open PDF files with solutions from Adobe & Co.

The most well-known PDF program is the Adobe Acrobat Reader, which works solidly. With Adobe Acrobat Web, the manufacturer offers a number of quite new PDF tools for use in the browser. Use it to convert and edit documents. First you upload them, after your work you download them again.

Download Adobe Acrobat ReaderDC

Alternative PDF viewers include, for example Foxit Reader and PDF XChange Editor. The provider is no longer developing the PDF-XChange Viewer variant – which is not tragic, because the editor is functionally more extensive: It reads PDFs (in professional Adobe Photoshop manner) with a double-click, opens hosted ones via a URL input PDFs and generates the files. Foxit used to do the latter, but not anymore. The good thing about the tool is its clear ribbon interface.

Download Foxit Reader

Download PDF XChange Editor

Although the main task of Nitro PDF Reader (!) is opening document files, it is a PDF creator. You can generate PDFs via a print dialog or with an interface command. It is similarly flexible Foxit Reader, which also has a modern ribbon interface. You can adjust their coloring thanks to the supplied themes (“skins”). You can only edit PDF files to a limited extent.

This is understandable, because the format is intended to make manipulation more difficult, for example when used for applications or invoices. With Nitro PDF Reader you edit PDFs at least superficially: you add notes and mark important places in color. If you export the text content of the documents as a TXT file, you have more editing options. However, formatting and images are lost.

Redact PDF files

To redact PDF files, there are Windows tools like the PDF Editor. You mark tricky text passages with the mouse, in newly generated document files they are painted over darkly. If you don’t want to install anything, you can alternatively use a web app like Redact PDF from PDF24.

Download PDF Editor