AnyBizSoft PDF Editor for Mac – BookMystique Review
The PDF (Portable Document Format) computer document file format was originally created by Adobe Systems in 1993 as a cross-platform document exchange standard that could contain both text and graphics information. PDF use got a major boost on the Mac platform with the introduction of Mac OS X, whose Quartz graphics layer is highly compatible with the PDF format. The Mac OS X graphics system natively supports PDF, which in turn enables practically any Mac application to display, as well as create and print PDF files conveniently, by simply using the Print command.
OS X’s built-in Preview application also offers a full-featured PDF viewing experience complete with searching and basic annotation capabilities, so Mac users can annotate PDF documents without buying any special software. Just open the PDF in Preview, navigate to where you want to insert a note, select “Annotate” from the Tools menu or click the Annotate icon in Preview’s button bar and a palette of annotation tool icons will appear at the bottom of the Preview window. Select “Add Note” and annotate away.
OS X’s printing system also takes full advantage of the PDFs resolution independence to deliver quality printing output on inkjet and PostScript printers. There are also some added PDF features such as when you hover over any multi-page PDF file displayed in Icon View (in larger sizes) in the Finder, two arrows will appear over the document’s icon that you can click on to flip through the PDF’s entire content without leaving the Mac’s desktop. The OS X Finder’s Quick View feature of course also works to view the first page of any PDF document.
Downsides of PDF have been that it is relatively bulky compared with plain or formatted text formats, originally didn’t support hyperlinks (although it does now), and most critically that that it is primarily a display format that does not readily support content editing unless one has Adobe’s expensive (currently $449.00) Adobe Acrobat application, although recent versions of the freeware downloadable Adobe Reader (formerly Acrobat Reader) have included very limited content creation functions like document signing.
However, Wondershare Software Co., Ltd.’s new AnyBizSoft PDF Editor application for the Macintosh platform sells for $49.95, making it a much more reasonably-priced alternative for users who need to be able to convert PDF files to the de facto industry-standard Microsoft Word 2008/2011 file format for editing, preserving original fonts and formatting in most cases, as well as light duty editing of text and images, annotating or adding comments to PDF documents from within the PDF document itself, as opposed to “PDF Editor” apps (like Preview) that only work to insert annotations or limited page contents.
Key features of PDF Editor Mac include:
• Edits PDF documents (including encrypted ones), with the ability to add, delete, copy, and move text within the PDF with automatic font matching
• Allows you to add, delete, crop, re-size or move images within a PDF
• Lets you extract a PDF (including encrypted ones) into a fully editable Microsoft Word 2008/2011 document while preserving fonts and document formatting/layout
• Supports adding comments to PDF files including text highlighting, underline, or strike-through. With PDF Editor Mac you can annotate PDF documents with the program’s drawing tools, including arrows, lines, ovals, and more. It also lets you add links to PDF files for easier navigation.
• Lets you add, correct, copy, move, and delete text in PDF files directly
• Supports auto-matching system fonts for editing embedded font text
• Supports insert, crop, resize, move, and delete functions for images and graphics (.jpg, .png, .tif, .bmp, etc.)
• Lets you add and modify PDF properties
The Annotate buttons in the toolbar give you quick access to commands for adding sticky notes, text boxes, arrows, lines, rectangles, ovals, polygons, and clouds, plus pencil, eraser, add sticky note or text box commands to overlay existing page contents, and a highlight, underline, and strikethrough tool for existing text. Text Boxes can resized and edited. You can also scribble wherever you like over PDF pages using the pencil and eraser tools. All commands are on the toolbar or you can select them from the Annotate menu.
The Inspector button on the Toolbar brings up Document Information, Security and Properties. You can also change document information such as Title, Author, Subject and Keywords with the Inspector, as well as view the document’s security information and customize the fill color, stroke color and stroke width for selected objects or annotations in Properties.
To add text, select the Add Text button on the Toolbar and locate the text box in the document where you to add the text. Click and drag the text box to a specific size. Text will be automatically adjusted to the size of the box. An odd quirk is that text in PDF Editor’s text boxes doesn’t automatically wrap in (it does in the sticky notes) and it will break up words randomly where they hit the right-hand wall unless you insert manual carriage returns, and you have to use your keyboard’s Enter key on the numerical keypad for doing that, as the Return key on the main keyboard doesn’t get a response. You can specify font, typeface, size and font color by choosing Preference -> Edition from PDF Editor menu.
If you want to edit existing PDF text, for example, delete, add or correct text to the original content instead of overlaying a textbox above the page, you need to click the Touchup button on the Toolbar. Double-click the text, and a frame appears. You can modify content within the frame.
The Sidebar button toggles the application window sidebar. The default sidebar is thumbnails of your PDF pages. You can opt to show bookmarks, annotations or searched results in the sidebar. You can also customize the toolbar content.
To add a hyperlink to PDF file, click on the pencil icon in the annotation buttons and choose the Link button from the pull down menu. You can then select an area to add a URL link to any page in the PDF file.
As for the Convert To Word function, I wasn’t able to give it a full test for maintaining formatting accuracy because I don’t have Microsoft Word except for an old copy of Word 5.1 dating back to 1993 that still runs in OS X Classic Mode on my Pismo PowerBooks booted from OS 10.4. I use the extremely cool little freeware rich text editor/minimal word processor Bean, and Google Docs for handling Word docs when necessary, and both opened word files converted from PDFs by AnyBizSoft PDF Editor with the original document’s text formatting reasonably intact although not 100 percent, but Bean doesn’t support inline graphics, while Google Docs displays them, but puts them on another page from the text. I’m guessing that results might well have been closer to the original with the documents opened in Word, but can’t confirm without Word.
In general, II found that AnyBizSoft PDF Editor works reasonably well for adding annotations or light duty content editing. Its most serious shortcoming is that its features are not particularly intuitive to use and the online Help could be a lot more helpful than it is. I deduce that some points in the user instructions have been rendered vague and even confusing in translation, but the instructions are bare-bones minimal at best and need to be expanded on substantially. I was able to figure out most of the features whose operation details I found less than clear in the online Help by experimentation, but it took some time.
So, is AnyBizSoft PDF Editor Mac worth having? That depends on your needs. If they are relatively modest and you just need a tool to do annotations, minor edits, and Microsoft Word file conversions with PDF documents, it should do the trick nicely once you figure out how to use it. This program is nowhere in the same league as Adobe Acrobat in terms of capabilities, but that’s hardly a fair comparison given that Acrobat sells for nine times as much.
The best approach is to download the free AnyBizSoft PDF Editor Mac demo, which has all features enabled but watermarks to edited/extracted documents, and is limited to five MS Word conversions, which allows you to check out the program before making any cash commitment.
To learn more or to download PDF Editor Mac, visit:
http://www.wondershare.com
and
http://www.wondershare.com/mac-pdf-editor/