PDF-XChange Editor Plus

Overview

The first thing anyone notices about PDF-XChange Editor is that documents appear immediately. A three hundred page scanned report that makes other viewers think for several seconds is on screen before you have let go of the mouse. That speed is not a trick of lazy rendering either, since search, text selection and thumbnail generation are all equally quick, and it holds up on files with heavy vector content that usually bring a viewer to its knees.

The Plus edition is the one worth having, because it adds form creation and the portfolio tools to the already generous editor. This build is posted with the license applied, which means no evaluation stamp across saved output, no watermark on pages touched by a Plus only feature, and no nag on launch. Everything in the ribbon is live, including OCR, redaction and the comparison tool.

Editing a PDF that was never meant to be edited

Direct text editing works on paragraph blocks rather than single runs, so changing a sentence reflows the rest of the block instead of leaving a ragged gap. Font matching picks up the embedded face where one exists and substitutes sensibly where it does not, and you can see which it chose before committing. Images can be replaced, cropped, moved and resampled in place.

Page level work is where the editor really earns its keep. Insert, extract, rotate, crop, resize, reorder, split by bookmark, merge from a folder, and stamp headers or numbering across a range, all from a page thumbnail panel that accepts drag and drop between open documents. Batch operations run across a folder without scripting.

OCR, search and scanned documents

The bundled OCR engine turns a scan into searchable text either as an invisible layer under the original image or as a full text replacement. Language packs for the common European and Cyrillic sets are included, and accuracy on a clean 300 dpi scan is high enough that the result is usable for search without proofreading.

Search itself covers open documents, a folder, or a saved search scope, with regular expression support and a results panel that keeps context lines. On a large archive of scanned material this combination replaces a document management system for a lot of small offices.

Forms, review and redaction

Form creation covers text fields, checkboxes, radio groups, dropdowns, list boxes, buttons and digital signature fields, with JavaScript actions if you need calculation or validation. Existing forms can be flattened, imported and exported as data, and a form can be filled and saved without any of the restrictions that some viewers place on saved form data.

Review tools include the full annotation set, sticky notes, highlights, callouts, measuring tools and stamps, plus a comment summary that exports to a separate document. Redaction is proper redaction: marked content is removed from the file rather than covered with a black rectangle, and the tool will search for a pattern and mark every hit across the document before you apply.

Security and output

Documents can be encrypted with password or certificate security, signed with a digital certificate, and checked against a signature. Permissions can be set per document for printing, copying and modification. The comparison tool diffs two revisions and highlights added, removed and moved content, which beats reading both side by side.

Output covers PDF/A for archiving, image export at a chosen resolution, plain text extraction and a Word export that is better than it has any right to be on a well structured file. The bundled virtual printer prints to PDF from anything that can print at all.

What you get

• Extremely fast rendering, search and thumbnail generation
• Direct text editing with paragraph reflow and font matching
• Full page management with batch operations across folders
• Bundled OCR with multiple language packs
• Form creation with fields, actions and JavaScript validation
• Complete annotation, measuring and stamp toolset
• True redaction with pattern search across a document
• Password and certificate security, digital signing and verification
• Document comparison with added, removed and moved highlighting
• PDF/A output, image export, text extraction and Word export
• Virtual PDF printer included

Inside the archive

• PDF-XChange Editor Plus, offline installer, 32-bit and 64-bit
• PDF-XChange virtual printer component
• OCR language pack set
• Interface language packs
• Readme covering which components the setup should install

System requirements

Installing it

1. Unpack the archive to a local folder.
2. Turn off real time protection before running setup.
3. Choose a custom install if you do not want the browser plug-in or the virtual printer.
4. Finish the install and launch the editor once to confirm the title bar does not say evaluation.
5. Add the OCR language packs you need from the setup options rather than downloading them later.

Mirrors

Release history

Questions about this release

Comments

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