365 Discoveries

Screenshot of PDF-XChange Viewer in action

The portable document format, known as a PDF to most, is a terrific way to share documents online without worrying about whether or not your recipient has the appropriate operating system,  software or  software version, basically to ensure that it arrives the way you sent it, among other things. Adobe Reader has become the defacto standard program to view PDF files and it usually does just fine, but I’ve never been known to leave anything well enough alone. Reader was always just too slow for any PDF viewing. I rejoiced when Google introduced the feature on their search engine to view PDF results as a HTML render; the same goes for Gmail.

Looking for a little more excitement (and an new option for a recently reformatted laptop of mine), I looked around for lightweight viewers. I found Foxit PDF Reader which is quick to load, and allows annotations, highlighting, and, most importantly, typing on the PDF for saving or printing. Another alternative is the PDF-XChange Viewer (screenshot shown) which loads a little more slowly (though, still years faster than Reader) but has a plethora of tools including drawing, copying, text boxes, typewriter mode, and even a smaller portable version.

On a similar note: Need to create a PDF, or convert a file for a friend lacking the software? Try PrimoPDF. I use it most often to save online confirmations or receipts as PDFs instead of physically printing them. I’ve also used it for posting resumes, or PowerPoint files as PDFs with no worry that the end-user didn’t have the latest version of Office.