Conceived as a free suite of PDF-related tools and functions, PDF24 Creator has gathered under one unique user interface all those basic PDF editing tools that are usually only available as part of highly priced PDF editors. Now you can split a PDF file, extract some pages, add images, or text boxes, compress a PDF file, extract its images, protect it, or even unlock it without paying any overpriced license fees.
A free tool – or rather, free all-in-one collection of tools – as multifaceted as PDF24 Creator has always its pros and cons. Complaining about a completely free tool does not sound right, and that is why I will merely point out those things that have ample room for improvement instead. The main interface, which is also the main menu of the program, seems to be made out of bits and pieces, a puzzle of standalone tools that are not always correctly interconnected with the main menu – some lack a key to go back to where you came from, resulting in a total shutdown of the program whenever you leave that “menu option” for good. A number of the 30 utilities provided are usually nothing but “options” of the same functionality. I know – putting all those options together in a single program would reduce the number of total tools provided, but also the time it takes to the user to move between tools (especially, when there is no way of going back to the main menu). This is true for the Rotate, Remove, Extract, and Sort PDF pages options, which are presented as four different programs here, or the pairs Merge-Split PDF, Protect-Unlock, or Images to PDF and PDF to images plus Extract PDF images.
The programs, options, or utilities in themselves are pretty useful and quite straightforward in most cases. The Edit PDF tool is very basic, allowing you to add images, shapes, or text “on top” of the existing ones – changing the old text or layout is not possible with this tool. However, you will find an easy-to-use OCR engine to turn scanned PDFs into searchable ones, a technology that you won’t find in all PDF tools. Other utilities that I find terribly useful are the Web Optimize PDF and the Compress PDF options, which eases the pain of distributing and viewing large PDF files on the Web.
PDF24 Creator has many other features and functions, though some of them are less frequently used (Compare PDFs, PDF Overlay, or Add Page Numbers, to name some of them), but they’re all equally interesting and nice to have on our desktops. Despite the cons mentioned above, this is a great to tool to download and keep on our PCs and laptops – seeing the popularity of the PDF format, you never know when you are going to need a couple of this free program’s many tools.
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