NitroPDF
A non-windows program that runs only on windows. This program is supposed to provide greater edit functionality than Acrobat but the amount of time it would take you to learn their unique interface means that it could be a long time (if at all) before you can use it productively.
My Rating: 
Pros
- It does not interfere with any other programs on your computer. It doesn't even update any file associations unless you ask it to.
- Demo version available so you can see for yourself how it looks before you buy it.
Cons
- Requires administrator access to install and then asks for a serial number during the install. As the serial number I had was in an email only accessible from my user login I had to swap back and forth between logins several times just to be able to install the program. It also meant that I couldn't copy/paste the serial number but had to manually type a long string of random characters.
- Has its own non-standard interface so learning how to use the program is just like learning how to use Windows all over again.
- Claims to have better edit capability than Acrobat but the copy function is assigned to a non-standard shortcut and I couldn't even find cut or paste at all.
- You need to change modes to be able to test form entry and when you do select the right mode the program puts ugly yellow blocks all over the page.
Description
- NitroPDF version 5.3.1
- Released: 5/8/2007
- Produced by Nitro PDF Pty Ltd
Review
Non-Windows programs that run on Windows are fairly rare. Most such programs I have come across before have either been ports from some other operating system or are accounting software (much of which has been ported from DOS but some of which has been written for Windows by people who don't understand Windows). NitroPDF is the first program that I have come across that isn't a port from some other platform (it runs only on Windows) and which has nothing to do with accounting but which still hasn't been written to use Windows. Instead they have made the program much larger than it needs to be in order to incorporate their own non-standard interface that might provide all the functionality for editing PDFs that you are looking for but which has all the functionality hidden away within its own interface.
To properly examine how this program works I made a copy of a PDF that I created some time back in Acrobat that has a page with a form on it with an overlay that allows the form to be filled out online before printing it. That page took me about ten minutes to create using Acrobat. In NitroPDF it took me nearly that long to figure out how to switch the mode of the program so as to be able to fill out the form. For a second test I decided to try to move some text from one spot in the page to another. In Acrobat it is just a matter of switching to edit mode, selecting the text, CTRL-X, move to where it needs to be put, CTRL-V, and you're done. After 20 minutes of searching I still couldn't find the option in NitroPDF for performing this simple edit task.
NitroPDF might have all the functionality and more that Acrobat has (which is what it claims) but in having decided to create their own interface instead of using Windows they have made the program one that would require a huge amount of effort in order to learn how to actually use it.
