Alternatives to Adobe Reader - Comments Page 1

Is Foxit strictly a reader ? Does it allow form fill? How can Adobe be deleted and Foxit enabled as the default PDF reader ? Is this done in the download file ?

EDITOR'S NOTE: I just filled a form with Foxit, so yes it does that. When you open a document with Foxit, it will ask if you want it to be your default PDF reader. Or you can go to Control Panel and remove the Adode Reader.

How about Foxit on updates and security measures? I know that there have been problems with Adobe. Also, compatibility with Firefox?

EDITOR'S NOTE: I'm not aware of any security problems with Foxit Reader. There have been some Adobe exploits over the years, but they've been good about releasing patches quickly. Both programs have auto-update features. No problems here using Foxit with Firefox.

Most people do not care. Adobe makes it so easy to download, and invisible to use, there there is little need searching out an alternative. And of course Adobe always works great... Most users do not even know it is slow.
Foxit is faster, as are many others, but not many users like the job of hunting down and loading the alternatives... and dealing with all the little problems they create sooner or later.

Do you have any suggestions on programs that translate pdf files into Word Docs? There are a couple I've run across, but they don't work very well.

EDITOR'S NOTE: I don't have personal experience, but I've heard of Nuance, PDFZilla and DocSmartz.

Thanks Bob, I chose foxit right away. Big improvement!!

To Stan:
Now many OCR programs can convert pdf to other formats including MS Word. MFC or scaner comes with free OCR program. Among commercial programs I'd rank Abbyy Fine Reader as one of the best. Another oprtion is Cuneform. Originally they are Russian programs. Russians have Cyrillic alphabet, so their programs have to be ready to recognize more complicated source materials that gives them some advantages over others.

I use Foxit Reader and happy. It has some nice additonal functions. It works fine with Opera browser, but it is neccessary to make some changes in Opera settings manually. Maybe FireFox needs similar adjustments.

How do you get the foxit reader without the toolbar and ebay links? I began downloading Foxit Reader and when it got to the set up screen, it said if i clicked next that it would install it with a Foxit toolbar, so I did not go any further. Help! Thanks!

EDITOR'S NOTE: As I mentioned in the article, just uncheck all the boxes in the install wizard.

Thank you Bob. You fixed a big problem I had.
I work with Open Office, and had to distribute a spreadsheet. Most people could not read it. So I had it converted to a PDF file by Foxit, and resent it. Voila! Everybody was happy. It's a great program.

Regards.
Viggo.

Although I recommend Foxit over Adobe, I must say that I've been even more impressed with PDF Xchange viewer.

The best things in life are free.

I've been using Foxit for years. It's also USB stick portable, but in rare cases there have been a couple of pdf files it couldn't open. I also recommend Cute pdf or PDF creator for saving your document as a pdf file. I use them both (on different machines). As far as I can see they're both equally good. One use I've found for PDF files is to "print" a web page as a PDF file instead of saving it and getting an html file and a whole directory of picture and format files to go along with it.