by Anura Guruge
on November 8, 2021
‘Soda PDF’, ‘Foxit’ & ‘Adobe Acrobat’.
This is the one I use for most of my books.
Truth me known, one of the reasons I DELAYED getting a new PC was because I knew I would have to get a new version of Adobe Acrobat. I have been using Acrobat 9 Pro since 2009 — when I got my last PC. Acrobat 9, however, does not work with ‘Windows 10’ & my new PC, of course, is running Windows 10.
Yes, of course, I can afford to get either Adobe Acrobat 2020 for $299 or the subscription ‘DC’ for $155/$179 a year. Money & affordability is NOT the issue here.
Microsoft (for all its inherent deficiencies) gives me ALL of MS Office & 1TB of ‘OneDrive’ for $69 a year. Yes, $69 a year. That is reasonable. So, I pay $69/year for ALL of Office (i.e., Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Notes, Access, Outlook) & BLOODY Adobe thinks I should give them $155/year just for Acrobat.
No bloody way, Jose.
Just a matter of principle. I don’t know about you, BUT I don’t like being exploited.
So, over the last few days I have been playing around with ‘Foxit PDF Editor‘ ($159 one-time) & ‘Soda PDF Professional‘ ($48). See images above. They are BOTH good. Appear to work flawlessly. I am still LEARNING to fine tune them to get my IMAGES to the extent I desire.
To this end, I have to tell you that Foxit has been BEYOND AMAZING. They appear to have 24×7 telephone help — & good help at that. I called them — even though I am still on the trial — & asked for help. They have been WONDERFUL. So, responsive & helpful.
Soda, on the other hand, only appears to have e-mail support. Given their prices, I can afford to buy them BOTH & have them side-by-side. Plus, the option of saving to PDF directly from Word & then using Foxit or Soda to combine the PDFs into a book.
Yesterday, I was feeling a bit dejected. That Adobe had won. That I had no choice BUT to buy a new Acrobat. But, not so today. I have a third option! SMILE. I have two old PCs, running Windows 7, that BOTH have Acrobat 9. I can just keep them in mothballs & use them when I need to produce my FINAL completed PDF for a book! Remember, I have contingency plans for my contingency plans.
But, right now, I am growing more & more impressed with Foxit & Soda — Foxit, the BEST, because of their support. I like to know that there will be support if I run into trouble. For now, I am happy to say, with conviction, SCREE Adobe!
