Developed to be a document-sharing format encompassing both visual and textual data, PDF has been proved to be the most acceptable document format for information sharing, among a lot of such competitors as DjVu, Envoy, PostScript, etc.
Since the very beginning of Adobe PDF format in the late 1990s, and the open standard sharing in 2008, the need for PDF management is ever-increasing, as PDF format has steadily gained acknowledgment and popularity for excellent readability, excellent portability, and great electronic submissions compatibility.
Now that everybody needs a decent PDF management tool, the only problem is choosing one, preferably the best one, from an ocean of options out there. And in this review, we’ll take a good look into one of the better choices: PDFgear, a free yet powerful online PDF toolkit for arguably all your PDF management needs. Now, let’s delve in.
PDFgear Features at a Glance
Navigating to the PDFgear website, you’ll see a concise and nifty website UI dividing different types of PDF tools into PDF Converter, Compress PDF, Edit PDF, and Read PDF. And the All PDF Tools category is for you to discover all PDFgear tools.
Scroll down a bit and you’ll find PDFgear user reviews and more PDF tools.
1. PDF Conversions
From the website homepage, PDFgeat offers a full set of PDF converter tools that allow for PDF conversions to/from PDF documents.
And all popular input/output formats are covered: PDF to Word, PDF to Excel, PDF to PPT, PDF to JPG/JPEG, PDF to PNG; Word to PDF, JPG/JPEG to PDF, HEIC to PDF, PNG to PDF.
And in each converter tool, you can easily convert your PDF document by dragging and dropping the files into the converter UI. Then PDFgear will do the rest, it will automatically upload the file, then process and convert it to the desired format.
PDFgear takes about 2 seconds, including the file uploading, processing, and converting time, for converting files around 200MB.
The snapshot below shows the well-used PDFgear PDF to Word converter.
2. PDF Compressions
By hitting the Compress PDF button from the PDFgear home page, you’ll enter the PDFgear online PDF compressor tool. In a likewise manner, you can facilely compress your PDF documents, just drag in your files.
For you to reduce the size of PDF documents in a customizable way, three compression modes are provided including:
- Low compression: around 30% compression ratio with zero quality loss
- Medium compression: a trade-off between quality and file size
- Strong compression: 90% document compression ratio
The PDFgear compressor module is powered by MRC technology which helps reduce document size to as lower a level as possible while maintaining the document’s original quality.
3. PDF Editing
And if you hit Read PDF or Edit PDF button from the PDFgear homepage, you’ll be led to the all-in-one PDF reader and editor tool.
On a clean and intuitive screen, you can easily read PDF documents in a customizable scaling, with page thumbnails. And various practical tools are available for you to take notes or eSign on a PDF document in the way you prefer:
- Highlight, underline, and strikethrough text in a document
- Add drawing, typing, or initial signatures to PDF documents
- Add dynamic, sign here, standard business, and customized stamps to PDF
- Customize the border, font, and opacity of the annotations
- Draw ink (customizable stroke color) or add free text on a PDF document
- Add comments and annotations to the PDF document
- Apply different shapes or calibrations to a PDF
- Print to PDF, OneNote, or Microsoft Print to PDF
PDFgear: Ease of Use
Nobody in our team wants a steep learning curve for an online tool and I believe neither do you. PDFgear does good at that and it’s easy and friendly for beginners.
With PDFgear tools, PDF conversions, compression, and editing are implemented in an intuitive drag-and-drop manner, sometimes a few clicks are also required, but no further actions are needed to be taken.
Still having issues or ideas about the PDFgear service? You can always get help from their support team from the website contact page or Facebook inbox promptly.
Moreover, PDFgear has a how-to blog that guides users in using different PDF tools, for example, you can learn how to hyper compress PDF from one of the posts.
PDFgear: No Account Registration
Astonishingly, PDFgear is a web service that doesn’t require signing up or account registration, and we deem it to be a significant edge over all its counterparts.
If you have experience dealing with PDF documents using online document tools, you may find that most of the services, at certain progress of PDF conversion/compression/editing, will ask you to sign in or sign up for an account to continue.
Everybody will find that annoying, of course. Who’d like interruption when they’re trying to work something out? But it won’t be the same case with PDFgear, the full set of PDF features and unlimited using experience is delivered to all visitors.
PDFgear: Safety
The safety of users is the most vital criterion when we’re reviewing an online service.
PDFgear service is of ISO 32000 standardization and is TSL and SSL encrypted.
And according to the backlog file checking from the manual testing process on our end, we’ve found that PDFgear does not save uploaded files or the data generated from user behaviors. These files and data will be completely deleted from their server once the user leaves the website, just as PDFgear claimed in their privacy policy, that’s good.
PDFgear: Compatibility
As a web-based service, PDFgear is designed to be compatible with all mainstream working devices which include Windows 10, Windows 11, macOS, Linux, Android, and iOS. If you’re working on a PC, then the PDFgear online tool can be easily accessed from a web browser like Google Chrome.
On the other hand, we’ve also tested the PDFgear website on 5 smartphones with different resolutions, using different web browser apps (Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Opera), and the UI fit right into the mobile screens.
The Robust Desktop Version
Apart from being a handy online tool, PDFgear offers an upgraded desktop version as well, and it’s also free to use. For those who’re not really a fan of software installation, here are reasons that you may opt for the PDFgear software:
- No advertisements, no premium version, no foisting software
- Support for batch conversions
- Fast and steadier processing for larger files
- Works without an internet connection
- Future advanced features update
Our Final Verdict
Short answer, PDFgear is a worthy free online PDF tool for everyone. But it’s not perfect so you should try it yourself to see if it has the features you need.
What We Like About PDFgear
- Completely free to use, there are no hidden costs of any kind
- Unlimited access to all its features at zero cost
- No muss, no fuss. No advertisement, no pop-up, no watermark
- Amazingly swift document conversion and compression
- Simple and intuitive conversion/compression manners
- All PDF management needs are encompassed in one place
- An extensive range of supported input/output formats
What We Dislike About PDFgear
- Occasionally freezing issues in certain tools
- Lacks image overlaying features for documents
- An inflexible highlighter that only applies to text in documents
- No eraser functionality in PDF editor
- No cloud-storing feature for personal documents
- Lacks mobile app for editing, converting, or scanning
As mentioned earlier, if you’re an officer working demanding a PDF management tool, then PDFgear comes as an excellent free gift. Without needing to pay, you get to easily convert, compress, and edit your PDF documents in a fairly intuitive and effective manner.
As a free online tool, PDFgear seems perfect but it can’t be flawless – it has its pros and cons (many of them are listed above), and it’s always up to you to decide whether it suits your daily working routine.
At the time when PDFgear is reviewed, the service is still completely free, and it doesn’t require software installation, so hesitate no more and start trying it now!
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