8 Must-Have PDF Tools for 2020

2020 begins a new decade. This is the type of exciting milestone that offers the promise of positive change for everyone, both at work and at home. What better way is there to improve your life in the new year than by improving your productivity? One great way to start doing so is by finding new, user-friendly tools to help you edit and manage all of your personal and professional PDF files. Here are eight of the best ones (helpful PDF tools) that you should try out in 2020 – all of them are free to use and require little effort on the part of the user.

 

1. PDF Protect

PDF Protect is an online tool that allows you to quickly and easily encrypt all of your PDF documents with a password in order to limit user access to your most sensitive files. If you need to set even more protections, such as metadata encryption, varied permission levels or print quality limits, PDF Protect will let you do so for free and is one of the top helpful PDF tools.

 

2. PDFSimpli

PDFSimpli offers a wide range of PDF editing tools that help make file editing and conversion simple. eSignatures, file merging, adding text and many more manipulations are made possible with this online service. PDFSimpli is free to use on all web browsers and requires no downloads to your device. All you have to do is head to the home page and create a free account to start manipulating your PDFs and other documents – whether you use a Mac or a PC computer. It has been reviewed as one of the most helpful PDF tools.

 

3. PDF Compress

If you are looking to make your PDFs easier to send over the internet – or you just need to free up space on your computer’s hard drive – PDF Compress is about to make your life easier. Simply upload your chosen PDF, allow PDF Compress to optimize it and then download your compressed file to your computer. This is an especially useful tool if you have a lot of picture-based PDFs, as they take up more space than text-based files do.

 

4. Inkscape

Do you want to edit a PDF file that contains a lot of graphics? Inkscape offers graphic editing tools that are specifically designed for PDF documents. It works like GIMP Studio, Adobe Photoshop, and other similar graphic design programs, but focuses on allowing users to edit PDF images. It is especially useful for adding and deleting images in such files.

 

5. HTML to PDF

It can be frustrating to manipulate HTML web pages for local storage, especially if you are trying to convert them to PDF files. HTML to PDF lets you quickly copy and paste any URL and turn it into a PDF file that you can download – all for free. This is a great, painless way to locally save a web page in case it becomes unpublished on the internet one day or stops behaving when you visit it online.

 

6. Diff Now

If you are tasked with the unique challenge of comparing changes that have been made between two PDF forms, Diff Now can help. It allows you to upload two documents and compare their differences line by line. You can view Added, Deleted and Changed text with this fast and simple online tool that was based on Unix’s DIFF utility.

 

7. PDF Unlock

PDF Unlock accomplishes the opposite task that PDF Protect allows you to perform. It is designed to allow you to remove passwords and other security restrictions from a PDF document, providing you have the passwords needed to do so. If you accidentally protected a PDF file or have been asked to remove any protections on it, PDF Unlock will let you do so for free in a matter of minutes.

 

8. Jotti Malware Scan

All PC users should be serious about malware and viruses in 2020. Jotti Malware Scan is a great, user-friendly tool that allows you to scan PDF files for such threats. It is especially important for you to use a tool like Jotti if you have a PDF reader on your computer that is not secure. Jotti allows you to upload your file to its website for free. From there, it utilizes more than 20 different malware scanners to find any threats that may be lurking in your PDF file – all within a few seconds.