Best Free PDF Tools for Windows
"Nice and clean user interface covering most functions. Includes merge, split, reorder, rotate, header and footer with page number, watermark, encrypt and decrypt, convert PDF to images or vice versa, convert PostScript to PDF."
Some programs in this review are designed to combine merging, splitting and other capabilities in a single application (like PDFill), but some perform a more specific task.
Best Free PDF Writer for Windows
"BullZip in its latest version is a very solid program that has, over time, proven to be a top performer". Requires GhostScript and .NET." Bullzip was chosen for Gizmo's 9 great freeware.
What's it for? - PDF writers act like a pseudo printer on your system. When you want to create a PDF document from pretty much any application you just choose to print it to the PDF printer and it creates a PDF document.
Best Free PDF Reader/Viewer for Windows
"Loads reasonably fast, can print PDFs, allows basic annotation without watermarking, good text clarity, allows you to fill and save Adobe PDF forms, extract text and images, magnify text, and export PDF pages or documents to BMP, JPEG, TIFF, PNG formats."
Third party readers like PDF-XChange help you to replace the slow and bulky Adobe PDF Reader.
Best Free Finance Software for Windows
"Helps you keep tabs of your budget without complicated features commonly used in commercial personal finance applications. If you're looking for a quick education in double entry accounting, look no further than GnuCash.
The program has a reporting and graphing module that generates a full suite of standard and customizable reports. On the downside, it doesn't track stock price movements automatically and doesn't have built-in encryption."
Eases you into accounting equations (without having to create custom spreadsheets on your own).
Best Free Office Suite for Windows
"Kingsoft Office Suite Free is ideal for those familiar with Microsoft Office 2003 prior to the creation of the 'ribbon' featured in 2007. It will let you feel perfectly at home. To say that it is similar to Microsoft office would be the understatement; they are practically identical."
If you want an online or "cloud" suite, try Zoho (includes helpful collaborative features, support for many document formats, and tabbed document editing)."
Free substitutes for MS Office like this go a long way to meeting the needs of home users, small businesses, and many others.
Related Office Top Picks and Hot Items
- Best Free World Clock for Windows -- Wim's World Clock -- Download. "A light world clock with a choice of virtually any number of time zones."
- Best Free Genealogy or Family Tree Software for Windows -- Legacy Standard -- Download. "Legacy standard is fairly easy to use, flexible, and has plenty of capabilities. The free version supports family, pedigree, and index views. You can easily navigate to younger or older generations simply by clicking on the individuals".
- Best Free Project Manager for Windows -- Open Workbench -- Download. "Like Microsoft Project, it's best suited to large scale projects that justify the time it takes to learn the product (users with simple needs might want to read the article for less feature-rich project managers). Key features include project planning, scheduling, resource management, project review, and more. "
- Best Free Word Processor for Windows -- Jarte -- Download. "Jarte deserves the wordcourageous for its clean fresh looks. Task oriented is in and menus are out. It gives you tabs and a wealth of options in formatting; fonts, paragraphs, page, header and footer. There's an outline function, indenting and outdenting, and a format brush to easily transfer formatting."
- Best Free Text Editor for Windows -- EditPad Lite -- Download -- "General purpose text editors with more features than the Windows Notepad, such as tabbed interfaces, unlimited undo, and block functions." Chosen for Gizmo's 9 great freeware. Programming editors like Notepad++.
- Best Free Personal Information Manager for Windows -- Pimero Free Edition -- Download. "It offers the full range of PIM functions -- appointments, events, reminders, tasks, contacts, email, and even webfeeds -- and an attractive, well-organized user interface."
- Best Free Software Suite for Windows -- LiberKey -- Download. "Liberkey has 311 portable applications and three default suites. Choose a suite you like and then add apps to suit your taste. It automatically updates most of your favorite portable apps, making it a great way to keep them in one place."
