Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

PDFsam VS PDF-XChange Editor

Compare PDFsam VS PDF-XChange Editor and see what are their differences

PDFsam logo PDFsam

PDFsam Basic, a free, open source, multi-platform software designed to split, merge, extract pages, mix and rotate PDF files

PDF-XChange Editor logo PDF-XChange Editor

The smallest, fastest, most feature-rich PDF editor/viewer available
  • PDFsam Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-08-27
  • PDF-XChange Editor Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-08-03

PDFsam

Website
pdfsam.org
$ Details
free
Platforms
Windows Linux Mac OSX

PDFsam features and specs

  • Cost
    PDFsam Basic is free and open-source, which makes it highly accessible for individual users and small businesses.
  • User Interface
    The interface is simple and straightforward, allowing users to easily navigate and use the essential features without a steep learning curve.
  • Functionality
    PDFsam includes essential features such as merging, splitting, rotating, and extracting PDF pages, which can cover most common PDF editing needs.
  • Cross-Platform
    PDFsam is available on multiple operating systems, including Windows, macOS, and Linux, ensuring broad compatibility and usability.
  • Community Support
    Being an open-source project, PDFsam has a community of users and developers who contribute to its improvement and troubleshooting.

Possible disadvantages of PDFsam

  • Advanced Features
    The free version lacks advanced features like OCR, which are available in the paid versions such as PDFsam Enhanced.
  • Performance
    Some users report that the application can be slow when processing large documents or performing complex tasks.
  • Interface Design
    While functional, the user interface is not as modern or visually appealing compared to some other PDF software.
  • Commercial Use
    For businesses, the licenses for the advanced features in PDFsam Enhanced can be costly, especially for small enterprises.
  • Customer Support
    While there is a user community for support, professional customer support is limited to the paid versions, which might be a hurdle for those needing quick assistance.

PDF-XChange Editor features and specs

  • Feature-Rich
    PDF-XChange Editor offers a wide range of features including annotation tools, OCR, content editing, and more. This makes it a comprehensive solution for managing PDF documents.
  • Lightweight
    The application is relatively lightweight and performs efficiently even on less powerful systems, providing a smooth user experience.
  • User Interface
    The interface is intuitive and user-friendly, making it easy to navigate through various functions and features.
  • OCR Support
    PDF-XChange Editor includes robust Optical Character Recognition (OCR) capabilities, allowing users to convert scanned documents into editable and searchable text.
  • Customization
    It offers a high level of customization, allowing users to tailor the toolbars, menus, and other interface elements to meet their specific needs.
  • Cost-Effective
    The software provides a good balance of features and cost, making it an affordable option for both individual users and businesses.

Possible disadvantages of PDF-XChange Editor

  • Learning Curve
    Due to its extensive feature set, new users may find it challenging to learn and master all of the functions and tools available in the software.
  • Limited Free Version
    The free version of PDF-XChange Editor is limited in functionality, with many advanced features requiring a paid license to access.
  • Watermarks
    Free version annotations and some features will include watermarks on the documents, which could be inconvenient for professional use.
  • Occasional Bugs
    Some users have reported occasional bugs and software instability, which could interrupt workflow and reduce productivity.
  • Complexity of Features
    Some of the advanced features may be overly complex for users who only need basic PDF editing capabilities, making the user experience overwhelming.

PDFsam videos

How to Use PDFsam

More videos:

  • Demo - PDFSamVisual Demo

PDF-XChange Editor videos

PDF-XChange Viewer Tutorial

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to PDFsam and PDF-XChange Editor)
PDF Tools
35 35%
65% 65
PDF Editor
35 35%
65% 65
PDF Creator
37 37%
63% 63
PDF Converter
100 100%
0% 0

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare PDFsam and PDF-XChange Editor

PDFsam Reviews

15 PDF editors quick review
This is a simple open source Java pdf editor. The basic version allows you to edit the content and structure of pdf documents. Builds of this version are available for Windows, MacOS and Linux. PDFsam Enhanced version provides all the basic tools needed for the pdf editor. Special utilities for securing files and converting their contents are only available in the Pro version.

PDF-XChange Editor Reviews

The 13 Best Free PDF Editors (February 2024)
PDF-XChange Editor offers some great tools, but not all of them are free to use. If you use a non-free feature, the PDF will save with a watermark on every page.
8 Best Adobe Acrobat Alternatives In 2022 [Updated List]
PDF-Xchange Editor is one of the most inexpensive alternatives to Acrobat Pro. It has all the tools necessary for creating, editing, and annotating PDF files and also has OCR and tools for digitally signing the documents. It also allows you to export PDF files to MS Office formats.
10 Best PDF Expert Alternatives for Various Tasks in 2022
Thereby, PDF Xchange Editor comes before PDF Expert in the OCR technology. This PDF expert alternative provides you with the advanced OCR plug-in of ABBYY, which counts to be more precise, adaptive, and faster than the standard OCR engine (at work by PDF Expert), and be completed with features such as dynamic stamps, say, a stamp that adopts the system date in an automatic...
Source: fixthephoto.com
13 of the Best Free PDF Readers
For those users looking to add audio to their PDFs, PDF-XChange Editor could be the solution. Besides the having ability to add recordings and other audio, users can view and edit the PDF files, along with adding in a signature. The best feature of PDF-XChange, though, might be its Optical Character Recognition Tool. With this tool, users can scan in a printed document and...
Source: www.indeed.com
Top 5 Best Free Alternatives to Adobe Acrobat DC
PDF-XChange Editor offers amazing amount of features for free (about 80%). Some of them are free only in Editor (but not free in others competitors). And all free features in Editor are very precise and detailed. With the stable work and good support, PDF-XChange Editor is very user-friendly for high level professional documents
Source: whatvwant.com

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, PDFsam seems to be more popular. It has been mentiond 32 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

PDFsam mentions (32)

  • JavaFX In Action with Pedro Duque Vieira, aka Duke, about Hero, PDFSam, FXThemes, FXComponents,...
    He shares insights into a few applications, like Hero (CAD application to calculate energy efficiency) and PDFSam (powerful and professional PDF editor). PDFSam had 100.000 downloads in April '24! - Source: dev.to / 10 months ago
  • Pdftool.org: modify pdfs offline in the browser
    I find pdfsam to be the perfect offline tool for me on Windows. https://pdfsam.org And it's open source as well: https://github.com/torakiki/pdfsam. - Source: Hacker News / over 1 year ago
  • Free pdf editor?
    That might be fit for your purpose PDFSam. Source: almost 2 years ago
  • My 2023 Bingo Card
    Use pdfsam.org to split the pdf into individual sheets fyi. Source: over 2 years ago
  • What's the best tool to merge pdf files?
    PDFsam - merge, split, extract pages, rotate and mix your PDF files. Source: over 2 years ago
View more

PDF-XChange Editor mentions (0)

We have not tracked any mentions of PDF-XChange Editor yet. Tracking of PDF-XChange Editor recommendations started around Mar 2021.

What are some alternatives?

When comparing PDFsam and PDF-XChange Editor, you can also consider the following products

Adobe Acrobat DC - Make your job easier with Adobe Acrobat DC, the trusted PDF creator. Use Acrobat to convert, edit and sign PDF files at your desk or on the go.

PDF24 PDF Creator - Create PDF and convert documents to PDF for free with the free PDF24 PDF Creator.

Foxit Reader - Foxit Reader is a free and light-weight multi-platform PDF document viewer.

PDF Arranger - Small python-gtk application, which helps the user to merge or split pdf documents and rotate, crop...

Sumatra PDF - Sumatra PDF is a slim PDF/DjVu/EPUB/XPS/CHM/CBR/CBZ/MOBI viewer for Windows.

Wondershare PDFelement - All-in-one PDF editor