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               People use PDFs at some point in their working life. It could be working on a business deal, planning a conference, or even creating an invitation to a co-worker’s birthday party. But at some point, you will need to work with PDFs. But how do we work with them? The main component is a PDF editor. These PDF editors offer a large array of tools to choose from, and which tools you need will depend on what you are trying to do. There are many PDF editors to choose from. There are popular ones such as Lumin PDF and Adobe Acrobat or simple online PDF editors that offer few tools. If you are not sure what tools you need, here is a list of ten of the most common PDF editing tools available.

Main PDF Editing Tools

               The first and most important tool for working with PDFs is the ability to open them. Opening a PDF with another program such as Microsoft Word or Google Docs is sometimes possible, but the image could be distorted and hard to read. Sometimes all we need is a PDF viewer. We might need to see and read a PDF from a colleague, manager, or client. A simple Google search for a PDF viewer will help you find this.

               The tool most people need to use for working with PDFs is a PDF editor. PDF editors not only allow you to open and view the PDF but directly interact with it. This is needed if you are filling out a fillable PDF form or need to work directly on a document. This is not all a PDF editor can do though. PDFs are image files and while PDF editors are often used to input text to a PDF, they can also be used to edit or change images within the PDFs, or even create a new PDF. Having the ability to edit, change or create PDFs gives you not only the opportunity to input information but to be able to create new documents for work, school, or any project that you might be working on.

Best PDF Editing Tools

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               Sometimes when working, there will be a need to combine documents. For example, if you are working on a scientific research project and want to collaborate with other researchers, you will need to combine your research documents. The merge PDF tool is perfect for this because it can do exactly that. The merge PDF tool allows you to take two or more PDF documents and combine them into a single document. This can be very useful, but what if you want to separate them later?

               Just as the merge PDF tool can be used to combine two or more PDFs, the Split PDF tool can be used to split a PDF into two or more documents. One reason this might be of use is that sometimes PDFs can be very large, and we might only need a small portion of it for our purposes. An example of this could be that we need to use a page from a technical book that is 400 pages long. There is no reason to send the whole file, so we can use the split PDF tool to create a new file with a single page.

               But what if we do need to send a book or any other large file? If you or your team is working on a large file, you might have to send it to someone at some point. It is impractical (and sometimes impossible) to send such large files. There is good news though since we can use the compress PDF tool. The compress PDF tool works to reduce the size of the PDF so it can be sent and then later expanded and opened by the recipient. This opens up many doors in terms of sharing information.

               The ability to share PDFs is one of the reasons it is such a popular file type. Some PDF editors offer this better than others. One such company is Lumin PDF. Lumin PDF offers a very special tool and that is the ability to work and share directly with Google Drive. If you are working for a company that has a Google Drive account and it is likely your team or company does, then you will save your files there. If you and your teammates can operate from the same storage, it gives you the ability to more cohesively work together.

               Although many people like to work with PDFs, sometimes other file types are better for different situations. But we might still need those other files in PDF form later. For this, we can use the convert PDF tool. The convert PDF tool lets you take a file such as a word or excel document and convert it into a PDF. Using this in conjunction with the merge tools allows a great deal of freedom.

               Even though most people use PDFs in a respectful way, it is a good idea to protect your and your businesses’ intellectual property. One way of doing this is through the watermark tool. You can use an online PDF editor to add a watermark to your PDF, this helps establish ownership of the document and shows who made it.

               Another tool that can help keep your PDF secure is the encrypt PDF tool. This tool gives you the option of adding a password or some other means of identity verification. This does two things. Firstly, it ensures that the PDF does not fall into the wrong hands. Insecure PDFs can lead to damage to the business and potential breaches of NDAs. Secondly, it keeps people who are not working on the PDF from using it. Having a password for you and your co-workers ensures that only certain people can work on it.

               Lastly, when using an online PDF editor or PDF editing software, we can use the e-sign tool. The e-sign tool is used to sign a PDF and make it valid. This is important in our increasingly remote workspace. If you are sent a contract, it might be difficult to sign it and send it to someone far away. But with the e-sign tool, it is very simple.