The PDF can be a confusing animal. In fact, how many people even know what the letters “PDF” stand for? What we tend to know is two things:
- A PDF is easy to view. With a free PDF reader, you can view that PDF on a PC or a Mac. You can view it whether you have Word or don’t have Word or Excel or any other program.
- A PDF is hard to change.
Here’s a typical example: An attorney contacted me about needing to insert a page into the appendix of a brief in PDF format. Sure, it’s easy with a hard copy. Remove the staple, slide the new page into its proper place, and re-staple. To do the same thing with a PDF is a real challenge.
Some candy to the rescue…
The Internet has its share of sites that offer some type of conversion. This article introduces a site called PDF Candy. It can be your one-stop-shop for all things PDF.
The site requires no registration. But what can it do?
When you scan a multi-page document, without special software, each page becomes its own document. Open PDF Candy and select “Merge PDF.” Drag each page onto the screen. Download the resulting document.
In our example with the attorney, she was able to use PDF Candy’s “Split PDF” tool. Each page became its own document. Drag the new page into the mix. Now, use the “Merge PDF” tool to transform the random pages into a single document.
Other common tasks
The PDF is an attractive format because anyone with a PDF reader can open it, but people cannot easily edit it. Therefore, instead of sending someone a Word document, a PDF is usually a better choice. While Word allows us to save a document as PDF, PDF Candy also allows for this conversion.
Making changes to a PDF proves to be impossible for most people. With PDF Candy’s “PDF to Word” tool or “Edit PDF” tool, the task becomes easy.
One of my favorite tools is “Compress PDF.” The file size of multi-page PDFs can grow large. This tool reduces the size significantly with no observable change in quality.
Scanned documents often result in a PDF in which pages are sideways. The “Rotate PDF” tool adjusts any page 90 degrees at a time.
Take time to explore
These examples merely scratch the surface of what this site can do. Come over to PDF Candy and explore the other tools that are there.
The Internet has its share of conversion tools. Finding one you need is usually but one Google search away. Finding and saving the links to these valuable tools is a great use of your time.
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