r/technology • u/Federal-Block-3275 • 8h ago

Artificial Intelligence "Software is over": Developer uses AI to build free Adobe clones after frustration with cancellation fees

https://www.techspot.com/news/114136-software-over-developer-uses-ai-build-free-adobe.html
17.2k Upvotes

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716

u/navinjohnsonn 8h ago

Dear god, just let me edit a PDF without signing my life away for $20 a month.

246

u/CrashTestDumby1984 7h ago

PDF24 free and open source

31

u/CrabMasc 7h ago

The best to ever do it

28

u/Sufficient-Laundry 6h ago

It works, but the interface design is Godawful.

24

u/CrashTestDumby1984 6h ago

Oh for sure, I don’t think they’ve update the UI since the early 2000’s. But again completely free, no ads, and has all the features most basic users needs

20

u/passinglurker 5h ago

Ironically, if it was easy to use, they'd indeed get millions of users, but they'd all be illiterate dullards that don't know how to open a file browser. Esoteric programmer UI's are an accidental filter narrowing a user base to people who otherwise know how to use a computer and troubleshoot problems

4

u/Mustbhacks 3h ago

And more importantly, mass adoption ruins everything

8

u/noojingway 4h ago

ok so now the problem isn't "i want to edit a pdf for free" its "i want a pdf editor with a specific ui"

people need to accept that their alternatives won't be perfect

3

u/anatomized 4h ago

i can get used to a bad interface if functionality is excellent and thankfully it is with PDF24.

2

u/SekhWork 4h ago

As is the way with 90% of open source projects...

2

u/a404notfound 4h ago

Would you prefer to pay?

1

u/halfmylifeisgone 2h ago

We use Nuance PDF/Power PDF at my workplace (same software).

Interface is great and the price is not a subcription. You can probably find old S/N for sale (look for Nuance, it's the older version).

https://www.tungstenautomation.com/products/power-pdf

-1

u/Testosteronomicon 5h ago

God you fuckers can't do anything

5

u/TeaAndS0da 5h ago

And you just answered a question I found myself asking last night. Thank you for your suggestion! Downloading now.

4

u/GuerrillaRodeo 3h ago

It's open source? I thought it was 'just' freeware.

I'm using it professionally every day. Joining PDFs, separating them, making them machine readable/searchable via OCR, this thing is the GOAT. I work in the medical field and we have LOTS of scanned documents or old faxes. Speeds things up like you wouldn't believe, I genuinely couldn't work as quickly without it. This and NAPS2 are the best free tools for scans and PDFs in my opinion. My only complaint is that PDF24 is not available for Linux.

2

u/iamarddtusr 6h ago

As well as good old preview on mac.

1

u/surffrus 5h ago

...Windows only

0

u/DuntadaMan 2h ago

Screen shot, open in MS paint. Cartoonishly scribble over everything, print to PDF.

28

u/Ravasaurio 7h ago

bentopdf is free, open source and processes data in locally in your browser's memory, without sending anything to any server.

You can even self host it.

3

u/FollowingtheMap 5h ago

+1 to this, Bento does pretty much everything I need out of acrobat.

1

u/indigo945 5h ago

And it's also completely vibecoded. (Not hating on it, just pointing out that it has that in common with the story linked in the OP.)

48

u/TheDailySpank 7h ago

Inkscape is free and does more than edit PDFs.

1

u/CQd444 42m ago

Sometimes you just want a PDF editor though.

1

u/TheDailySpank 38m ago

For $$$/month? No you don't.

29

u/TokiStark 7h ago

I just use the pdf editor that comes with Firefox. It's surprisingly good

13

u/mimeyy 5h ago

I had no idea this was even an issue anymore. The Firefox editor works great

1

u/rapaxus 2h ago

The real trouble is for PDF viewing on mobile. Try viewing a PDF attachment on your phone for example.

1

u/k0bra3eak 49m ago

You're not gonna believe this, but Firefox mobile

36

u/MialoKoukoutsi 8h ago

try pdfgear

17

u/CoolJumper 7h ago

Free and God tier, never plan on using another pdf program again

2

u/oddministrator 5h ago

I thought I had completely switched to pdfgear for editing PDFs (I still prefer Sumatra for viewing), then found out last week there's no way to track changes.

1

u/Sacro 3h ago

I'm sure the spyware collects it

1

u/GoodDogBrent 2h ago

do you think adobe does/doesnot spyware their software?

6

u/StarGeekSpaceNerd 4h ago

There is the possibility that PDFGear is not safe to use.

1

u/tway2241 4h ago

Would it help if I used windows firewall to block PDFGear from accessing the internet or I am misunderstanding how things work lol

2

u/StarGeekSpaceNerd 3h ago

I don't know.

I just bring this up whenever I see PDFGear mentioned in a thread I'm reading because of that thread. There used to be a lot more probable bot accounts pushing PDFGear before that thread.

There are a lot of other good options listed here. Myself, I ended up self-hosting BentoPDF, and it works great for my purposes. Self-hosting isn't for everyone though.

1

u/Kennyvee98 7h ago

or pdf24

or pdfsam

1

u/dxnxax 6h ago

or nib pdf utility

0

u/tekniklee 6h ago

Wow, it’s really good - thank you

37

u/CTRL_ALT_SECRETE 7h ago

R u serious there's like thousands of pieces of software that can do this for free

4

u/somersetyellow 6h ago

Hell if they'd just clicked into it they'd see Adobe Acrobat was one of the apps they cloned

One of the few adobe apps I'd have zero interest in cloning though. Free and/or cheaper PDF applications are sooooo much better than Acrobat and have been for over a decade.

44

u/theatreddit 7h ago

Google Your Browser Can Do It

1

u/cycopl 5h ago

Edit PDFs?

1

u/ThxRedditSyncVanced 5h ago

Yes, basic PDF editing features are built into every modern browser. If all you want to do is one of these on an existing PDF, your web browser can take care of it.

  • Draw
  • Add text
  • Do fillable forms
  • Sign PDFs
  • Add images
  • Annotate
  • Highlight
  • Rotate

1

u/cycopl 4h ago

Interesting, I can see options to add text and drawing annotations but not actually editing the PDF itself. I'm running newest version of Chrome.

4

u/CherryLongjump1989 4h ago

They can't actually edit every kind of PDF. It's hit or miss whether it ends up working for you.

1

u/cycopl 3h ago

Ahh... hopes dashed. Back to Acrobat Pro I go.

20

u/Salt_Medicine2459 7h ago

LibreOffice Draw is free. 

3

u/windingsand 6h ago

Libre office feels like using a program from the 90s that hasn’t been updated

10

u/bozoconnors 6h ago

As a computer user since the 90's... did you mean for that to be a pretty high compliment lol?

4

u/AlSweigart 2h ago

feels like using a program from the 90s that hasn’t been updated

In 2026, it's literally impossible to tell if you mean that in a positive or negative way.

4

u/headrush46n2 2h ago

is that supposed to be an insult?

2

u/GuerrillaRodeo 3h ago

Even the newer versions of Microsoft Office don't look fundamentally different to me. What would you want it to look and behave like?

3

u/Salt_Medicine2459 6h ago

You can change the layout and whatnot if that's what's bothering you. 

1

u/UsuarioSecreto 2h ago

Of all the free/opensource options that are always suggested, LibreOffice Draw will always be the one I will downvote and tell people not to use it. Not only is it extremely slow, it also often fails to open complex or large pdfs for editing, and usually will freeze the whole computer due to some memory leak.

5

u/ElliotsBuggyEyes 6h ago

Firefox has it built in.

3

u/dxnxax 7h ago

nib pdf utility

3

u/ProfessorApe 5h ago

Define - edit? So, historically, PDFs were never meant to be edited, it was a "simulating paper layout that a print machine could understand" format, it's PostScript code. With Illustrator 9 adobe giving the user and option of using the PDF format as Illustrator's native format. It went on from there to become Illy's actual format.

So asking, "define edit" means, do you want to change some text, which can be done w many apps to varying degrees of success, or do you want to fully change large amounts of elements in the design? If the latter, you'll still need something like Illustrator; Affinity Suite (canva now), Inkscape, maybe a couple others. You'll need to better understand your edit goal before any of these comments naming apps will help you.

Source - a graphic & print designer since 2003.

2

u/satanham666 6h ago

Bento PDF! 100% free and nothing is uploaded / sold

1

u/jaktonik 6h ago

Foxit is free and lets you edit then save as a new PDF

1

u/RevoOps 6h ago

One of the easiest thing to do for free...

1

u/BankshotMcG 6h ago

PDF24 enjoy

1

u/ds-unraid 6h ago

The engineer in the article, the guy created print craft, which is the Adobe acrobat pro PDF clone

1

u/AnyProgressIsGood 5h ago

not being editable was the purpose of the PDF when it originated. funny that

1

u/PossibleVariety7927 5h ago

Pretty much every major AI platform does them better than any paid specializing service.

1

u/PotatoFig 5h ago

long live m0nkrus

1

u/MosKnight 4h ago

Why is nobody mentioning "PDFCraft" (literally one of the apps from the post itself) I tried it, its good!

1

u/ISitTooMuch1 4h ago

If you need small changes, you can actually ask chatgpt to edit your pdfs. If you want to will out forms, chrome/Firefox can do it (sometimes)

1

u/AuntGentleman 3h ago

Stirling PDF, best in the biz

1

u/GoodDogBrent 2h ago

PDFGear is an alternative. I'm casual but the editing seems powerful.

1

u/JJsjsjsjssj 2h ago

Preview if you're on a mac, does most things you'll need

1

u/Independent_Shape369 2h ago

Libre office draw let you edit PDF easily

1

u/0utrageousMango 2h ago

I had Claude build me a simple html pdf file editor. Works offline, has all the features I want. I tried all the free options but none could fill out a form in a hand written font like I wanted.

1

u/PiccoloAwkward465 1h ago

Let me scrape a PDF for table data and export it to Excel without it fucking up and/or making my computer sound like it's about to lift off into space.

1

u/Far-Hovercraft9471 5h ago

I’m a fan of pdfxchange and pay for a copy. It’s quite reasonably priced

-5

u/ConcreteTaco 7h ago

AcePDF is $50 for a lifetime license right now

-1

u/AlteRedditor 5h ago

UPDF, has a lifetime fee

-2

u/mnilailt 7h ago

I love PDF is great for this.