The Best Open Source Adobe Acrobat DC AlternativesTop PDF Readers & PDF Editors like Adobe Acrobat DC

The best open source alternative to Adobe Acrobat DC is PDF Arranger. If that doesn't suit you, our users have ranked more than 100 alternatives to Adobe Acrobat DC and many of them is open source so hopefully you can find a suitable replacement. Other interesting open source alternatives to Adobe Acrobat DC are PDFTK Builder, GImageReader, Paperwork and Signature PDF.

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Adobe Acrobat DC alternatives are mainly PDF Editors, but if you're looking for PDF Readers or Document Scanners you can filter on that. Other popular filters include Windows + Free and Windows + Open Source. You can also filter by region, for example EU-based alternatives if you prefer software developed in the European Union. These are just examples - use the filter bar below to find more specific alternatives to Adobe Acrobat DC.
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Create and edit PDFs. Collaborate with ease. E-sign documents and collect signatures. Get everything done in one app, wherever you work. Acrobat’s got it. Stay on top of your documents with powerful features for desktop,...

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Adobe Acrobat DC alternatives page was last updated Feb 4, 2025
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  1. PDF Arranger icon
     95 likes
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    Small python-gtk application, which helps the user to merge or split pdf documents and rotate, crop and rearrange their pages using an interactive and intuitive graphical interface.

    66 PDF Arranger alternatives

    License model

    • FreeOpen Source

    Application types

    Country of Origin

    • International

    Platforms

    • Windows
    • Linux
    • Flathub
    • Snapcraft

    Properties

    1.  Privacy focused
    2.  Lightweight
    3.  Support for Themes

    Features

    1.  Split and merge PDF files
    2.  Visual Organization
    3.  Split PDF files
    4.  Combine PDF
    5.  Edit PDF
    6.  Rotate pages
    7.  Works Offline
    8.  Image sorting
    9.  No Tracking
    10.  Ad-free
    11.  Dark Mode
    12.  Portable

    PDF Arranger VS Adobe Acrobat DC

     
    Comments about PDF Arranger as an Alternative to Adobe Acrobat DC
    Shaz Shah
    Positive Dec 10, 2024
    0

    It may not be anywhere near the full offering of Adobe Acrobat but if all you want is to arrange pages and merge PDFs into one doc this would definitely be recommended for your toolkit. PDF Arranger helped me recently when I was scanning double-sided documents but my scanner does not scan both sides in one go. I flipped the pages without re-arranging the papers - oops - but was able to quickly rectify it using this app.

    thealphahelix
    Positive Jun 5, 2024
    0

    This is excellent for page removal, rearrangement etc tasks. It's a program you can just use! Not a SaaS account nightmare.

    Adobe Acrobat DC Icon
    PDF Arranger icon
    • Most users think PDF Arranger is a great Adobe Acrobat DC alternative.

    • PDF Arranger is the most popular Open Source alternative to Adobe Acrobat DC.

    • PDF Arranger is Free and Open SourceAdobe Acrobat DC is Paid and Proprietary
    • PDF Arranger is Privacy focused and LightweightAdobe Acrobat DC is not according to our users
  2. PDFTK Builder icon
     63 likes
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    PDFTK Builder is a free graphical interface to for PDFtk, making it much easier to use. It is a easy to use tool to collate (merge), split, encrypt, decrypt, stamp and rotate (only 90°, 180° or 270°) pdf documents.

    84 PDFTK Builder alternatives

    License model

    • FreeOpen Source

    Application type

    Country of Origin

    • AU flagAustralia

    Platforms

    • Windows
    Discontinued

    The latest version (3.10.0) is from July 2018.

    Properties

    1.  Lightweight

    Features

    1.  Split and merge PDF files
    2.  Password protection
    3.  Combine PDF
    4.  Portable
    5.  Ad-free
    6.  No registration required
    7.  Works Offline
    8.  Split PDF files
    9.  PDF encryption
    10.  Create PDF files
    11.  Reorder pages

    PDFTK Builder VS Adobe Acrobat DC

     
  3. GImageReader icon
     71 likes
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    gImageReader is a simple Gtk/Qt front-end to the Tesseract OCR Engine.

    83 GImageReader alternatives

    License model

    • FreeOpen Source

    Application type

    Country of Origin

    • CH flagSwitzerland

    Platforms

    • Windows
    • Linux

    GImageReader Features

    1.  OCR
    2.  Image to text
    3.  PDF OCR
    4.  Annotate Screenshot

    GImageReader VS Adobe Acrobat DC

     
  4. Paperwork icon
     37 likes
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    Paperwork is a personal document manager for scanned documents (and PDFs).

    30 Paperwork alternatives

    License model

    • FreeOpen Source

    Country of Origin

    • FR flagFrance
    • European Union flagEU

    Platforms

    • Windows
    • Linux
    • Flathub

    Paperwork Features

    1.  Portable
    2.  OCR
    3.  Document structure management
    4.  Scanner
    5.  Scan to PDF
    6.  Gtk
    7.  Indexed search

    Paperwork VS Adobe Acrobat DC

     
  5. Signature PDF icon
     9 likes
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    Free open-source web software for signing (alone or with others), organizing (merge, sort, rotate, delete, extract pages, ...), editing metadatas or compressing PDFs.

    46 Signature PDF alternatives

    License model

    • FreeOpen Source

    Country of Origin

    • FR flagFrance
    • European Union flagEU

    Platforms

    • Online
    • Self-Hosted
    • WebApps
    • Docker Hub

    Properties

    1.  Lightweight

    Features

    1.  Sign PDF files
    2.  Ad-free
    3.  PDF compression
    4.  Split and merge PDF files
    5.  Split PDF files
    6.  Fill PDF Forms
    7.  Works Offline
    8.  Combine PDF

    Signature PDF VS Adobe Acrobat DC

     
    • Signature PDF is the most popular Self-Hosted alternative to Adobe Acrobat DC.

    • Signature PDF is Free and Open SourceAdobe Acrobat DC is Paid and Proprietary
    • Signature PDF is LightweightAdobe Acrobat DC is not according to our users
  6. Sioyek icon
     18 likes
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    Sioyek is a PDF viewer with minimal interface optimized for reading research papers and technical books.

    37 Sioyek alternatives

    License model

    • FreeOpen Source

    Application type

    Country of Origin

    • US flagUnited States

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux

    Properties

    1.  Keyboard focused
    2.  Lightweight
    3.  Support for Themes

    Features

    1.  Dark Mode
    2.  PDF annotation
    3.  Ad-free
    4.  Full-Text Search

    Sioyek VS Adobe Acrobat DC

     
    Comments about Sioyek as an Alternative to Adobe Acrobat DC
    Guest
    Positive Dec 17, 2022
    0

    I love Sioyek because it has blazingly fast update time when a pdf modified. very suitable for latex with (n)vim/emacs user.

    Adobe Acrobat DC Icon
    Sioyek icon
    • Sioyek is Free and Open SourceAdobe Acrobat DC is Paid and Proprietary
    • Sioyek is LightweightAdobe Acrobat DC is not according to our users
  7. Papers icon
     11 likes
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    A document viewer for the GNOME desktop. You can view, search or annotate documents in many different formats.

    67 Papers alternatives

    License model

    • FreeOpen Source

    Application types

    Country of Origin

    • US flagUnited States

    Platforms

    • Linux
    • Flathub
    • GNOME
    • Flatpak

    Properties

    1.  Privacy focused
    2.  Lightweight

    Features

    1.  Ad-free
    2.  Full-Text Search
    3.  Works Offline
    4.  No registration required
    5.  No Tracking
    6.  Dark Mode
    7.  Text to Speech

    Papers VS Adobe Acrobat DC

     
    Comments about Papers as an Alternative to Adobe Acrobat DC
    Shaz Shah
    Negative Dec 10, 2024
    0

    It's not a PDF editor, but a really nice looking viewer/reader.

    Adobe Acrobat DC Icon
    Papers icon
    • Papers is Free and Open SourceAdobe Acrobat DC is Paid and Proprietary
    • Papers is Privacy focused and LightweightAdobe Acrobat DC is not according to our users
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