PDF-XChange Editor icon
PDF-XChange Editor icon

PDF-XChange Editor

Feature-rich PDF editor offering direct content editing, ABBYY OCR, viewing, annotation, form filling, PDF merging, compression, and encryption. Operates efficiently offline, requiring no registration and no ads, while providing privacy-focused features and convenient portability.

Version 10 (2024)

Cost / License

  • Freemium (Pay once)
  • Proprietary

Application types

Platforms

  • Windows  All current versions of MS Windows operating systems, and previous versions that are maintained with service updates from Microsoft, are supported for this product.
  • PortableApps.com
  • Wine
Viewing PDFs
Commenting and Annotations
+3
Editing PDF files
Alternatives  
4.4
Very Good40 ratings
176likes
37comments
176alternatives
1article

Features

Properties

  1.  Customizable
  2.  Lightweight
  3.  Privacy focused

Features

  1.  PDF annotation
  2.  PDF OCR
  3.  Add/remove pages
  4.  Edit PDF
  5.  Portable
  6.  Split PDF files
  7.  Stamps
  8.  OCR
  9.  Split and merge PDF files
  10.  Create PDF files
  11.  Combine PDF
  12.  No registration required
  13.  Metadata Editor
  14.  Dark Mode
  15.  Sign PDF files
  16.  Works Offline
  17.  Integrated Search
  18.  Ad-free
  19.  Convert images to PDF
  20.  Fill PDF Forms
  21.  Full-Text Search
  22.  PDF compression
  23.  Bates numbering
  24.  Export to PowerPoint
  25.  Visual bookmarks
  26.  Handwritten Notes
  27.  Spell Checking
  28.  PDF encryption
  29.  Cloud Sync
  30.  No Tracking
  31.  Convert PDF to Word document
  32.  Convert PDF to image
  33.  Convert PDF to Text
  34.  Convert PDF to Powerpoint
  35.  Convert PDF to Excel document

 Tags

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Comments and Reviews

   
Comment summary: PDF-XChange Editor is praised for its extensive features, customization options, and performance. Many users appreciate its affordability and functionality compared to Adobe Acrobat, noting its lightweight, fast operation, and powerful editing tools. Positive feedback highlights its versatility across professional contexts, and the availability of a portable version. However, some concerns include user interface complexity, unfinished features, and a perceived lack of open-source availability. A few users express dissatisfaction with its free version and customer service.
Top Positive Comment
Gwrvan Barré
3

PDF-XChange Editor is the most powerful application (more than Adobe Acrobat). I tested ALL the other applications (really all...) and PDF-XChange Editor is the only one that offers this much functionality for free.

Top Negative Comment
TBayAreaPat
0

Awkward to use.. poor sense of form structure for filling. Demo mode warns of mark.. 4 big rivet-style images on the corners of each page.

pandaM3CH4
1

Extraordinarily stable and usable. Even setting aside how bad Adobe Acrobat is. Edit 06/02/2026: My original review was in Mar. 2025 after I moved off of Adobe. I've used PDF-XChange Editor since. It is incredible. If it was OSS, I would give it 6 stars. But, if it was OSS, I doubt it would have the incredible level of polish and functionality, so wouldn't be the same. I could not be happier with PDF-XChange Editor. Great software, great development, great features, great price for what you get.

neo-eon-one
1

Issue: After installing this Microsoft Office stopped working. Re-installed & reset M/s Office but it did not work. Uninstalled this to make it work again.

Update: There is some issue with my system, so its not really PDF XChange Editor

Review from a new or low-activity account — shown here, but not counted in the app rating.
gregoryem
0

Pretty ok, but lack of pages rearranging feature, which previous PDF-XCHANGE Viewer had, is painful.

mandrael
2

Pdf XChange Editor is a lightweight, fast Pdf editor for Windows. Great editing capabilities, good replacement for Adobe Acrobat. OCR from ABBYY. Even batch form filling from csv/txt files is possible (one flattened pdf each line). All in all I tried a lot alternatives and this is by far the best for Windows. Only downside is: it's only available for Windows. For Mac an alternative would be Pdf Expert, but it is by far not as powerful as Pdf XChange. And last but not least: There is no subscription model, but a classic selling with maintainance option, so you can really buy (not rent) it.

city_zen
1

Probably the best alternative to Adobe's "official" programs.

Pros:

  • Truly a professional grade program. Extremely powerful, but not bloated
  • The free features alone (about 70% of all the program's features) make it much better than every other pdf reader (yes, including Sumatra)
  • Very customizable. I have rarely seen a piece of software that can be customized to this extent
  • Lightweight. I currently have around 20 medium-sized pdf files open, and the program is using around 250 MB of RAM
  • In active development and with a reputable company behind
  • In my experience at least, better compatibility than Sumatra. Some complex technical drawings were rendered exactly the same in PDF-XChange and in Acrobat Reader. Sumatra struggled with those.

Cons:

  • If you need all the "licensed" features, it can be a bit expensive. But still much cheaper than the ridiculously overpriced Adobe Acrobat Pro
  • The user interface may not be to everyone's taste. Personally, I like it. In any case, it can be customized a lot if you don't like the default look.
7 of 37 comments

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Official Links

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What is PDF-XChange Editor?

The smallest, fastest, most feature-rich PDF editor/viewer available

  • Full Direct Content Editing (text based PDFs, not scanned/image based PDFs)
  • Includes OCR feature (powered by ABBYY)
  • View, Edit, and annotate PDF files
  • Fill forms, also batch creating Pdfs based on data files (csv/txt)

PDF-XChange Editor information

  • Developed by

    CA flagTracker Software

  • Licensing

    Proprietary and Freemium product.

  • Pricing

    One time purchase (perpetual license) ranging between $56 and $94 + free version with limited functionality.

  • Rating

    Average rating of 4.4 (40 ratings)

  • Alternatives

    176 alternatives listed

  • Supported Languages

    • English
    • German
    • French
    • Italian
    • Spanish
    • Russian
    • Turkish
    • Polish
    • Arabic
    • Dutch
    • Hungarian
    • Korean
    • Japanese
    • Chinese
    • Greek
    • Swedish
    • Czech
    • Serbian
    • Croatian

Our users have written 37 comments and reviews about PDF-XChange Editor, and it has gotten 176 likes

PDF-XChange Editor was added to AlternativeTo by piotrex on and this page was last updated .