PDF Multitool (specialized conversion utility)

[webfork]

Requires .NET Framework 2.0

It does? I didn't see anything on the home or softpedia pages about that.

Anyway, If memory serves (I can't find the table) only Windows XP doesn't have dotNET 2.0 installed by default so that's probably portable enough for most users.

[dot]

Requires .NET Framework 2.0

It does? I didn't see anything on the home or softpedia pages about that.

Other download sites (other than softpedia) indeed mention the .Net requirement. I gave it a try nevertheless. The program installs, but doesn't run on my slim (.Net-free) XP.

[webfork]

New version out: v 6.11.0.2193

PDF to XML, PDF To CSV, PDF To Text functionality improved
PDF support improved
advanced options added to CSV, XML extractors
text search improved
table extraction support
improved minor bug-fixes

http://www.softpedia.com/progChangelog/ ... 49886.html

[webfork]

Update: I retested 9.0.0.384 but it's still not portable ... still free for non-commercial use.

[webfork]

Several functions have been added since this was first discussed. There's now a sensitive data suite (which is amazing to see in a freeware tool) that includes an Analyzer, and redactor. (The Detector and Remover tool seemed to not function on my system.)

Steps: Run uniextract and launch

Status: still not portable, still writes to HKCU\..\Software\Bytescout\Bytescout PDF Multitool

Resources: 200 megs disk space, 18 megs RAM

License: free for non-commercial use (unlike what's listed over at Softpedia)

[webfork]

Update out on July 1, 2020 (v.11.2.1 Build 3929) but can't find a changelog.

Still a big fan of this program, it's saved me a lot of time and trouble and does many things better and faster than Adobe Pro. Some more notes building on my above post ...

Resource usage

RAM: 25 megs
Download: 263 megs
Extracted: 373 megs, most of it comes from the included OCR Tools. Delete unnecessary languages to save space.
Processor: Doesn't appear to use any processor when idle, unlike Acrobat. Also unlike Acrobat, actually closes when you exit the program.

Steps

1. Download and extract with Uniextract2
2. Launch BytescoutPDFMultitool.exe

Status: still not portable, still writes to HKCU\Software\Bytescout. The program only has a handful of settings so this is probably adequately portable for most, but doesn't meet site standards:

License: Commercial use requires a license ($20 USD at this writing), also has an advert in the top-right corner but I didn't find it distracting / annoying.

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Screencaps



NOTE: Selecting RPA tools - Visual App Builder doesn't appear to do anything. It opens a web browser and whatever was at it's destination was offline.

[rbon]

Topic update:
PDF Multitool utility rel. 12.0.1.4065 at February 10, 2021
• web site - Program page: https://bytescout.com/products/pdfmultitool/index.html
• download page: https://bytescout.com/download/download_freeware.html
• direct download installer: https://cdn.bytescout.com/PDFMultitool.exe
• installer size: 264.232 KB
• Softpedia: https://www.softpedia.com/get/Office-to ... tool.shtml

This program is compiled with Inno Setup Compiler and can to be extract with InnoEx https://www.portablefreeware.com/index.php?id=2789, but you must update it with last version of 'InnoUnp.exe' (rel. 0.50) (innounp.exe can be grab from Sourceforge.net).

Changelog is in the file 'History.txt' inside {app} folder.
Here I post only changes in the year 2020 and 2021

Code: Select all

ByteScout PDF Multitool history of changes.

Legend:
-------------------------
- - bug fixed
+ - new feature
= - changed
! - critical
-------------------------

12.0.0.4062 (February 8, 2021)
==============================
+ Added support for touchscreen gestures: pan, zoom, rotate.
+ Added preview dialog for the image passed to OCR. Takes into account the selected OCR mode and preprocessing filters.
+ Added "Reset Selection" to the context menu.
+ Added new option 'Column Detection By Text Alignment' to Advanced Settings of table extraction dialogs.
= Improved extraction preview window.
= Improved detection of bold fonts.
= Improved RTL fonts detection.
= Improved support for external Chinese fonts.
= Improved positioning of rotated PDF objects.
= Disabled invisible text extraction in all related tools.
= Improved OCR rotation detection.
= Added missing OCR mode 'Text From Vectors And Repaired Fonts'.
= Now the damaged CCITT and JBIG2 images are skipped from rendering avoiding crashes.
= Make Searchable PDF: improved OCR when 'Discard Existing Text' is enabled.
- Fixed crash on copying empty selection to clipboard.
- Document Information tool: Fixed a crash if the input document is an image.
- Fixed OCR error on some PDF documents that contain rotated text.
- Fixed OCR error in Sensitive Data Suite dialogs.
= Improved parsing and rendering of PDF documents.
- Other minor fixes and improvements.

11.3.0.3983 (October 26, 2020)
==============================
= The extraction preview window no longer prevents you from viewing the document.
= User interface is now blocked during the document loading.
= Improved rendering of the ZapfDingbats font.
- Fixed crash in PDF splitting properties dialog.
- Fixes in the image stamping properties dialog.
= Improved parsing and rendering of PDF documents.
- Other minor fixes and improvements.

11.2.0.3919 (June 20, 2020)
===========================
= Improved precision of coordinates and dimensions of selection rectangles when scaling.
- The PDF Viewer now correctly detects RTL text in "Copy to Clipboard" context menu command.
= Improved parsing and rendering of PDF documents.
- Other minor fixes and improvements.

11.1.0.3845 (March 19, 2020)
============================
+ Added "Developer Tools" sub-menu to the context menu.
= Improved parsing and rendering of PDF documents.
- Other minor fixes and improvements.

11.0.0.3805 (February 11, 2020)
===============================
+ Added support for new revision of PDF encryption (ISO 32000-2:2017 compliance).
= Added information about encryption and permissions to document information.
= Improved extraction of duplicated text (shadow-like effect).
= Greatly improved `Borders` and `Bordered Tables` column detection modes.
= Improved multimedia extraction.
- Fixed wrong text encoding in grid in Preview window.
- Fixed rendering of dynamically visible objects.
- Fixed text search issues on some documents.
= Improved rendering of PDF controls.
= Improved parsing of PDF documents.
- Other minor fixes and improvements.

Automated table detection:

Text search inside PDF:

OCR (reading text from images):

[webfork]

Some very nice recent improvements to the Bytescout PDF Multitool.

* Detect tables
* Various OCR tools
* PDF search that includes regular expressions (just this update is worth a post)
* Barcode reader (including QR codes and a dozen others)
* Sensitive data remover

I've seen a remarkable number of PDFs recently that leaked all kinds of information about the group/author behind it so the privacy tools are especially welcome.

License: still free for non-commercial use.

Note that I haven't been following this project so these changes might not actually be very recent.

[vevy]

It's worth noting too that they periodically do a giveaway (for commercial use) through https://www.giveawayoftheday.com/ or https://sharewareonsale.com