Adobe Reader alternative: NitroPDF Reader 2.0

http://www.nitroreader.com

I don’t have time for a full-fledged review, but this program is pretty good.  Being a 25Mb download, the program is definitely lighter weight than the Adobe offering, well, during install, anyway!

NitroPDF Reader has gone through a UI revamp when they released 2.0 in June, and have now included a few highly-requested features such as browser integration for IE, Firefox and Chrome and an enhanced thumbnail handler to preview your PDFs.




See the release notes here: http://www.nitroreader.com/Support/Reader_2_Release_Notes_en.pdf



Features:

Web browser integration: FoxIt and Adobe have it, and so does NitroPDF.  Nothing much to say here, other than Adobe provides a progress bar as you are downloading an embedded PDF, whereas Nitro does not.

Generate PDF by drag ‘n’ drop or printer: (I refuse to say ‘create!’) Of course, NitroPDF Reader has the functions you’d expect from any PDF reader, but a nice thing here is that like Adobe Reader, Nitro has the capability of generating PDFs, either by drag-n-drop or by using the ‘print to’ method.  So, you can eliminate the need for installing PDFCreator (if you’ve opted for this).  Adobe isn’t real specific as to where your generated document goes, but Nitro gives you the control you need.

Annotate and collaborate: The most significant addition here though is the capability to annotate and comment on the PDF content by using the typing tool.  It’s dead easy to do, and you don’t have to dig through a slew of toolbars and functions to find it.

Making comments is easy, just click ‘Add note’, then click where you want the comment icon to appear on the PDF page.  You can then type a comment in the exploded comment box – it has a pointer which directs your eye to where the originating comment icon is located.

You can also use the built-in ‘Markup Text’ tool to highlight, cross out or underline certain segments of text.
Like Adobe PDF Reader, you can apply a signature to a document using the ‘QuickSign’ function.  This can be password protected, which is very nice.

Extract images and text: The image extract seemed to work ok for me, but didn’t grab everything out of the welcome pdf included with Nitro.  Extracting text was as you would expect.  I did like the capability to easily select whether or not I can extract directly into the same folder where the original PDF was contained or choose my own (or prompt as each element is extracted).

Ribbon interface: Falling in line with MS Office 2007 and beyond, NitroPDF is sporting a nice ribbon interface that gives it a very easy and modern look and feel.

Memory utilization: Interestingly, I ran Adobe Reader X and opened up a 70.6 KB file.  Overall memory utilization was 43 MB.  Opening that same file in Nitro yielded a result of 93 MB used.  Now, our computers these days have so much memory, so this shouldn’t be your only deterring factor that keeps you from using Nitro.  But, you can’t deny the fact that Adobe, who has been accused of pushing a bloated piece of software is running much leaner here.

Dislikes:

• Bigger memory footprint while opening smaller files compared to Adobe
• No progress bar while loading an embedded PDF through a web browser

Likes:

• Easier to navigate than Adobe, thanks to the Ribbon interface
• PDF Generation is easy
• Collaboration tools. Have I said ‘easy’ already?
• Extracting images and text is super easy
• Password-protected QuickSign feature

So – if you are looking for a viable alternative to Adobe and FoxIt, NitroPDF Reader might be your bucket of tapioca.  I think I’ll keep it around for awhile to run the tires off of it!  This might be the perfect reader for mom & dad, who don’t have to be confronted with a ton of options (let’s face it, they get confused sometimes, right?).