Customer Reviews

PDF CREATE 7.0 Retail

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I had PDF Converter Professional 4.0 for years. I needed to upgrade. So I bought the 'Create'. Just beware that the "Create" version is completely different from the convert version, even though the Nuance website has them appear as very similar in their comparision charts. All this soft ware does is combine files to make them PDFs. you can't actually edit pdfs, move around pages, edit text, etc. By the converter pro version.....

This software allows you to combine files and make those files into PDF's.

(For the record apostraphes can be used to pluralize initialisms. Google it.)

So if you don't want to pay $40 to do that, you can get Cute PDF or OpenOffice for free, and either one is much more fully featured.

If you want even more free choices, go to Wikipedia and look up "List of PDF software"

You will find a list of software broken up into:
*Converters
*Editors
*Development Libraries
*Creators
*Viewers

Save yourself a dime (actually 400 dimes) by doing your homework and you will be doing more wihtout being out any money. Actually, I started your homework for you. :)

Not sure why folks like to post negative reviews about a product based on what they WISH it could do versus what the program is designed to do. It does not have the same functionality as its big brother PDF Converter Pro, but it is not designed to. This program does a perfectly fine job creating and combining PDFs. No annotating, nor form-filling, etc. But if all you want to do is create and combine PDFs, this is an excellent, economic alternative to Adobe.

I installed this software on my netbook, and have been using the program for about 1 month. Installation was easy with no complications.

This program does exactly what it says that it does - easily creates pdfs - nothing more, nothing less. I've not run into any difficulties using the program. E-mailed pdfs are easily opened by others.

This is a PDF creator. It doesn't Edit, doesn't View. It just creates by enabling the user to pull from multiple documents in multiple file formats to quickly and efficiently create PDFs using one of a few methods:

1) Via their "wizard", PDF Create Assistant. This program installs itself on your computer and you basically just copy the source documents into a folder and start creating your new franken-PDF.

2) PDF Create also installs itself as a printer on your system and you basically send the page/document to the PDF Create printer and the document is created.

3) PDF Create - Microsoft Office Toolbar add-on. This is supposedly one of the main selling points for this program, but I have not been successful at getting this to work as MS Word keeps on freezing or crashing. From what little of the process I can get through before it crashes, it seems that it is supposed help pull a bunch of MS Office documents together to create a PDF for presentations. Would've been nice if it worked. People who own the more recent versions of MS Office have this ability anyways.

Overall impression is that this is program is very basic. It does what it claims to do and does it quickly (as long as one doesn't use the MS Office Toolbar add-on). However, for occasional use, there are comparable PDF creators widely available for free and it might be more economical to try those out first. For someone who needs to create large batches of PDFs quickly from multiple sources and is looking for a wizard-type program to "hack-slash-paste" this program might be a decent consideration when compared to a similarly restrictive Adobe version at 3x the price.

A note of caution is that once the PDF is created, one cannot go back and edit the creation.

CONCLUSION:
Although it does exactly what it claims, it doesn't do anything special that other better and sometimes cheaper programs don't already do.

I found Nuance's PDF Create 7.0 installation to be fast, easy and trouble-free. I am still using Windows XP and have had no system / software conflicts with PDF Create 7.0. Product registration was easy and painless.

For the money, PDF Create works well and does everything I need and then some. Granted, it does not allow you to edit PDF documents or create documents than are editable, but then this program costs only a fraction of what Adobe Acrobat charges and has a far smaller footprint. All the PDF files I have created have had no problems being opened with Acrobat Reader.

Some of the things I like about PDF Create are the ability to append new material to existing PDF files, the ability to create searchable PDFs and the ability to create PDF files in different size formats.

For basic PDF file creation, I think this program is pretty good. I have tried some of the cheaper and even free programs around and got quickly tired of their nag screens and their lame extortion attempts to watermark your PDF file. Nuance PDF Create does what I need at a price that is reasonable.

I think I got my first version of PDF create 2.0 with my first Xerox scanner about 10 years ago. It was very useful and handy, it helped create PDF file from anything that can be printed. Since then, I have accumulated almost every version of PDF create, most of them came with one or the other multifunction machine or Paperport. But PDF Creator version 7.0 is the slowest and the most buggy.

PDF Create produces PDF files in 3 ways.

1). PDF create 7.0 installs itself as a printer on your computer. Let us say you want to create a PDF file from a webpage, you will print the webpage on PDF Create printer, give the file a name, and it will create the PDF file. This is the way I use it most of the time.

2). It also installs a program called PDF Create Assistant on your computer and you can add the files that you want to make PDF from, say a Microsoft Word document, click create the icon Start PDF Creation and it will turn the document into a PDF file. It works but I rarely use this way.

3). The third way to create PDF files with this program is from that PDF create toolbar in Microsoft office. I found that to be very buggy, and it crashes the Microsoft Word. I had to uninstall that toolbar.

Instead of making the program better with the newer version, Nuance has made it even slower and buggier. Here are the problems I encountered with this program.

1). It installs with Visual C++ 2005, even though my computer as all newer versions of Visual C++ including 2008 and 2010. I think all of those were installed by one of the other Nuance program. These guys at Nuance cannot get their act together, each of their programs installs a different version of Visual C++, without even checking if the newer version is already on the computer.

2). Unless you choose custom install, it will install the PDF create toolbar in Microsoft office, which crashes the Microsoft office. I would also not install any add-ons to PDF Create 7.

3). At the end of installation, it asks you to register the program, and then the registration screen freezes. I had to press Ctrl-Alt-Delete to get out of that.

4). It also installs registration reminder and update program on Windows Startup, which really slows down your computer. Run msconfig and uninstall those startup programs.

5). The program is still named ScanSoft PDF Create! The name of the company now is Nuance. It tells you how much attention to detail Nuance pays.

6). Nuance has Draconian activation policies. They allow only one activation for each program. Tough luck if you need to reinstall the program because you changed hard drive or got a new computer.

Since there is no law to force Nuance to eat its own dogfood before feeding it to the customers, the market should punish the sloppy companies. I would not buy this program, I think there are cheaper and faster alternatives available out there. On one of my computers, I use PDF Xchange 4 to create PDF documents, it is much more versatile, cheaper, and faster. I use it in combination with scan to PDF, which converts scanned documents into PDF files. And you can download a free version of PDF Xchange to try.

There is one thing that 1 star and 5 star reviews have in common, you have to go out of your way to earn it!

Well this product has earned a 1 star review. First, while it was easy to install and register, I soon discovered I had something wrong with my computer's start up and when I uninstalled this program, the problem went away with it. Hmmmm?

Problem two, no User Guide! All those features mentioned above are great if you know how to use them, but without a guide, I am just pushing buttons randomly. I went to their website to see if a pdf version was available and after far too long searching I did find a Quickstart guide that told me the pdf guide was hidden on the CD Rom. OK, so I put the disc back in and start exploring it and I eventually find??? Yeah you guessed it! The Quickstart Guide I started with.

I went back to the website and tried a Chat with customer service, but all they did was refer me to a Non toll-free phone number.

Let's be honest for a moment here. The number one competition for programs like this are illegal downloads. If you are trying to compete with "free" you have to provide something of value that can't be downloaded and an actual user guide is such an item. Having a book for referencing is still far superior to a pdf version. And don't give me "They are trying to save a tree" excuse, the trees that are used to make paper are a crop; planted, grown, harvested and planted again just like corn, wheat and potatoes.

Overall, this could be a great program, but if I don't know how to use it, It will not be used. It's that simple

I just want to digitize some of my paperwork at home into PDF files. My Brother All-in-One printer only creates a multi-page PDF file using the sheet feeder. If I try to scan a double sided sheet by scanning it twice, the scan software create 2 files.

So I purchase Create 7 to solve this problem to combine multiple PDF files into one. I purchased my copy for $10 from Fry's figuring I won't lose much if it doesn't work.

This product does that and a lot more. The software combines PDF files easily but it does not compress PDF files to a smaller file when it merges the PDF files. The resulting file is the sum of the single files.

The main reason why I am giving this product 2 stars is registration and a software bug.

Registration
Installing this software on your computer requires a lot more effort than you would think.
1) It had an unusually long serial number to input. If you don't register it you get only 5 activations.
2) When you register you must give an email address, create a password account, input the S/N again, and input the numbers/letters from the CAPTCHA image. They then send you an email to complete the registration process.

Bug
The next day after installing and registering this software, I booted up my computer and up comes a System32 Explorer window. Thinking it was cause by a virus I researched the symptom. Microsoft Answers had a reply from geglinto saying the problem was Nuance. Looking at the Nuance website, they know about this problem. Apparently it is created during registration. Here is the fix from Nuance:

1) Open the Registry Editor by clicking "Start > Run" (Win XP) or "Start > Search" (Win Vista/7). Type in "regedit" without the quotes and click "OK" or "Enter".
************* Registry Backup Recommended *************
2)Export a backup copy of your Registry in case problems occur during the following procedures by going to: "File > Export Registry File". Save this file to the Windows Desktop and name the file "backup". (You can keep "backup" for a few days and if all is well, this file can be deleted.)
************* End of Registry Backup *************
3)Browse to the following location in the Registry Editor. [...]
4)Look in the right panel for: Name = "ISUSPM" with a data value containing "-scheduler".
5)If this key if found, right-click on the "ISUSPM" entry and select "Delete".
6)Close the "Registry Editor".

Does PDF Create allow you to create files in a PDF format for distribution? Yes.

Does PDF Create quickly combine many different file types into a consistent single format? Yes.

Is that basic functionality worth $45? Not really...

As a consumer who doesn't constantly create PDF files it isn't enough for a package at this price level to create PDFs. For this price, I would expect the ability to edit and manipulate PDF files that I get from the web (which is available in some freeware PDF programs). Sure, Nuance's version may be a deal when compared to Adobe but when it comes to purchasing a software at a mid-level price for a consumer, I need some feature or advantage over the shareware/freeware products that it competes with. In this case, I just don't see it. So, unless your only focus is on the creation and distribution of PDF files and you are looking for a cheaper alternative to Adobe... I would look elsewhere.