Adobe Acrobat Reader vs. Tungsten PaperPort

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Adobe Acrobat Reader
Score 8.5 out of 10
N/A
Acrobat Reader is a PDF viewer and converter, available as a free download from Adobe. Users can view, sign, collaborate on and annotate PDF files, or edit and convert PDFs into file formats like Excel and Word.N/A
Tungsten PaperPort
Score 8.9 out of 10
N/A
Tungsten PaperPort (formerly from Kofax and Nuance) is a document management software offering. It includes features such as desktop document management solution and allows you to manage and organize your documents in one solution.
$99
one-time fee per license
Pricing
Adobe Acrobat ReaderTungsten PaperPort
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
PaperPort Standard
$99
one-time fee per license
PaperPort Professional
$199
one-time fee per license
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Adobe Acrobat ReaderTungsten PaperPort
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsPerpetual license products, there are no subscription or maintenance fees. Buy once, own forever.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Adobe Acrobat ReaderTungsten PaperPort
Features
Adobe Acrobat ReaderTungsten PaperPort
PDF Editors
Comparison of PDF Editors features of Product A and Product B
Adobe Acrobat Reader
9.1
2 Ratings
5% above category average
Tungsten PaperPort
-
Ratings
Edit Text and Images9.02 Ratings00 Ratings
Merge or Split PDFs9.52 Ratings00 Ratings
Add Annotations9.02 Ratings00 Ratings
Text Recognition (OCR)8.02 Ratings00 Ratings
Page Management8.52 Ratings00 Ratings
Form Creation and Editing10.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Secure PDFs10.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Convert to Different Formats9.02 Ratings00 Ratings
Comment and Review Tools9.02 Ratings00 Ratings
Undo and Redo Actions8.52 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Adobe Acrobat ReaderTungsten PaperPort
Small Businesses
Tungsten Power PDF
Tungsten Power PDF
Score 9.5 out of 10
Square 9 Softworks
Square 9 Softworks
Score 9.7 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
pdfFiller
pdfFiller
Score 9.1 out of 10
MSB Docs
MSB Docs
Score 9.4 out of 10
Enterprises
Bluebeam
Bluebeam
Score 9.2 out of 10
Tungsten Capture
Tungsten Capture
Score 7.9 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Adobe Acrobat ReaderTungsten PaperPort
Likelihood to Recommend
9.5
(75 ratings)
8.0
(10 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
7.2
(2 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Usability
9.5
(3 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Adobe Acrobat ReaderTungsten PaperPort
Likelihood to Recommend
Adobe
After creating a document, converting it into Adobe Acrobat Reader is usually very easy for storage in my computer, sending/sharing via emails, etc. This also saves a significant amount of unnecessary printing and paper waste, which is great for reducing waste. I don't have to worry about not having the right software/app to view, edit, and share with anyone.
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Tungsten Automation (formerly Kofax)
Kofax PaperPort is great for any office that has paper documents - seriously! We have set up multiple businesses to use Kofax PaperPort to cut down their storage of paper receipts, invoices, documents, etc by nearly 90%! Their office is much better organized and they have the ability to edit PDF Documents for a lot cheaper than buying Adobe Acrobat.
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Pros
Adobe
  • It has all the tools that individuals need for reading/doing light editing of PDF files.
  • It is the most secure PDF reader on the market, and it tends to get patched with timely updates on a regular basis.
  • It usually works very well, as far as the software itself. It doesn't crash a lot, or is particularly an error prone software platform.
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Tungsten Automation (formerly Kofax)
  • With Kofax PaperPort, documents can be merged, pages can be extracted from multiple documents and combined to make a new PDF document. It is an important feature as one needs to do it very often and more ubiquitous pdf readers like Adobe Acrobat Reader DC lacks functionalities like these.
  • Kofax PaperPort scans the documents and using it's OCR, converts these scans to searchable PDF documents so that these documents can be searched based on the text content in them.
  • Functionality to convert other formats to PDF and PDF to other formats. This is important as many times , we need to upload certain documents only in a specific format and conversion is required to and from PDF format.
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Cons
Adobe
  • Being able to add image "stamps" to a document is a little tricky as the stamp has to already be in PDF format (at least on Mac) to work. This mean you have to convert the image to PDF before you can use it as a stamp.
  • Being only able to save one signature and one set of initials is a bit of a pain but you can actually use stamps if you need different versions frequently used scribbles for various reasons. The stamp won't secure the document and prevent future changes the same way the signature would though.
  • All of the other features you might want to use are only included with Acrobat Pro but the options are all displayed in the Reader app. When clicked they will offer the free trial that leads to a paid subscription. This is more of an annoyance but you can't fault Adobe for trying to make a sale.
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Tungsten Automation (formerly Kofax)
  • It should have a back button, so if you go from one folder to the next, it would be simple to get back to the first folder.
  • When you combine two PDFs, it should retain the title of the one that's on top.
  • The send to bar should be easier to change.
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Likelihood to Renew
Adobe
To be honest, I do not have any say in the renewal of Adobe Acrobat Reader DC. It is managed at an enterprise level, and the decision to renew or not renew is handled well above my pay grade as an external consultant.
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Tungsten Automation (formerly Kofax)
PaperPort has a few quirks, but it is the only program of its kind that actually does what it claims to do. The power of it is so much more than they claim especially when it comes to trying to achieve a truly paperless office. With PDF editing built-in, it also saves considerable investment in other PDF editing programs.
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Usability
Adobe
Again, Adobe Creative Suite is widely used and backed by an industry leader, making the experience very familiar and common for anyone who has used a PDF and wants more features to interact with it. It also makes copy text a lot easier than just previewing the file.
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Tungsten Automation (formerly Kofax)
For us, it's only focusing processes that we're already doing... creating folders, placing scanned files into those folders, then searching for and opening up those files later, as needed. It just helps us view everything in one place - very convenient. Further, being able to drag non-native files to their corresponding source app for editing (Word, Excel, etc) is pretty nice.
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Implementation Rating
Adobe
The application is pretty much "plug and play"
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Tungsten Automation (formerly Kofax)
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Adobe
We have reviewed DocuSign in comparison to [Adobe] Acrobat Reader [DC's] e-sign capabilities. We found that DocuSign has more robust options when creating contracts and consent capabilities. DocuSign's online UI is much more suited to this type of task as well. However, we decided to stick with [Adobe] Acrobat Reader DC because of the price (DocuSign is more expensive) and we felt we didn't need all of the bells and whistles for contract signature and consent.
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Tungsten Automation (formerly Kofax)
I was ecstatic to see someone moving PaperPort away from Nuance (Those in my circle of friends refer to them as Nuisance). The lack of customer involvement by Nuance made finding answers to things that sometimes irritate a user to being downright frustrating. Maybe the purchase of Nuance by Microsoft will allow the company to focus more on the customer.
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Return on Investment
Adobe
  • It's available for free, so there is no excuse to not install
  • Contains features that you would normally have to pay for in competitor software, so it has a positive impact on ROI
  • Reduces the amount of printing
  • Decreases the amount of time spent on regulatory and governance documentation
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Tungsten Automation (formerly Kofax)
  • Simple focus on organization of files
  • Efficient later, when searching for files
  • Convenient throughout the office, as we're all accessing a shared data store
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ScreenShots