Adobe Acrobat vs. Camtasia

If your work involves a lot of received PDFs, be it contracts, scanned docs, or multi-part files that need reorganizing before they go anywhere useful, Acrobat fits there well. It's basically what we use it for, and it does that job reliably enough. Where it gets less appropriate is anything collaborative or when you are on a tight budget: paying this much for a tool that slows down on heavy files and doesn't do real-time editing is hard to justify unless you genuinely need the OCR and format editing on the side. For a lighter use case, there are cheaper options that cover most of what people actually need.

Incentivized

Camtasia is so easy to use that I recommend it over Adobe Premiere, Captivate, Storyline, and other tools. The only problem is the price. Due to the fact that I purchased this for education purposes, and educational prices have gone up exponentially, it has been difficult even at $179 to upgrade, as an educator and the organization is not always willing to reimburse the purchase, it would have been more economical. It was less than $100 (Black Friday) when I bought our updated version in 2019. Camtasia profile accounts aren't the best setup, however. My profile account does not reflect when I was a user or show past invoices, and I wanted to see how long ago I was a user.

Incentivized

• ISO standard PDF creation is critical for print production, so that there are no surprises on press.
• Adobe Acrobat's security features are simple to use, and effective.
• Most clients have no difficulty with the commenting features in Adobe Acrobat, which makes review quick and simple.

Incentivized

• Very intuitive controls. You don't need to be a pro at video editing
• Seamless control of assets (separates video from still images)
• Great library of annotations and gestures
• Easy to integrate audio/video edits
• Custom formats that suit my needs (web, mobile, tablets)

Incentivized

• For as amazing as Adobe Acrobat is, a lot of the time it does feel like one of the more clunky and slow Adobe programs.
• Ability to edit text! Adobe Acrobat sometimes struggles with fonts and editing the text ends up messing with the text in weird ways.
• It would be cool to have multiple versions of the same preflight single fixups! I use the same single fixup but need to adjust it for multiple sizes! I'd like to be able to save another version of it with the different sizes.

Incentivized

• USB Microphones can sometimes cause a problem if they become accidentally unplugged during a recording session. This can corrupt some of the files that the Camtasia Recorder application uses to capture directly to .avi mode.
• You'll sometimes get a message when you next try to record that .avi mode isn't available and the only way to fix this is by completely uninstalling and reinstalling Camtasia (with a reboot in the middle of these two actions).
• This bug only manifested after Camtasia 8 was released, but still seems to cause an issue right up to and including Camtasia 2021.
• I'd like to see more standard Annotation options. The existing ones are pretty good, but variety is a little lacking.
• More 'Behaviours' would also be really welcome as these are a great feature and make Callouts a bit more interesting and lively. I've not seen any new Behaviours over the past few versions (since Camtasia 2018).

Incentivized

Adobe Acrobat works seamlessly with the other Adobe products we use that are industry-standard. We will certainly continue to use Adobe InDesign, Photoshop, and Illustrator, meaning it will always be convenient to work seamlessly with Adobe Acrobat for our organization. We are happy with the performance of Acrobat and it's meets our expectations.

Incentivized

Each release of Camtasia has added just enough functionality to justify the upgrade to the new version. I like that Camtasia is not a subscription-based product as we have more flexibility and control over our spend on the product. We can also purchase support packages that include the next version when released.

Incentivized

It’s a very easy app to learn and software is essential. I feel like the app could load a bit faster but overall, is one of my go to apps. Makes reading and editing pdfs easy and I enjoy the usability of the app. It is definitely something I make sure to have downloaded on any computer I’m working from

Incentivized

I haven't used another video recording and editing tools that is as comprehensive and straight-forward as Camtasia. Typically, if you want a user-friendly video editing tools for novice users, you have to compromise on features. Camtasia solves this problem by offering extensive editing features in a simplistic, user-friendly environment. Highly recommend

Incentivized

We have not had availability issues with Adobe Acrobat, or at least none that I am personally aware of. Some may encounter crashes of the software during outages of electricity in their city or neighborhood, which no one can plan for, but with generators in our organization, we have been lucky not to have outages

Incentivized

One of the best features of Adobe Acrobat is its speed and stability. When dealing with massive multi-page files, having to reload a crashed program over and over again would slow down progress unnecessarily. And expanding on that, having the table of contents generated allows me to skip to different pages with ease, a necessary feature with exceptionally long files. word searches are even more helpful with text recognition.

Incentivized

For a while, Acrobat DC crashed pretty frequently. I contacted Adobe Acrobat support about the problem. At first support was unable to provide a solution. After about a month Adobe's software engineers provided a fix. I just wish it had taken less than a month to solve the problem.

Incentivized

With the latest version (Camtasia 2020), I actually had problems with an Imac with HighSierra, but from the first moment they answered and guided me to solve the problem, even before making the purchase (with some doubts I had). And they have support in English and Spanish, I really liked that.

Answered basic questions.

Incentivized

I was not involved with the implementation process, so I cannot answer this question. However, when it was installed on my computer system, they did so virtually. I just sat there while they took control of my computer over the network and watch them install it, lickety split

Incentivized

In my opinion, both complement each other. Microsoft clearly has with Copilot the AI Edge. However, the visual dynamics of Adobe Creative are Outstanding and provide a balanced approach to creativity, utilizing both Excellent, user-friendly Tools.

Incentivized

I've tried several freeware recorders, too. If all you want to do is literally record your screen, and nothing else, you don't need Camtasia. There are literally dozens of apps that will do that. If you want an app that will record your screen while capturing mouse clicks, follow you, record your voice while you capture, and annotate when you're done, Camtasia has no equal. Plus, it doesn't stop there. You can add professional intros and outros (many already created to choose from), lower thirds, etc., leading to videos with very high production value. This is THE program to buy if you want to produce training videos of very high quality.

Incentivized

I am not responsible for sales or purchasing

Incentivized

I find that many users aren't aware of many features of the software they use, nor may they be comfortable with learning multiple-step processes. For the simplest of PDF purposes (scanning, downloading, exporting), it gets a thumbs-up. For anything involving electronic signatures, meh--causes eyes to glaze over, or forgetting what all is involved.

Incentivized

• Adobe Acrobat has saved us time in managing documents. In this day, everything is fast, moves fast, and keeping up with that pace demands software that functions at the same level. Adobe Acrobat does that. It has streamlined the steps I need to take to edit and create documents we need to manage our customers.
• Adobe Acrobat removes the worry and stress associated with managing a large influx of documents. Something as simple as a document featuring an image that was sent to us upside down. Using the old method, I would have to open other software, click 'Edit', find the 'Rotate Image' button, click it a couple of times, save it as a JPEG, then attach it to Word, and finally save it as a PDF. It was a grueling process that consumed a great deal of time. Now, I simply open the image, and Adobe automatically recognizes it is upside down and fixes it for me. I can save and move on; it literally takes me seconds. Amazing.
• Adobe Acrobat is intuitive and easy to use, and the additional apps are relevant to the needs that come up. If I have an idea, I can go to the available apps and find exactly what I need. Impressive and speaks to the years of experience this company has had to fine-tune its product and make it obvious that it is aggressive in staying on top.

Incentivized

• Many faculty members used it because it was easy to use and accomplish what they needed.
• No need for a lot of training or follow-up training due to it being very to use.
• Account management within our system and assigning permissions required a few steps when granting access.

Incentivized