Adobe InDesign vs. Tungsten Power PDF

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Adobe InDesign
Score 9.2 out of 10
N/A
Adobe InDesign supports creating digital and print documents such as flyers, stationary, posters, and other types of media, with rich graphics, images, and more. Adobe InDesign is available standalone or as part of the Adobe Creative Suite collection of media management and creation products.
$31.49
per month
Tungsten Power PDF
Score 9.0 out of 10
Small Businesses (1-50 employees)
Tungsten Power PDF (formerly Kofax) is a solution to manage PDFs for businesses and individuals available with a one-time purchase with no subscription fees. It has a built-in eSignature integration with SignDoc and DocuSign for a complete end-to-end document…
$129
one-time fee per license
Pricing
Adobe InDesignTungsten Power PDF
Editions & Modules
Monthly Plan
$31.49
per month
Annual Plan, Prepaid
$239.88 ($19.99)
per year (per month)
Annual Plan, Paid Monthly
$251.88 ($20.99)
per year (per month)
Power PDF Standard
$129
one-time fee per license
Power PDF Standard for Mac
$129
one-time fee per license
Power PDF Advanced
$179
one-time fee per license
Power PDF Enterprise
Get a Quote
per year per seat
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Adobe InDesignTungsten Power PDF
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsDesktop licenses are buy once, own forever. No subscription fees. Enterprise server licenses are term-based with optional maintenance & support contract. Volume and upgrade discounts available.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Adobe InDesignTungsten Power PDF
Considered Both Products
Adobe InDesign

No answer on this topic

Tungsten Power PDF
Chose Tungsten Power PDF
Power PDF is much better than Acrobat DC for creating and editing PDFs. I have not personally used Adobe InDesign, but Power PDF is much less expensive and reviews were overall much better. I have also had good success with support from Kofax and Nuance before that. Adobe …
Chose Tungsten Power PDF
Adobe Acrobat and Kofax Power PDF are similar enough to make transitioning back and forth easy. When I have had to use Foxit PDF Editor on someone else's computer, it has been disappointing in comparison. Online free PDF apps I see other people using tend to want you to …
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Adobe InDesignTungsten Power PDF
PDF Editors
Comparison of PDF Editors features of Product A and Product B
Adobe InDesign
-
Ratings
Tungsten Power PDF
8.7
7 Ratings
2% below category average
Edit Text and Images00 Ratings8.36 Ratings
Merge or Split PDFs00 Ratings9.07 Ratings
Add Annotations00 Ratings8.86 Ratings
Text Recognition (OCR)00 Ratings8.25 Ratings
Page Management00 Ratings8.47 Ratings
Form Creation and Editing00 Ratings8.86 Ratings
Secure PDFs00 Ratings8.86 Ratings
Convert to Different Formats00 Ratings8.47 Ratings
Comment and Review Tools00 Ratings9.35 Ratings
Undo and Redo Actions00 Ratings9.27 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Adobe InDesignTungsten Power PDF
Small Businesses
CorelDRAW Graphics Suite
CorelDRAW Graphics Suite
Score 9.5 out of 10
PDFfiller
PDFfiller
Score 9.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Canva
Canva
Score 9.2 out of 10
PDFfiller
PDFfiller
Score 9.0 out of 10
Enterprises

No answers on this topic

Adobe Acrobat
Adobe Acrobat
Score 8.8 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Adobe InDesignTungsten Power PDF
Likelihood to Recommend
9.2
(95 ratings)
9.1
(582 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
10.0
(3 ratings)
9.7
(111 ratings)
Usability
9.0
(5 ratings)
8.9
(46 ratings)
Availability
9.0
(1 ratings)
8.9
(13 ratings)
Performance
9.0
(1 ratings)
8.8
(13 ratings)
Support Rating
5.0
(64 ratings)
8.5
(424 ratings)
In-Person Training
10.0
(1 ratings)
3.6
(1 ratings)
Online Training
8.0
(1 ratings)
8.2
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.0
(1 ratings)
8.6
(33 ratings)
Configurability
8.0
(1 ratings)
8.4
(9 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
8.6
(10 ratings)
Product Scalability
9.0
(1 ratings)
8.7
(12 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
-
(0 ratings)
8.7
(7 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
-
(0 ratings)
8.7
(7 ratings)
User Testimonials
Adobe InDesignTungsten Power PDF
Likelihood to Recommend
Adobe
Adobe InDesign is very well suited to image-heavy publications, such as children's books, cookbooks and coffee table books. It gives you almost complete control how to arrange these elements, and to be able to tweak them with precision. The software is an absolute necessity if one is developing interactive eBooks, especially for the Apple iTunes store. Unless coded by hand, I am not aware of any other tools to handle this. It is a powerful toolset, and can take on most anything publishing related that you throw at it. I personally have found that it doesn't do too well with reflowable eBooks (like for Kindle Amazon), but it retains that capability.
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Tungsten Automation (formerly Kofax)
It is well suited for all scenarios that you would use Adobe. It is especially useful and a terrific option for small to medium businesses who need the functionality of a PDF creator/editor/writer without having to spend the exuberant costs of Adobe Acrobat reader/writer/editor. It has saved us time and money. There is no learning curve in switching to it, our staff was able to switch seamlessly.
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Pros
Adobe
  • Customization - With Adobe InDesign, as well as many other applications in the Adobe Creative Suite, I can fully customize my workspaces and save different workspaces. This makes it easy to navigate through my project and have the panels and tools I need easily accessible and configured based on my project needs.
  • Styles - Adobe InDesign has character styles, object styles, and tables styles. This speeds up my workflows and allows me to easily apply the same format across multiple elements. This is super helpful, especially when working with length documents.
  • File compatibility - I can easily export my files into so many different file types.
  • The Book feature - This feature is really helpful when creating books or very long documents with multiple sections.
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Tungsten Automation (formerly Kofax)
  • Typewriter functionality is great, although can take some time to load. This allows you to fill in text wherever applicable without turning the rest of the pdf into editable text.
  • Fast load times
  • Has autogenerated text feature so anything in the pdf can become editable
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Cons
Adobe
  • Ordering the pages with dragging is a bit counter-intuitive
  • The "Links" section needs improvement - it might be very beneficial to have the links displayed (and saved) in the "links" sections for dragging and reusing without having to re-insert
  • I think the relinking option works well - Would it be possible to the automatic relink to work even if file was renamed? A prompt will be [shown] to the user to help them approve or disapprove of this action.
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Tungsten Automation (formerly Kofax)
  • I find that quickly editing text within a document or adding a line of text is clunky and can snowball into things popping out of place. I prefer to export text, and then work on it elsewhere.
  • Sometimes it seems that text recognition is trying too hard and throws me paper punches as "O"s and wrinkles as shapes, so I have to get rid of those artifacts.
  • The "Update Available" popup which is usually not an actual update announcement but rather an offer to sell me something is annoying.
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Likelihood to Renew
Adobe
I've had great experiences with the product and plan to continue to use it. It has been my go-to product for designing and creating materials. I have had great luck with it and have been able to create all of the needed marketing materials that have been requested for our company.
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Tungsten Automation (formerly Kofax)
This program can do everything that acrobat can do. Kofax PDF is priced so that we can afford to purchase for more employees when we need to. Since we are hoping to grow exponentially in the next few years, this product will be the one we go with. I'm very happy with Kofax Power PDF
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Usability
Adobe
If you know what you are doing it is an amazingly granular and powerful application. You can control pretty much any aspect of the design and layout of your documents and make changes globally and rapidly. But, if you don't know what you are doing...you will be staring at your screen in bewilderment for a long time. You can learn it, but be ready for a hefty time investment.
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Tungsten Automation (formerly Kofax)
It is fast and easy to get the hang of. It really didn't take a lot of effort to learn how to use this program and I appreciated that it was pretty "plug and play" and there wasn't a long learning curve.
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Reliability and Availability
Adobe
I've needed Adobe InDesign team very little which is a bonus in and of itself.
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Tungsten Automation (formerly Kofax)
Other that a PDF partially disappearing if left up for a long period of time - no issues. (If you close it and reopen it, it is all there. We have some PDFs that are 400-600 pages long.)
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Performance
Adobe
One of the advantages of Adobe InDesign is it is faster and less glitchy than Microsoft Word.
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Tungsten Automation (formerly Kofax)
Pages nearly always load at the expected rapid speed. Some documents that print quickly from Adobe Reader print much more slowly from Power PDF. I have never generated a report - that's a feature I didn't know existed until now and do not know what it's for
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Support Rating
Adobe
Adobe support is ok but not great. Chat support often doesn't initially understand the question at-hand and it takes awhile to get to the right agent. Phone support has long wait times, and though I've had more luck there, it does take quite a time investment if you are looking for help. However, Adobe does have some online learning solutions available as well as a knowledgebase for frequently asked questions. If you're looking to learn how to use the platform, there are lots of resources which can typically be found in a few Google searches. If you have a technical issue with the system, that's going to be a bit more of a time investment as far as getting a tech's assistance to resolve the problem.
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Tungsten Automation (formerly Kofax)
I have used it for 15 years and have only needed support once: a simple update that allowed me to use the software as intended. The support team was attentive and responsive, and I was on my way very quickly.
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In-Person Training
Adobe
Attending Adobe MAX each year is extremely valuable.
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Tungsten Automation (formerly Kofax)
I got an overview of the product from my predecessor who was about to retire from the job I now hold. He did not go into very many of the features and probably only knew about the ones he used most frequently.
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Online Training
Adobe
The online training works well and is not wholly necessary as it is user-friendly and you can learn by doing.
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Tungsten Automation (formerly Kofax)
We watched the training videos and tested out the features and functionality side by side. Some features are not used on a regular basis is it is convenient to go back and review training on that particular functionality when needed.
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Implementation Rating
Adobe
Implementation was smooth and easy.
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Tungsten Automation (formerly Kofax)
Easy and quick, with no problems or support needed. Worked as intended right out of the box. E-signing was the only area that implementation was dificult and required support
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Alternatives Considered
Adobe
Microsoft products do not match the aesthetic tools that [Adobe] InDesign offers, cannot support the customizable options available for export, and do not produce documents with as high a degree of accessibility. That said, they do have their place in collaboration in a team- I'd consider Office to be the first step and [Adobe] InDesign to be the final product.
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Tungsten Automation (formerly Kofax)
I think Adobe Acrobat is very slow and does not perform well with large documents. I often have documents that are thousands of pages long and with Adobe it's very difficult to open and load the document, let alone make changes. Kofax Power PDF, on the other hand, responds and performs well regardless of the document size.
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Scalability
Adobe
Working in a cloud environment makes it easy to scale and share resources.
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Tungsten Automation (formerly Kofax)
Not really familiar since I'm the only person who uses it. But in the past it has been my understanding that Power PDF was offered only on a single-license basis, so it's been expensive for me to use it at home and at work because I had to pay for it on my own. In my current position management supports it so I at least only have to pay for it once.
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Return on Investment
Adobe
  • Adobe InDesign has allowed us to tackle more projects in the same amount of time because of how well it integrates into our group's workflow.
  • For awhile, we struggled only with a slowdown in digital guides. Because, as I mentioned earlier, there is not a clear way to combine individual documents into one document quickly, some editors were forced to spend a long time transferring each page into the final document that would be used with Publish Online. We have since found a workaround that does not include using Publish Online.
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Tungsten Automation (formerly Kofax)
  • Saved time and paper putting together binders of documents or Affidavits electronically, not to mention very functional when working from home!
  • It's one price, no monthly or yearly payments. I loved Kofax Power PDF so much that when I moved to a smaller firm I recommended it as a good purchase for the company to invest in.
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ScreenShots

Tungsten Power PDF Screenshots

Screenshot of The PDF Create Assistant can be used to create multiple PDFs at the same time from a variety of source formats. Create individual PDFs, or combine into one PDF package.Screenshot of PDF Profiles can be created to apply commonly desired settings to new PDF documents that you create in Power PDF.Screenshot of Users may choose to change the application's color to purple, blue, light gray or dark gray.Screenshot of Some lightweight document automation can also be achieved with the Watched Folder and Sequence features.Screenshot of Packages can be signed with pre built templates using Kofax Sign Doc or other integrating e-signersScreenshot of PDFs can be navigated with a thumbnail view