Square 9 Softworks vs. Tungsten Power PDF

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Square 9 Softworks
Score 9.7 out of 10
N/A
For document-intensive companies looking to improve business efficiency, Square 9 Softworks develops solutions for process automation that aim to drive increased productivity across all business applications.
$250
per month 5 users
Tungsten Power PDF
Score 9.1 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
Square 9 SoftworksTungsten Power PDF
Editions & Modules
Square 9 Process Automation Essentials
$50
per month per user (5 User Minimum)
Square 9 Digital Transformation Essentials
$68
per month per user (5 User Minimum)
Square 9 Enterprise Essentials
$75
per month per user (10 User Minimum)
Power PDF Standard
$129
one-time fee per license
Power PDF for Mac
$129
one-time fee per license
Power PDF Advanced
$179
one-time fee per license
Power PDF Business
Get a Quote
per year per seat
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Square 9 SoftworksTungsten Power PDF
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesYes
Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalNo setup fee
Additional DetailsOffered via a three-tier pricing model that allows customers to scale their solution up or down based on the changing needs of their organization. Pricing excludes professional services and implementation feesDesktop licenses are buy once, own forever. No subscription fees. Business server licenses are term-based or perpetual with optional maintenance & support contract. Volume and upgrade discounts available.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Square 9 SoftworksTungsten Power PDF
Features
Square 9 SoftworksTungsten Power PDF
PDF Editors
Comparison of PDF Editors features of Product A and Product B
Square 9 Softworks
-
Ratings
Tungsten Power PDF
8.0
16 Ratings
6% below category average
Edit Text and Images00 Ratings7.815 Ratings
Merge or Split PDFs00 Ratings8.916 Ratings
Add Annotations00 Ratings8.015 Ratings
Text Recognition (OCR)00 Ratings7.013 Ratings
Page Management00 Ratings8.216 Ratings
Form Creation and Editing00 Ratings7.312 Ratings
Secure PDFs00 Ratings8.012 Ratings
Convert to Different Formats00 Ratings8.315 Ratings
Comment and Review Tools00 Ratings8.214 Ratings
Undo and Redo Actions00 Ratings8.315 Ratings
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Square 9 SoftworksTungsten Power PDF
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Medium-sized Companies
MSB Docs
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Score 9.4 out of 10
PDFfiller
PDFfiller
Score 9.1 out of 10
Enterprises
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Score 7.8 out of 10
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Score 9.0 out of 10
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User Ratings
Square 9 SoftworksTungsten Power PDF
Likelihood to Recommend
9.7
(60 ratings)
8.8
(587 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
6.2
(7 ratings)
10.0
(111 ratings)
Usability
7.6
(6 ratings)
9.6
(46 ratings)
Availability
7.3
(2 ratings)
9.1
(13 ratings)
Performance
7.3
(2 ratings)
9.1
(13 ratings)
Support Rating
8.1
(26 ratings)
9.5
(428 ratings)
In-Person Training
7.3
(1 ratings)
3.6
(1 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
8.2
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
6.4
(3 ratings)
9.0
(33 ratings)
Configurability
7.3
(1 ratings)
9.0
(9 ratings)
Ease of integration
4.5
(2 ratings)
9.1
(10 ratings)
Product Scalability
7.3
(2 ratings)
9.1
(12 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
7.3
(2 ratings)
9.1
(7 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
7.3
(2 ratings)
9.1
(7 ratings)
User Testimonials
Square 9 SoftworksTungsten Power PDF
Likelihood to Recommend
Square 9 Softworks
Square 9 Softworks is well suited for unique needs within companies. We have built, renovated, and optimized custom workflows within our archives, designed highly specific interfaces with our ERP platform, and Square 9 Softworks has answered the bell through it all.
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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
Square 9 Softworks
  • The software is very flexible, and the technicians were great at implementing our customizations for the PO project.
  • While indexing fields in Global Search, the Key Free tool works great.
  • Global Search is well-organized. It's easy to navigate and find your documents.
  • The process for completing your project was well done. Communicating with individuals at Square 9 who were responsible for different aspects of the project was easy.
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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
Square 9 Softworks
  • Overall, it is not as stable as other software. Some errors could not be fixed, such as a form going forward without approval because a user pressed "enter" twice in a row.
  • I probably only use 20% of the functionality. Beyond that, I'd have to pay for development. We did that once, and the project that we paid for never was implemented. They allowed us to request a design before my time that was so complicated that they never got it to work. Once I came on board, I implemented a much simpler solution.
  • Our upgrade took much, much longer than expected, and was disrupted by so many software issues.
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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
Square 9 Softworks
We absolutely can't imagine not continuing software maintenance as there are always new additions that improve the system not to mention the excellent tech support when issues are encountered. Response times for troubleshooting are very quick and usually, my issue is resolved in less than an hour after connecting with support.
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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
Square 9 Softworks
The items I am searching for are easily found. They are found in at least 95% of the searches. The failure rate generally is related to another employees user error or a template error set up by our Square 9 team in house.
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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
Square 9 Softworks
Square-9 can get this product out to you in almost the same hour your order it. We got ours very fast.
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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
Square 9 Softworks
With the PDF projected viewer, the document retrieval-to-display can drag for a second more than some systems, and the capture workflow if you overload a server array can also drag, but those are the only two issues we've ever seen with this product, and they are not serious issues at all.
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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
Square 9 Softworks
Support is always extremely helpful and responsive. Whenever we have a question, it is simple contacting them and also setting-up an appointment, if necessary. Scheduling the appointment is easy and they are willing to talk on the phone, which is not always true with software companies. Their report support tools are also really east to use.
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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
Square 9 Softworks
It would have been higher, but the training is a bit muted for the lesser qualified office equipment vendors who signed up as partners to sell and support it. The more experienced ECM vendors and customer end-users will find the training very good, but a bit slow.
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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
Square 9 Softworks
No answers on this topic
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
Square 9 Softworks
I think the implementation could have gone a little smoother than it did. Now that I know how to use the software, I could do it myself. I feel that as an organization, we could have been a little better prepared. If the consultant was more aware of what we were looking for, they could have assisted in setting up some workflows for us as per the contract. But because we were not prepared, the initial implementation process was a little painful. That said, adding a document management system to ANY business kinda means everyone has to re-think the way they do their work which can be difficult for some staff.
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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
Square 9 Softworks
Laserfiche could not even complete their installation. Square 9 Softworks was able to come in and rescue the failed project. We have hardly scratched the surface of what we believe we can do in terms of more implementations of the Square 9 Softworks program in other business processes in our company. Square 9 Softworks was demonstrated to our procurement management team while they were struggling with the Laserfiche implementation, and they were ready to abandon Laserfiche immediately upon seeing the Square 9 Softworks program demonstrated. We abandoned Laserfiche even though we had financial investments with them already. This is testimony to how clearly Square 9 Softworks is a better solution than Laserfiche.
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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
Square 9 Softworks
The scale-ability is quite good actually, but you need competent sales/support folks providing it to you, so the scale is set right for the demands of your system use. Some resellers are not good at doing this, some are fantastic. If you are scaled correctly at first implementation, you'll be very happy with this system.
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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
Square 9 Softworks
  • Having less paper in the office has saved space and supplies. We no longer need to purchase those expensive cardboard folders for archiving.
  • Having someone do their own health screening is safer and saves us from keeping a staff member devoted to that task.
  • I used to have to spend hours physically culling archive records. Now I can sort it and weed it with clicks of a button!
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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

Square 9 Softworks Screenshots

Screenshot of GlobalSearch, which allows users to organize and sort documents based on extracted dataScreenshot of automated data extraction from documents using Square 9's AI-powered extraction tool, TransformAI.Screenshot of GlobalCapture, which is used to build workflows and automatically assign tasks to users.Screenshot of a front-facing Portal for new hires and applicants. This lets them fill out important employee documents such as job application, Direct Deposit and W-4 forms.Screenshot of the hiring and onboarding portal, where new hire documentation is completed.Screenshot of GlobalForms, which has new hire government forms such as I-9 and W-4 forms.

Tungsten Power PDF Screenshots

Screenshot of the PDF Create Assistant, which 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 that can be created to apply commonly desired settings to new PDF documents created in Power PDF.Screenshot of the application's color, changed from purple to blue, light gray or dark gray.Screenshot of some lightweight document automation that can also be achieved with the Watched Folder and Sequence features.Screenshot of where packages can be signed with pre built templates using Kofax Sign Doc or other integrating e-signersScreenshot of PDFs that can be navigated with a thumbnail view