Good but needs improvement
Updated January 04, 2022

Good but needs improvement

Joe Davis | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Software Version

Power PDF Advanced

Overall Satisfaction with Kofax Power PDF (formerly Nuance)

Everyone uses it to edit or extract pages from PDFs. I also use it to add page numbers to PDFs created by our tax software, and to make forms fillable. This is the only software I've found that will make a PDF fillable completely automatically. Every other software I've looked at, makes you create one fillable field at a time, and there's no way I'm ever doing that.
  • Making forms out of PDF documents.
  • Adding headers and page numbers to documents
  • Deleting pages from a PDF
  • Rotating pages in a PDF. Clients are bad at scanning upside down or not rotated correctly.
  • Cropping margins on PDF documents. Some documents are legal sized or have huge margins and cropping them down makes them more readable on screen.
  • The PDF printer supplied with the software is the BEST! You can print multiple documents to one PDF by using Append. This is so useful when printing several QB reports to one PDF, or printing from several different softwares (Word, Excel, email, etc.) into one PDF.
  • Right clicking on a file or several files in Windows explorer allows you to convert any document to a PDF and combine them. So if you have Word, Excel, jpeg and PDF files, you can select them all and combine them into one PDF, instantly.
  • Rearranging pages used to be easier when it was Nuance. The pages were easier to select in the left side panel. Now you can't select the page you're on. And the rearrange feature is not easy to use on large PDFs.
  • Making a PDF into a fillable form works well on some pages but horribly on others.
  • Time saving to extract K1 forms from a tax return into a separate PDF.
It could be a lot easier to use and even more flexible. I prefer software that I can intuitively use without searching for 'how to's' online.
  • Foxit PDF Editor (FoxitPhantom)
Kofax is much more advanced and easier to use.
I haven't needed much help, but support responded quickly to my support ticket and they knew what they were talking about.

Do you think Tungsten Power PDF delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Tungsten Power PDF's feature set?

Yes

Did Tungsten Power PDF live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Tungsten Power PDF go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Tungsten Power PDF again?

Yes

Adding headers and page numbers to a batch of PDFs is fantastic and fast. And you can save your headers for future use.
It's the only software I've found where you can automatically make a PDF fillable, but it needs to do a much better job of analyzing the PDF. For example, it will only make perfect squares into checkboxes. If it's slightly rectangular, it makes it a text box. Perhaps it could pop up and ask what we want?

Using Kofax Power PDF (formerly Nuance)

6 - Accounting
1 - Manager with good basic computer skills.
  • Organizing client records
  • Converting jpegs to PDFs
  • Converting PDFs to Excel
Haven't found anything better in this price range, but I keep my eyes open for new software, constantly.

Evaluating Kofax Power PDF and Competitors

Yes - Foxit PDF editor was replace because we needed more and better features.
  • Price
  • Product Features
  • Product Usability
Features are always the most important factor because we need it simply work and do the things we need done.

Kofax Power PDF Support

ProsCons
Quick Resolution
Good followup
Knowledgeable team
Problems get solved
Kept well informed
No escalation required
Immediate help available
Support understands my problem
Support cares about my success
Quick Initial Response
None
No. I shouldn't need that kind of support with good software.
Yes - No, I was unable to send support files to show what the problems were.

Using Kofax Power PDF

ProsCons
Technical support not required
Familiar
Unnecessarily complex
Difficult to use
Cumbersome
  • PDF printer
  • Rotating pages
  • Cropping pages
  • Combining PDFs into one.
  • Converting JPG to PDF
  • Rearranging pages
  • Selecting pages to perform a task on (extract)
  • Replacing pages. There used to be an icon now you have to know the secret key strokes.
Some things are MUCH harder to do in Kofax compared to Nuance and they are also less intuitive.