PDF Candy (opens in new tab) is a free online PDF editor that provides a wealth of tools to – you guessed it – edit PDFs online for free. And by ‘wealth’ we mean an impressive 47 tools, including editing, merging, compressing, rearranging and protecting files. The service is wonderfully simple to use, but as with most free PDF editors, it will require an upgrade to unlock its full potential.
PDF Candy: Prices
- Fair, free, with flexible payment upgrades
The online free PDF editor and converter lets you use PDF Candy Web – and there are no restrictions on what tools you can use – although you can only do one task per hour, making the free version ideal for minimal or irregular PDF edit (or sloths). At least it’s more generous than SmallPDF’s one task per day limitation.
If you’re trying to complete another task within the hour, a handy, if slightly menacing, red countdown timer tells you how long to wait.
Removing this timeslot requires a monthly or yearly subscription – this will also increase the file size limits.
The lifetime license – a one-time payment – opens PDF Candy and offers a free download of a desktop PDF editor for Windows.
PDF Candy: Interface & Experience
- PDF Candy couldn’t be easier to use
Using PDF Candy is child’s play. Literal. The ability to grip a mouse and distinguish an icon is all it takes to get started.
When you first click on the home page, you’ll find a bold ‘action’ button to add files from your desktop or use remote cloud storage services, Dropbox and Google Drive. Depending on the tool you use, this will vary slightly, but the layout and workflow will largely remain the same.
By default, the home page opens on the PDF converter, but below the action button are the 46 other PDF editing tools – including page reordering, image, and conversion of Office documents to PDF. Icons are big, bold, streamlined and uniquely recognizable by design – so you can generally find what you need if you know what you’re looking for.
If there’s a flaw here, it’s the lack of categorization. There is no clear basis for their default order – it is not alphabetical, for example. And you can’t drag, drop, and reorder icons. But you can search or favorite any tool, which greatly improves navigation.
That strong, simple interface expands once you dive into any of the tools. PDF Candy never leaves you in doubt about what to do and what to expect.
- Interface & experience: 5/5
PDF Candy: PDF Editing
- As easy as using a word processor
Editing PDF files online is as easy as any other feature in PDF Candy. Key tools run along a left sidebar and, as elsewhere, the icons leave you in no doubt about what each button does.
Editing text in a PDF file is not a million miles away from editing one word processor document. Open the PDF editor, highlight a word, line or paragraph and you are free to replace it with your own content.
Alternatively, by clicking anywhere in the document, you can start writing in the text box before dragging it into place. You also get a handful of control over appearance, but it’s fairly lacking. You can’t even change the font.
Whiteout is a useful tool for removing sensitive data from a PDF file – although we still prefer it Foxit PDF Editor‘s editorial tool if compliance weighs heavily on your mind. Elsewhere, PDF Candy lets you upload images to files, draw lines and arrows, and write in free form using the pencil tool.
The supplied eSign software works very well and offers three options for adding signatures to documents: via text, uploading images or drawing with your mouse. And you only have to create this once. Your signature will then be saved and can be used in other documents (and you can add more if needed).
PDF Candy: PDF Conversion
- Includes an incredible 29 PDF conversion tools
PDF Candy offers the ability to convert documents with just one click. And in our experience, the platform delivers on this promise. The only (albeit optional) exception is when converting images to PDF and vice versa, where you can also select the image quality.
After the tool has waited 15 seconds to process the document, a quick conversion takes place. Once converted, you can download the document or immediately open it in another tool to make further changes, such as merging PDFs or compressing PDF files.
But the real draw here is the sheer number of PDF converter options. There are 19 ‘convert to PDF’ tools, including: Word to PDF, Excel to PDFand PowerPoint to PDF. There are also options for converting images and popular ones eReader formats to PDF.
On the other hand, “convert from PDF” provides 10 conversion tools, such as PDF to Word, PDF to JPG and PDF to Excel. If you find yourself converting to and from PDF regularly, you will find many utilities in PDF Candy.
PDF Candy: Additional Features
- Packed with bonus tools you didn’t know you needed
So PDF Candy lays down the basics. Here’s a platform that provides everything most PDF users need to get the job done. But it doesn’t stop there.
In addition to editing, converting, and otherwise modifying pages, the free online PDF editor also provides the ability to encrypt and password protect files, edit a document’s metadata, and add watermarks to PDF files. And, as expected at this point, everything is equally easy to use.
PDF OCR was surprisingly accurate – ‘read’ text in a PDF and exported it to a .TXT file. The formatting may not match what’s on the page, but the content itself was accurate. Depending on the number of ‘illegible’ images in the document, waiting times may vary.
Also available Image Candythe company is free online photo editor and converter. Like PDF Candy, it has a good selection of tools, such as removing backgrounds, watermarking images, and even generating memes. Using it is as easy as the document management suite.
PDF Candy: Scorecard
| Prices | Free, with paid upgrades | 4 |
| Interface & experience | Clean, easy and child’s play to use | 5 |
| PDF editing | Good set of editing tools suitable for most users | 4 |
| PDF conversion | Extensive library of conversion tools | 5 |
| Additional features | Plenty of useful extra tools and fears | 5 |
Shall I buy?
