Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Adobe now requires you to purchase a subscription to rotate PDF pages

merveilles.town

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 141 posts

Re: Adobe now requires you to purchase a subscription to rotate PDF pages

#91

Post by aequitas »

SllX wrote: post #5

For anyone on a Mac: all of these features in the screenshot are free with Preview. I assume OP is not, but something people should keep in mind.

Back when macOS was still called Mac OS X, (a subset of) PDF was the internal rendering format for Quartz rendering engine[0]. Their tech demo's also boasted about the ability to trivially edit PDF's. I don't know if any of that still remains in the current macOS versions, but I'm glad PDF editing and 'printing' (directory to PDF file or Preview as PDF) support was never dropped. Along with the excellent built-in screenshot and recording shortcuts.

[0] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2000/05/mac-os-x-dp4/4/

Re: Adobe now requires you to purchase a subscription to rotate PDF pages

#92

Post by AshamedCaptain »

tasty_freeze wrote: post #42

I have an Acrobat Pro 7.0 license I paid for years and years ago. I have a single use case: I scan a lot of vintage computer manuals as a hobby. Pro offers fine control over compression options. Acrobat has been nagging me for more than a decade to register it (though I registered it when I bought it). A couple of times I've had computer crashes or migrations and getting 7.0 reinstalled on the new machine was a pain.…

The large number of ancient Acrobat Pro licenses floating on ebay seems to hint you are not the only one...

Re: Adobe now requires you to purchase a subscription to rotate PDF pages

#94

Post by parker_mountain »

tjoff wrote: post #48

Windows: Sumatra PDF. Linux: Zathura. These are so much better than Acrobat. Might not do everything you can imagine but they are excellent and a very good default.

Apple:

Apple has been quietly using the same screenshot functionality since the 90s, and has continually iterated over improvements on Preview since the early 2000s.

I find the macos shortcuts to be poorly chosen and un-discoverable, but they've stuck with it, so finding how to take a screenshot is extremely easy.

Microsoft:

Microsoft is on their third major revamp of screenshots. There are six(!) different ways to invoke a screenshot on Window 11 - printscrn key, Win+Shift+S, snip and sketch, snipping tool, game bar, pressing the volume up+power buttons on supported devices (but not all). Microsoft's official website suggests third party tools in their app store as well. Each way offers different options (such as whole screen, individual app, cropping, etc). Some options quietly redirect you to other options, while still offering the previous option in contextual menus. Options will vary in where they place the image as well - filesystem, clipboard, or directly into a window for you to chose.

Microsoft uses their browser as a featureless PDF reader. Other Preview.app functionality can be found within a combination of paint.exe and the new Windows Photos app - each with a completely different UI paradigm. They do not have an OCR solution - or if they do, I haven't found it.

My understanding is that Windows 12 is a direct attempt to resolve a lot of these issues, and that Windows 11 has been deemed "transitional", but it's still extremely exhausting. I personally still prefer Windows over macOS (for a lot of reasons unrelated to Windows' incredibly boneheaded rough edges); but, please, Microsoft, what the fuck are you doing!?

Re: Adobe now requires you to purchase a subscription to rotate PDF pages

#96

Post by bbx »

uniqueuid wrote: post #31
SllX wrote: post #5

For anyone on a Mac: all of these features in the screenshot are free with Preview. I assume OP is not, but something people should keep in mind.

Stuff people don't know about Preview.app: - Paste images that were copied to the clipboard. Just open Preview and press CMD-N - Split, re-arrange and merge PDF documents. Just drag pages into the sidebar - Sign documents. Click the annotation button in the menu bar, sign either on touchpad, ipad or hold an ink signature on paper into the webcam. - OCR (new with macOS ventura). Just click/drag/double-click on text in…

Not really something you missed but if I want to increase the “viewport” of an image, I just take a screenshot (to clipboard), create a new document, paste the screenshot, and then go back to my original image and copy/paste it to the new document.

This is helpful if you want to extend an image horizontally or vertically (or both).

You could also increase the dimensions of the original image, but it would “zoom in”, which I don’t want.

Not sure I explained it well…

Re: Adobe now requires you to purchase a subscription to rotate PDF pages

#97

Post by goosedragons »

SllX wrote: post #5

For anyone on a Mac: all of these features in the screenshot are free with Preview. I assume OP is not, but something people should keep in mind.

There's a lot of free tools that will do this too on all platforms. Xodo is my go to on Windows/Android/iOS. On Linux evince and okular are both pretty good.

Re: Adobe now requires you to purchase a subscription to rotate PDF pages

#98

Post by hazelnut-tree »

This story is unclear and possibly misleading from the posted image. There are three versions of Adobe PDF software:

- Adobe Reader desktop app (free and lets you rotate PDF pages)

- Adobe Pro desktop app (full PDF editing and requires subscription)

- Adobe PDF online (requires a free account and lets you rotate PDF pages: https://www.adobe.com/acrobat/online.html)

You can still rotate PDF pages using the Reader desktop app. However, as other posters have recommended, there are many alternative PDF apps. Avoid Adobe if you can.

Re: Adobe now requires you to purchase a subscription to rotate PDF pages

#99

Post by heavymark »

Etheryte wrote: post #27
SllX wrote: post #5

For anyone on a Mac: all of these features in the screenshot are free with Preview. I assume OP is not, but something people should keep in mind.

I wish this got talked about more, Preview is both crazy good and free. You can split PDFs apart, merge multiple different ones into one file, use password protected files, edit and annotate them, add your signature, and so much more. Best of all, it just works, all the time.

Love Preview and for all those basics find it much easier than Adobe for rotating, rearranging, deleting, merging, etc. Alas for some things still need Acrobat. For forms that need to be filled in more often than not preview is problematic where the entered text doesn’t appear right or issues with drop-downs etc. Like how I prefer safari but still run into compatibility issues sometimes and need Chrome. Also Adobe is better at compressing file size while retaining quality. And finally if I need to ocr a file and make the text or elements editable need Adobe. Would love to see Preview improved in those areas as solid as Preview it’s not one to see growth in features or compatibility over the decades.
Post reply on HN