PDFescape Review: Pricing, Rating, and Alternatives

PDF documents are something people from all walks of life juggle. And we are not just talking about PDF viewing, but there also comes a time when editing and reviewing PDF documents becomes a need of the hour. To accomplish this feat, a PDF editor is one tool that can make your life much easier. In this blog, we will review PDFescape, one of the most popular PDF editors. Here we will find out if it is worth the hype.

What is PDFescape?

PDFescape is a PDF editing and viewing software that has an online version as well as a desktop version. For this post, we’ll primarily focus on the various aspects of PDFescape for desktop (Windows OS).

To begin with, PDFescape for Windows desktop offers a variety of features to view, create, convert, edit, annotate and secure PDF documents which are pretty evident from the interface. PDFescape editor allows you to create and fill forms using various interactive elements. Looking for PDFescape alternatives? Check out this post that enlists some of the best free PDF editors.

Why Should You Choose PDFescape for Windows?

When you look at a PDF document, you may or may not accept it the way it is. If the latter is the case, a PDF editor like PDFescape might be the tool you are looking for.

Let’s say you and your colleagues are working on an official document. This document might go through several drafts where you might indicate changes in the text or images, annotate those changes so that your colleagues know exactly where the changes must be made, and so on. The desktop version of PDFescape is well efficient in doing all of this.

Next, there also might be instances where documents in other formats might be needed to be converted to PDF or vice versa.

Or, it could also be that the document has to be handed over to some other department; you would then need to password-protect it so that only the designated person with the password can access it. You might want to add some restrictions so that edits to the document or access to parts can be appropriated accordingly.

Yet, if you are looking for a better PDF management tool, consider using Advanced PDF Manager, where it’s easier to add, remove, split, reorder, merge or add passwords to your PDF. You can know more about the features of Advanced PDF Manager here.

Technical Specifications

• Compatibility: Windows 11/ 10/ 8.1/ 8/ 7
• Free Hard Disk Space: 100 MB or more
• RAM: 1 GB
• Processor: Pentium III or equivalent
• Languages Supported: English, French, Deutsch, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian

How To Use PDFescape on Windows Desktop?

1. Download, install and run PDFescape on Windows. You can download PDFescape for free initially and then choose the premium version.

2. Drag and drop the PDF you want to work on into the interface.

3. You can now click on any tabbed menus and select an option. For example, click on the Create tab to create PDF files from documents and images on your computer.

4. Choose from one of the options mentioned below – For example, you can click on the From Any File sub-option, and once you are inside your desired hard drive location, you can choose the file/ files you want to convert to PDF.

If you are familiar with Microsoft Office products, PDFescape will be very relatable. It almost has a similar look and feel, if not exact. On the top, you can find buttons for home, open PDF, save the current document, print document, and undo and redo buttons. Below that, there are individual menus. When you click on each menu item, you will have sub-options associated with it, as seen in the screenshot below, where multiple sub-menus and dropdowns appear when you click on the View menu.

In PDFescape Desktop, you can open several PDF files in the form of tabs by other using the Open PDF option or dragging PDF documents into the interface. After that, you can select a PDF and perform editing tasks on it. One of the best parts of PDFescape is that most options have tooltip text where you can click on items from the menu bar and gather exact information on what the specified item is supposed to do with the help of the tooltip text that appears. However, sometimes the tooltip text flickers or fails to appear (this could differ from user to user). Also, you can snap Windows, which is great, but PDFescape’s Window takes a larger space when you do that.

1. Edit PDFs

As is visible from the screenshot above, there is so much you can do when you choose the Edit option. You can make changes to the text, annotations, images, and other elements. And, here we are not talking about just one page but multiple pages or multiple PDFs. You have several options to move, delete or extract pages, for instance, you can delete a specified range of pages. You can edit the on-screen text, change its font, check your PDF or pages for spelling errors and do so much more.

2. Create and Fill PDF Forms

PDFescape editor for Windows lets you create digital forms from scratch where you can insert several elements such as text fields, checkboxes, radio, and buttons. Once you assign these elements, you can change their properties. For example, you can change their border, add a tooltip text, add sub-items, etc. Once you have created the form, you can submit it to a URL of a server or email it directly to the intended recipients. On the downside, it might take a beginner some time to get accustomed to the various options to create or edit a form.

3. Password Protect PDF Documents

With the PDFescape Desktop version, we can safely say that it is not your regular password protection that many other PDF editors come with. Apart from assigning a password, you can choose the encryption level and change the various “Restrict Permissions” for multiple documents shown in the screenshot below.

4. Convert PDFs to Other Formats

If converting your PDF document to other file formats is your goal, you needn’t go elsewhere; PDFescape for Windows lets you batch convert multiple PDF documents into various formats, including PDF to word, PowerPoint, Excel, HTML, TXT, RTF, and PDF/A. What we liked about this conversion feature is that you have complete control over the pages you want to convert. In the case of PDF to PowerPoint conversion or PDF to RTF conversion, you can also detect and convert tables automatically. When converting PDF to Image, you can select from five popular image formats. However, the conversion facility can be availed with the premium versions only.

5. Annotation Is Simple

Let’s assume that you have received a PDF document to review. Here the best way would be to annotate it. PDFescape editor for desktop allows you to add several different kinds of annotations. You can underline and highlight text, add several different shapes, and perform several other annotations to review your document.

One of the tools that stood out for us was the functionality to calculate the distance between two points. This can come in handy if, for some reason, you need to measure the height, distance, borders, etc., in a PDF document. But once you have started measuring the distance, getting out of it might not be straightforward as you have to right-click and then click on complete.

PDFescape regularly rolls out updates to ensure that bugs and vulnerabilities are patched. Also, by way of these updates, it is ensured that users get access to the various features. To fetch an update, here are the steps –

1. From the tab menu, click on Help.
2. Click on Check for updates.

PDFescape will check for any updates, if available and notify you of the same.

Broadly there are two versions of PDFescape – free and paid. Much before investing in PDFescape, you can use it for free. You can also try the premium variants, namely – Premium and Ultimate, for a time frame of 7 days. Here we’d also like to throw some light on the online version. Here are the kind of features you can expect from PDFescape online –

Coming back to the desktop version, the first premium variant, Premium, gives you access to all online + desktop features, including the likes mentioned below. The next variant, Ultimate, gives you everything mentioned in Premium + several other features discussed below.

PDF Free Free Online PDF Editing Create and Fill Forms Share PDF Documents	0
PDF Premium Desktop and Online PDF Editing Create and Fill Forms Share PDF Documents Power PDF Editing Features Print to and Scan to PDF	$2.99/month
PDF Ultimate Desktop and Online PDF Editing Create and Fill Forms Share PDF Documents Power PDF Editing Features Print to and Scan to PDF Publish PDF Forms	$5.99/month

On a personal front, PDFescape performs various tasks at a decent speed. Talking of which, when tasked with batch creating PDFs from multiple file formats, it took a few seconds, but considering that the files were a little big, it was understandable. As in the case with other tasks, it performs without any lags.

How would you reach out to the customer support team in case of doubts or issues about PDFescape? First, you can click on the Help tab right from the interface and then further click on Support, as shown in the screenshot below. By doing that, you’ll reach the FAQs page where common questions related to PDFescape have been answered. You’ll also get an insight into what features are offered in the premium variants we have already covered above in the pricing section.

What if the FAQs don’t address the issue you currently have? In that case, you can visit this page and find more focused answers to your queries. You can even type in your query inside the Search.

There is yet another way you can reach out to customer support. You can click on the Contact Us button that you can see to the right of “How may we help?” and raise a ticket of sorts. You can also explain your issue in greater detail and attach related screenshots.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q1. Is PDFescape trustworthy?

PDfescape is one of the most popular and trusted PDF editors you can install. It has already garnered positive reviews from some of the best tech experts. On a personal front, it showed no lags and was not flagged as malware by any antivirus programs.

Q2. Is PDFescape really free?

Yes, you can download PDfescape for free. However, in this case, the features will be limited, and you won’t be able to avail of features like converting PDFs to various file formats. You can also try the premium variants free for nearly a week before deciding to invest in the subscription.

Q3. What is PDFescape used for?

PDFescape can help you with various tasks associated with PDF documents. You can edit, annotate, and password-protect PDF documents apart from viewing them. You can even fill out or create forms as well.

Final Verdict

Give and take a few features; PDFescape for Windows is a decent PDF editor with features that not even the best in class offer. There is so much you can do from editing text, adding annotation, securing PDF files, converting them to various file formats, and filling forms. Try PDFescape for yourself and let us know in the comments section about your experience. If there is anything we missed or would like to share with us, you can drop it down in the comments section or connect with us on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and Flipboard.