PDF-XChange Editor

A capable PDF editor with OCR and annotation tools

PDF-XChange Editor is a practical Windows tool for people who need more than a basic PDF reader. It lets you open PDFs, edit text, fill in forms, add comments, highlight passages, sign documents, and organize pages without needing a complex workflow.

The interface is clean enough for everyday use, with common tools easy to find. You can select text, remove or replace it, insert links, add images, draw with brush tools, and include extras such as barcodes. Page handling is also useful: you can add, delete, or extract pages, which helps when trimming a long document or building a cleaner final file.

One of its stronger features is OCR, which turns scanned pages into editable text. This is helpful for paper forms, archived documents, or image-based PDFs that would otherwise be difficult to modify. The built-in spell check and viewing options, including zoom, thumbnails, and continuous page view, make it easier to review longer files.

PDF-XChange Editor also supports more than just PDF files. It can work with formats such as DOC, DOCX, TXT, PPT, XLS, JPG, PNG, GIF, BMP, and others, and it can convert PDFs into formats like Word, PowerPoint, or Excel. Multiple documents can be opened in tabs, which is convenient when comparing or editing several files at once. Sharing and exporting options include email, SharePoint, Google Drive, and Dropbox.

The main limitation is the free version. Many core tools are available, but some advanced features are trial-only and will place a watermark on the output unless you buy a license. That makes it important to check which tools you need before relying on it for final professional documents.

Overall, PDF-XChange Editor is best suited to students, office users, and anyone who regularly reads, marks up, edits, or converts PDFs on Windows. It offers a broad feature set in an approachable package, with the main trade-off being the watermark on certain unpaid functions.