Even after 20 years of inception, the three-letter file format P-D-F is still a rage among the business community.
The humble PDF has seamlessly and without complaint adopted today’s bring-it-yourself (BYO) devices and empowered the cloud-computing world like never before, resulting in the birth of cloud-based online PDF tools.
These cloud-based tools have given you constant access to files that document your business.
However, the first PDF tool that comes to mind is Adobe Acrobat. Though Adobe has long been a pioneer PDF tool, it’s one of the costliest ones on the market, making it unaffordable for businesses and individuals.
As a result, numerous online PDF tools are available, each offering a unique feature that
streamlines your workflows but at an affordable rate.
In this article, we discover how online PDF tools bring efficiency to the workplace and make it more productive.
How to improve your workflow using online PDF tools
Use these ways to improve your workflow using online PDF tools:
Convert PDF to different formats
Do you frequently receive documents that require editing? Are you tired of retyping PDF documents to make edits?
If the answer to any of these questions is a yes, you’re sailing on a boat with hundreds of others users facing the same workplace challenges.
That’s where online PDF tools that offer a PDF to Word converter come to your rescue. These tools allow you to convert any PDF into a Microsoft Word document to make significant changes to your PDF.
Another advantage of converting PDF to different formats is that you can edit the content to reduce your file size.
For instance, if you’re having problems with the PDF image or graphics and don’t want to use these images, convert the PDF document to Word files and delete all the images or graphics before converting it back to a PDF.
Pro-tip: You can even convert PDFs to images, Microsoft Excel, and PowerPoint.
Sign a PDF
Nothing can be more frustrating than printing a document, signing it, and rescanning it before submitting the signed document to your client. This is especially true for government professionals, lawyers, and other professionals who frequently use contracts and legal agreements.
As most countries accept digital signatures and consider them equivalent to handwritten signatures, using a PDF tool that allows electronic signatures increases your work speed.
In addition, choosing the electronic document route makes sense as it eliminates the need for paper, power, and toner or ink.
Because these PDF tools allow you to add timestamps and digital signatures, it ensures the integrity and authenticity of electronic documents.
Pro-tip: You can insert electronic signatures in images or as originally handwritten signatures.
Redact confidential information
If your work involves using confidential and sensitive information, you might have to hide that information from others.
Attempting to hide or cover up sensitive information using a rectangle with solid fill is a sure-shot path to redaction failure.
Apart from redaction failure, these boxes look unprofessional. So, use PDF tools that offer a redaction feature.
Apart from covering up text or images, these tools replace the sensitive information pixel by pixel with a redaction fill.
This is a professional way of presenting a document and showing that you’re technological-savvy.
Pro-tip: Save a copy of the original PDF as a part of your routine workflow, as you might need a copy of the unmarked version for future use.
Form creation
You might produce a constant stream of paper as a company or professional. From creating invoices and business templates to contracts and evidence statements for lawyers, an online PDF tool is your one-stop destination for creating all your business documents.
These in-built forms reduce your workload considerably. Instead of reinventing the wheel every time and creating every business document from scratch, you use these forms.
The forms eliminate the intermediate content discussion steps, as the forms use standard text. It helps speed up your work and reduces the likelihood of committing errors.
This comes in handy with clients where deadlines are non-adjustable.
Pro-tip: Using a library of free templates, you have full control of your documents, and use them without spending too much time creating everything from the start.
Protect against unauthorized access
PDF files are safer and more secure than paper and Word documents.
If you have confidential information, try limiting access to the PDF document by encrypting it with a password.
For instance, if you work as a lawyer and want to email a client a vital document but are unsure whether another person has access to the recipient’s email address, you can make the file password protected.
Encrypting your files is an excellent way to prevent unauthorized access and ensure the safety of critical data.
Pro-tip: Use an online PDF tool for creating a password-protected file, as it ensures a high level of encryption.
Compress PDF
When you have large PDF files to share with clients or colleagues, sending those files over email might be challenging.
Rather than splitting the file into two or three parts, compress the document. Compression avoids clogging storage and frees up space to make room for more data.
Additionally, as you reduce the size of the file, it results in faster uploading and downloading, helping you save time.
Using lossless compression offered by most PDF tools, optimizing the file size without compromising document quality becomes easy. Compression makes it convenient to access a
PDF on different mobile platforms, besides ensuring easier information sharing.
Pro-tip: Compression of PDF files makes archiving easier than ever because it frees up the server space to create more space for all your files and documents.
Delete pages in your PDF
When your PDF contains many redundant pages, it only adds to the bloat. You might have a PDF with 200 pages, yet you work only with 30 odd pages.
This extra bloat and unnecessary pages are a nightmare because you scroll down the entire document to search for meaningful and relevant information.
The more pages you have, the bigger your file is, and if you want to send the file to someone, you either have to compress it or share it via third-party software.
Rather than falling into this vicious circle, remove unnecessary pages from your files.
Pro-tip: Removing extra pages in your PDF is helpful as it’s easier to manage smaller PDF files and perform data analysis.
Highlight a PDF
Even as workflows become digital, there’s still a basic requirement for traditional markup tools – the ability to highlight.
Just like a bunch of papers, it sometimes helps to highlight things to remember and recollect them. For instance, when reading an annual report of a company, investors and financial experts highlight critical points in the PDF.
A highlighting feature offered by the online PDF tool allows you to highlight a few lines or an entire column of text.
What’s even more interesting is that you can get the printout with the marked-up and highlighted text to ensure your hard work doesn’t go down the drain.
Pro-tip: Apart from highlighting the text, these tools help you underline and strikethrough text.
Draw on PDFs
As a picture is worth a thousand words, sometimes it makes more sense to express your thoughts using diagrams.
Using the online PDF tools, draw on your files using your trackpad, mouse, or stylus.
When shopping for a potential PDF tool, look for one offering a freehand drawing tool. This freehand tool helps you draw or write on the PDF using your hand.
For instance, if human resources professionals have to grade a quiz in a PDF file format, they can use this freehand drawing tool to evaluate every part of the answer sheet.
Pro-tip: The ability to draw in a PDF file makes PDF editing easy, depending on your business requirements.
Using an affordable online PDF tool
People who work with PDF daily expect a dependable and intuitive solution to make working with this file format easier and more user-friendly.
Third-party solutions like Smallpdf makes editing, compressing, converting, and protecting PDF documents easier.
These tools help you secure important information with password protection and empower you to sign contracts and invoices electronically.
As PDF is not going anywhere soon, adopting these tools will help you stay ahead of the competition and ensure you don’t fall into the trap of digital Darwinism.
With so much functionality and features at your fingertips, now is the right time to choose an affordable online PDF tool.
