PDF Your Precious Documents

very good
key review info
application features
  • Generated PDF and PDF / A-1 from over 80 file formats and image
  • (9 more, see all...)

Obtaining a clean PDF from just about any file format has never been easier. 7-PDF Maker was built with one purpose: that of converting popular file types into PDF documents. Actually, secure PDF documents, since it’s packed with remarkable security measures that will prevent anyone from stealing your work.

The Portable Document Format is here to stay. Nothing can outgrow its abilities to protect and preserve all sorts of content: text, images, tables, you name it. While general belief has it that creating PDF documents is a bit of a pain, software such as 7-PDF Maker comes to say otherwise.

The application's support for input file formats is amazing. From text files, Microsoft Office (DOC, DOCX, RTF, DOT, DOTX, PPT, XLS, XLSX) and OpenDocument (ODT, OTT) documents to images (PNG, BMP, JPG,TIFF, PSD, WMF), HTML and even Autocad files (DXF), the application will go out of its way to deliver the best results.

7-PDF Maker is free of charge and there’s the first reason why you should take it for a spin. The installation process isn’t very smooth, as it requires you attention quite a bit. First of all, the application comes with options for integration in Windows Explorer and with a command line utility, all of which you will be able to uncheck during installation if you feel like they will be of no use to you.

Furthermore, you will be offered an additional piece of software, Battery Optimizer, which is not required in any way for the application to fully function and for this reason alone, 7-PDF Maker is marked as Ad-Supported. However, you will be able to pass this offer and finalize the installation once and for all.

Time wise, the process will take a while, most probably due to the fact that the installer also includes Sumatra PDF, an open-source PDF viewer, necessary for previewing the generated PDFs (options for previewing them with Adobe Reader or any other specialized software will also be available from the Settings window of the application).

The interface of 7-PDF Maker is average looking, but despite its simplicity, you will still find it quite organized and easy to work with. Once again, it’s a classic case of functionality favored to fancy looks. We’re talking about a simple window, home to a set of four tabs, each of them aimed to deliver a personalized secure PDF file.

The General tab includes options for page range, allowing you to convert specific pages out of a document. In other words, this is a cool way to make a quick selection out of the original file. Another interesting feature that some of you will find of great use is related to the application’s ability to create tagged PDFs. In this case, the output file will contain information about the structure of the document and will make it more accessible for display on handheld devices.

Possibilities for exporting notes and bookmarks are also available, as well as an option for the PDF/A-1 format, a standard designed for the long-term preservation of electronic documents. In case the original files are packed with images, 7-PDF Maker will take good care of the way they are transposed in the final PDF.

There are two options for image compression: lossless, if you want to preserve the original data for reconstruction and the all-time popular JPEG, that will significantly reduce pictures in size, with very little noticeable changes in quality. On the subject of image size, you can also drastically reduce it by customizing the resolution. With 7-PDF Maker, the dots per inch (DPI) can be set from 75 to 1200 with a single click.

This particular application is the perfect asset for protecting documents. The secret to encrypting your work is password protection, which in the case of this application, works two ways. You can set the PDF to request a password in order to display its content, as well as for accessing the permission rights (which the application will also enable you to customize).

The highest level of protection can be achieved by restricting all permissions for both changing and printing the document. 7-PDF Maker provides security measures for inserting, deleting or rotating pages, filling in form fields, commenting and page extraction. The printing permissions will reflect in terms of resolution, low (150 dpi) or high, preserving the document quality.

The Settings tab is the last stop in the journey of converting documents to PDF format. This is the place for configuring the output folder for the generated files. The storage options are covered in every little detail, from having the application prompt you every time for an output destination to choosing it yourself or placing the PDF in the source folder.

Naturally, after converting a document to the Portable Document Format, you’re going to want to preview it. This can be done with the internal PDF viewer provided by the application (Sumatra PDF) or by manually selecting the path to a program of your own choice, be it Adobe Reader or any other specialized program.

These were the last touches prior to getting the job done. You are now ready to select the document of interest, convert it and preview it. Overall, the conversion process turns out to be acceptable time wise, although there is no other indication of its duration than a progress bar. However, converting a 700 hundred pages Word document turned out to take about two minutes and a half, which is, by all standards, pretty outstanding. Any errors that might occur and the evolution of the conversion process will be briefly detailed in the Log tab of the application.

As for the outcome, it will be flawless in some cases and less satisfying in others. For text and Word documents, things will be running very smooth and you’ll be pleasantly surprised. Not even the most complicated formulas or tables will stand in the way of being delivered an exceptional result, except for when the pages are numbered. If so, you will notice that the lines in the final PDF will be dropped by one row, affecting the structure of the original document, sometimes to a great extent.

Things will not be looking excellent with Excel files either. If you’ve got spreadsheets with a very large number of columns or with cells of various sizes, the content will be often split or distorted in the output PDF. Putting things in the balance though, 7-PDF Maker carries out decent results for most of the supported input file formats, preserving the original content of the documents in the majority of cases. The Good

7-PDF Maker is very intuitive and no one should have any problem in figuring out the usage. It’s got decent Security settings for both changing the document and printing it, that will please even the pickiest of you.

The changes you make to the settings of the application can be saved for the next time you open it or can be restored to default at all times (you will need to restart the application in this case).

The Bad The conversion engine could receive some improvements, especially for the Excel format. Also, the software does not support batch processing of documents. Conversion is possible for one item at a time and this can slow things down quite a bit for you.   Another great addition would be the possibility to add meta information (such as title, author, keywords) to the resulting PDF file. This is something to be taken into consideration for future developments, in an attempt to offer the user a simple way to personalize their documents.

For the job it carries out, 7-PDF Maker takes too much of the system resources. While converting a 300 pages document, the CPU usage peaked at about 40% with a RAM consumption of up to 200 MB (tested on Intel Dual CPU T2410 with 2 GB of RAM).

The Truth Despite a few shortcomings, 7-PDF Maker succeeds in completing the task it was built for, converting documents and images into PDF format. It is a must have for anyone who seeks for flawless PDF conversion, with remarkable encryption options. And what’s more, all you’ll be spending on it is time, because it is free of charge and deserves a glance, for this reason only.

Here are some snapshots of the application in action:

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user interface 3
features 4
ease of use 4
pricing / value 4


final rating 4
Editor's review
very good
 
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