Scliffy's PDF Utility

Scliffy's PDF Utility is a PDF processing program that comes bundled with distinct features for combining multiple documents into a single file, extracting pages, inserting watermarks, and adding password protection.

No other installation is required besides Java. It's packed in a simple UI made from one panel divided into four tabs for separately performing the four types of operations.

If you're interested in extracting PDF content, you can specify the pages to retrieve from a file by number. Multiple pages can be grabbed by entering the number of each one (separated by comma) or the page range (separated by dash).

Two or more PDF documents can be consolidated into a single file by adding them to a list and changing their order using two buttons. Any entry can be removed if you change your mind.

Only text is supported for watermarks, which may be accompanied by the page's number. As far as encryption is concerned, you can set user and owner passwords, as well as allow or forbid document assembly, copy, form filling, annotations, content modifications, and printing.

In all these cases, Scliffy's PDF Utility creates new PDF files and leaves the original objects untouched. It's not necessary to create backups in case of failed tasks that may lead to document corruption.

Unfortunately, the watermark feature didn't work as expected in our tests, as the app generated PDFs that failed to open. On top of that, we've noticed that it's necessary to specify the PDF extension when attempting to save new files (or afterward) because otherwise it creates items unassociated with any format. Plus, it's not explicit concerning the page extraction method (e.g. by page range).

Scliffy's PDF Utility was speedy and successful in our evaluation in three of the four cases, generating PDFs without losing quality. However, it doesn't come with clear instructions, forcing users to test it several times to figure it out how it works.