Wondershare PDFelement evaluate: AI-powered PDF editor for on a regular basis use

Worth When Reviewed

Free 7 day trial, from $79.99 (£62) one 12 months plan, $109.99 (£84) two 12 months plan, or $103.99 (£80) lifetime license

Greatest Costs As we speak: Wondershare PDFelement

Wondershare’s PDFelement is likely one of the greatest PDF editors accessible. It offers the important doc manipulation instruments on all platforms at an inexpensive worth. Whereas adapting to its person expertise might take some getting used to, the app incorporates a minimalistic person interface that surfaces the favored options customers have a tendency to hunt.

Worth and availability

PDFelement affords single- and cross-platform licenses. Should you plan to make use of the PDF editor in your Mac completely, you’ll be able to go for a one-year, two-year, or lifetime license for $79.99 (£62), $109.99 (£84), or $103.99 (£80), respectively. The primary distinction between the subscription plans and the one-time cost is app updates. By subscribing to PDFelement, you proceed to obtain main updates indefinitely. In the meantime, the lifetime license might restrict you to minor patches solely. Past that, you’re just about getting an similar product.

Wondershare additionally affords PDFelement on iOS, iPadOS, Home windows, Android, and the online. So, when you choose enhancing paperwork on a number of units, you’ll be able to go for its all-encompassing bundle that helps the entire aforementioned platforms. On the time of writing, the one-year, two-year, and lifelong licenses equally value $89.99 (£70), $119.99 (£92), and $139.99 (£107).

It’s price noting that single-platform licenses embody 20GB of cloud storage, whereas the highlighted bundles supply 100GB. Moreover, when you run out of the 20,000 AI tokens included along with your buy, you’ll be able to optionally purchase 2 million extra for $9.99 monthly.

Learn how PDFelement compares to different PDF editors in our Greatest PDF Editors for Mac and Greatest Free PDF Editors round-ups.

First impressions

PDFelement incorporates a clear dwelling web page showcasing some commonplace PDF enhancing instruments within the heart. These embody PDF conversion, optical character recognition (OCR), template choice, file compression, and extra.

In the meantime, the sidebar grants entry to helpful locations, like latest recordsdata, cloud paperwork, tagged PDFs, and agreements you’ve despatched others to signal. Notably, neither the Mac app nor the web site lets you delete your account when you resolve to cease utilizing the service, which can be a pink flag for privacy-conscious customers. As an alternative, you’re prompted to contact the client help group, which unnecessarily complicates a basic motion.

PDFelement options

By way of options, PDFelement helps many of the generally wanted PDF enhancing functionalities. These embody textual content manipulation with help for varied fonts, colours, and types, along with picture and URL insertion. You too can add, delete, and edit the doc’s pages. It’s not essentially the most superior choice on the market, but it surely will get the job achieved in informal workflows.

Maybe PDFelement is healthier suited to annotation and synthetic intelligence wants. The app allows customers to insert textual content, shapes, feedback, stamps, types, checkboxes, textual content callouts, and extra. And, for so long as you haven’t run out of AI tokens, you’ll be able to ask the built-in, ChatGPT-powered assistant to summarize or translate the textual content. It may additionally insert automated bookmarks reflecting the doc’s chapters. Based mostly on my statement, these annotation and AI options are extra outstanding and sophisticated than the textual content manipulation instruments talked about above.

Past that, you’ll be able to redact textual content, add a password to the file, convert the PDF to a Microsoft Workplace format, change the pages’ background, compress the dimensions, and insert a watermark. It’s definitely not essentially the most feature-rich PDF editor, but it surely does cater to informal customers in search of a light-weight answer.

Regardless of its minimalism, getting used to PDFelement might take a while. Whereas the app has a contemporary interface, the unlabeled buttons within the editor’s sidebar will be complicated and difficult to establish. I incessantly hover over them for a second to disclose their hidden tags and differentiate between their functionalities. Moreover, some options, like textual content enhancing, can generally be a bit unpredictable. You ultimately adapt to the format, although.

Do you have to purchase PDFelement?

Wondershare’s PDFelement is a wonderful PDF editor for these with informal wants. Whereas it might nearly totally manipulate a supported doc, its instruments aren’t as superior as these supplied by many rival apps. Don’t get me flawed—that’s nice for these with primary workflows who don’t must be uncovered to power-user options. They miss out on the limitless menus and choices that solely bloat the software program and are irrelevant to their use circumstances.

Based mostly on my expertise utilizing it and contemplating its intensive annotation instruments, PDFelement appears to cater to those that evaluate different individuals’s paperwork and ship them again for revisions. Utilizing the software program to go away suggestions on present paperwork feels extra pure than changing its core parts. However, it’s a full-fledged PDF editor that may technically swing both means.

Should you’re not sure if PDFelement fits your wants, you’ll be able to activate a one-week free trial. As soon as it expires, you’ll be able to choose between the accessible subscriptions and lifelong licenses when you select to proceed.