The Nitro Blog

Rock Climbing Wednesdays

Spencer Jenkins — Wed, 09 May 2012 23:05:50 +0000

Whether it’s a company activity like white water rafting or go karting or if it’s outside of the office, our employees are far from desk monkeys. We tend to be pretty active and a growing group of our San Francisco Nitronauts has taken it to a new level. Organized by our one and only Adrian Ortiz, Rock Climbing Wednesdays have become quite the hit here.

Check out some pictures of the group.

Nitro Tutorial: OCR

Spencer Jenkins — Tue, 08 May 2012 20:59:12 +0000

With Nitro Pro 7 and Optical Character Recognition (OCR), you can quickly and easily create searchable and/or editable PDF files from entire archives of paper- or image-based documents.

We just put together a quick how-to video showcasing it. Check it out below!

Learn more about OCR and try Nitro Pro 7 free for 14-days.

Browser Integration in Nitro Reader 2

Building a Team: Knowing Brilliance when you see it

Tiho Bajic — Thu, 03 May 2012 16:39:19 +0000

Post by Tihomir (Tiho) Bajic. Tiho joined Nitro in November 2011 as VP, Product Engineering with a daunting mandate: to build out Nitro’s San Francisco product and engineering teams in the midst of what’s been described as the “hiring-pocalypse”. Needless to say, it’s been an adventure. This is chapter one.

Over the years I’ve looked at hundreds of engineering resumes and talked to dozens of candidates. I continually sought to improve
the sometimes-arduous task that is the interview process, yet— after countless hours spent on hiring— I would still hit and miss.

So I started to pay less attention to just plainly good candidates, and started looking out for “awesome” trusting that I would know brilliance when I saw it with hands-on real-world exercises to prove it.

I immediately started searching for great SaaS engineers. I wanted someone I would hire as a first engineer if I was running my own start-up. I wanted a well-rounded senior engineer with a strong “product sense,” someone with start-up experience, someone whom I could trust to co-develop the vision, and someone who would put his ego aside and roll up his sleeves on day one.

Tall order, wasn’t it?

And that’s when — as the legend would have it — on one gloomy San Francisco’s winter day I came across Adrian Ortiz’s resume in all it’s cheeky one-page infographical glory…BOOYAH! Validation for holding out!

On a Friday afternoon after several beers and start-up stories, Adrian and I started brainstorming ideas for a recruiting microsite. We agreed Nitro’s no-bullshit culture was unique, and something to highlight in this insanely competitive and somewhat undifferentiated talent market.

With a creative brief consisting of a dozen high-level points, Adrian started doing all the artwork and implementation by himself. The following Friday, we invited Adrian to our office again for a happy hour, and had him present his work in front of the entire team. The response? A massive round of applause (and more beers). Adrian joined the team the following week, hit the ground running, and launched mynitro.com/nobullshit.

I’m glad Adrian joined us as my first hire and paved the way for hiring more awesome people who will be introduced in their respective blog posts. We’ve already done a ton of work we’re proud of and I’ll blog about that separately.

We still have quite a few positions open on our Engineering team. Check them out and what life is like at Nitro now!

Welcoming Nitro’s newest team member: Tiho Bajic, VP Product Engineering

Nitro Fan of the Month

Spencer Jenkins — Wed, 02 May 2012 17:49:41 +0000

We love our users—especially those of you who loyally like, retweet, and share our news announcements!

So now it’s time to return the favor…

We’re launching our “Fan of the Month” club to recognize those of you who have been Nitro-nuts from the beginning, just recently, or anywhere in between!

So, how do you become a Fan of the Month? Send us a brief write-up about yourself, why you like Nitro, and how you use our products to community@nitropdf.com. At the end of each month, we’ll pick a winner from the best entries and send that person a Nitro swag pack!

What’s in the swag pack?

Nitro Pro 7
Nitro hoodie
4GB USB Stick/ bottle opener
Your very own (stuffed) Milo!

Aside from all the Nitro goodies, your entry will also be posted on our blog and you’ll be spotlighted on our Facebook page for the next month! Anyone can enter but only one a month will win so send us your best reasons on why you should be the Fan of the Month!

Announcing a new face on Nitro’s Board of Directors… Welcome, Anthony Glenning!

Nick Chandler — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 17:49:45 +0000

We’re excited to welcome Anthony Glenning, Investment Director of Starfish Ventures and Founder and CEO of Tonic Systems (the guys behind the online presentation software acquired by Google and incorporated into Google Docs), as the newest member of our Board. You can read the “official” press release here.

His appointment coincides with Starfish Ventures’ recent $3.5m investment in Nitro.

Anthony (Tony) brings 14 years’ experience in building, growing, and investing in growth-oriented technology companies, and we’re positively chuffed to have him on the team.

Welcome, Tony!

Life at Nitro: San Francisco

Spencer Jenkins — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 16:52:03 +0000

We talk a lot about culture at Nitro; it’s what differentiates us as a company, and – outside of our products – it’s the one thing that represents all the unique people, personalities, and everything that makes us, well…. Us.

We’re hiring a lot of people in 2012, so we put this short video together to encapsulate what life is like at Nitro HQ, here in San Francisco (there’ll be more to come of our other offices).

Interested in becoming the next rockstar Nitronaut? Head to www.nitropdf.com/jobs to check out our open positions…

Melbourne gets some new Nitronauts

Spencer Jenkins — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 17:28:36 +0000

We just hired two more Nitronauts to help with making the products you guys use even better! Frank Ziegler, Project Manager, and Alex Lieu, Technical Support Representative, just joined our team down in Melbourne. Frank is going to be instrumental in developing future Nitro products faster and more efficiently and Alex will be adding another timezone to our Support operation so users around the globe can get the help they need, faster.

Want to read more about these two great guys? Check out some of the interesting facts about each of them below.

Frank Ziegler

Hometown: Berlin, Germany

Favorite indulgence: Creamy chocolate and adrenaline cocktails

Idol: I don’t think I actually have one.

Soundtrack song: “Magic Carpet Ride” by Steppenwolf

Childhood ambition: Make an impact on the world in some good way

(still on the bucket list)

Favorite weekend activity/hobby: Rock climbing

Alex Lieu

Hometown: Melbourne, Australia

Favorite indulgence: Macaroons

Idol: Bruce Lee

Soundtrack song: “Survivor” by Eye of the Tiger

Childhood ambition: Race car driver

Favorite weekend activity/hobby: Tinkering with cars.

Think you’d be a good fit as a Nitronaut? Check out our open positions now! We have a ton available here.

Nitro Pro 7 is now available in 5 more languages!

Spencer Jenkins — Sat, 14 Apr 2012 00:34:14 +0000

We just launched our localized-language versions of www.nitropdf.com as well as Nitro Pro 7 in French, Spanish, German, Dutch, and Italian! Thanks to all our non-English speaking users and customers for waiting so long, and apologies for the delay; translating a 30,000 word Web site into 5 languages (not to mention the product!) isn’t an easy undertaking, and we wanted to make sure it was perfect. So, if you see anything that doesn’t add up, tell us!

We’re an international company with offices in Australia, the United States, and Slovakia, so our products are always designed and built for an international audience. We pride ourselves on making Nitro Pro 7 and Nitro Reader 2 as easy and intuitive as possible, no matter what language you speak, and we hope you feel the same when you use them.

English is set as our default language but if you’d like to browse the site in another language simply go to the top right corner of the website and select your preferred language from the drop down menu.

Using Nitro Pro 5 or 6? Check out some of the added benefits of upgrading to Nitro Pro 7 in our why upgrade page for

Nitro SF goes bowling

Spencer Jenkins — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 18:39:53 +0000

This past week we had a team outing for our San Francisco office at the new Lucky Strike bowling alley down the street. Although no one quite had the skills of The Dude, there were still plenty of White Russians, beers, and even a few strikes! Check out some of the pictures including some of our newest Nitronauts!

Nitro Melbourne makes a big move

To 2012, and beyond: big news and big plans

Nick Chandler — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 16:30:16 +0000

It’s been one hell of a journey from 2005 to here. In fact, it’s been such a journey that we needed an infographic (yes, another) just to condense everything that’s happened into a vaguely digestible format.

You can download it here, or scroll down to view it in its glorious entirety.

The news

Back to the news — the big news: We just closed our first round of major institutional financing.

We’re now what those in this part of the world would call “venture-backed”. Our good friends and fellow Aussies at Starfish Ventures have supported our plans for 2012 and beyond to the tune of $3.5m.

This is big news for us, because we’ve basically been bootstrapped and profitable since day one – so it’s not a decision we took lightly. It’s big news for you guys, because it means more people, more quickly, to build more kickass products. Our values remain the same, and they will not change.

I'm Milo, and that's how I roll (now).

The plan

What are these plans we speak of?

Well, you might have to wait — at least a little, until mid-year or thereabouts — but we’ll tell you this: they involve the cloud, a logical extension of what we’re already doing on the desktop, and fixing a bunch of rather frustrating document problems just about everyone experiences (a lot).

They involve putting the seventy-odd, ass-kicking Nitronauts we already have (and plenty more to come!) to task on the stuff that happens to documents after they disappear into that series of tubes we call the Internet.

Stay tuned, and expect awesome.

This many people used Nitro Reader last month.

The important stuff

Thank you. Thanks to all of our customers, who backed us with their own money from day one. Thanks to each and every one of the free product users for getting behind and supporting what a few people suggested was, “not a smart idea.” (Turns out three-plus million monthly users of Nitro Reader think otherwise.)

And finally, thanks to the Nitro team – past, present, and future. You earned it.

~ Milo.

A short, illustrated history of all things Nitro.

Health: 25 amazing facts from Natural News