Free online web services to create, view, share and edit PDF files

I like to keep an eye on new and popular PDF software and recently looked around to find articles that covered free web-based PDF software tools. In my searching I found no comprehensive or up to date list and in the end came across a bunch of web-based PDF tools. Below is my list of completely free online tools for working with PDF.

In my opinion desktop tools like our Nitro PDF Professional or Adobe Acrobat are still the way to go for the business professional-type user, but for the more occassional PDF user (who doesn’t want to pay for a feature they’re only going to use once or twice) hopefully the completely free PDF tools below will help you out.

I’ll try to keep the list as up to date as possible. If you know of other services we might have missed, please add a comment at the bottom of the post.

What makes a product free?

I’ve limited my list to what I consider truly free services and omitted others that claim to be free but in fact insert watermarks, logos or ads into the PDF files you receive — sorry, that’s not free!

Some of the services that send you your PDF via email include some marketing material, but that seems like a fair trade off given they’re giving you a 100%-clean PDF file.

Free online PDF creation/conversion

PDF Online

PDF Online has been around for a lot of years now (originally starting as GoHTM.com) and the service offers quick and easy PDF creation from a bunch of common formats including DOC, XLS, PPT and more. You upload your file, enter your email address and a PDF will arrive in a minute or so. Latching on to the iPhone hype, they’ve also released a service that converts files to PDF for use on an iPhone. The service seems to produce the same PDFs as the normal PDFOnline service, but instead of uploading the file to their server, you submit it to an email address.

Requirements: Valid email address
Key functionality: Create PDF files from most common file types, create iPhone-ready PDF files

PrimoOnline

PrimoPDF Online is a lesser known free service from the makers of the extremely popular desktop PDF creation tool PrimoPDF. It supports a long list of file types. To use, enter your email address, select the file to convert, create the PDF, and then check your inbox.

Requirements: Valid email address
Key functionality: Create PDF files from most common file types

SANFACE Software

A bit of an old classic and quite possibly the oldest surviving online PDF creator, SANFACE’s basic text to PDF convertor lets you create simple text PDF documents all via a web page. You enter your text into a form, choose from the basic settings such as font styles and page size and press the TXT to PDF button.

Requirements: None
Key functionality: Convert text to PDF

Adobe Access

Adobe’s PDF to HTML/text service was originally started to give people with visual impairments and users of visual-assistance technology better access to PDF files by converting the content to plain text or HTML. The free service lets you email your PDF files or submit a URL to PDF files you find on the web. Unfortunately there’s no way to simply upload the file for conversion.

Requirements: Valid email address (if you’re submitting via email)
Key functionality: Convert PDF to HTML, convert PDF to text

HTML2PDF

HTML2PDF does exactly what the name suggests. Visit the site, paste in the URL of the web page you want to convert and it’ll be automatically converted to PDF.

Requirements: None
Key functionality: Convert HTML to PDF

Express PDF

This freebie lets you convert Word, Excel and webpages to PDF. You just submit an email address, tell it the file to convert and watch your inbox till it appears.

Requirements: Valid email address
Key functionality: Convert DOC, XLS and webpages to PDF

Free online PDF viewer/editor

PDF Download

OK, this is a plug for one of our products, but it is free and extremely useful for handling the PDF files you encounter while surfing the Web using a Firefox browser. The extension gives you better control over the links to PDF files you click on, reducing the common problems of slow downloading and browsers crashes. In a nutshell it enables you to get to the contents of PDF files faster and easier.

Requirements: Firefox web browser and the PDF Download extension
Key functionality: Control how PDF files are downloaded, convert PDF to HTML

PDF Hammer

PDF Hammer provides you with some simple page arranging and PDF document merging tools. You upload your file(s) into PDF Hammer, rearrange the pages (and delete them if necessary) until you have the page order correct and then click the Export button to create the new PDF file. PDF Hammer displays the pages as thumbnails which makes it easier to know which pages you want to change. Apparently additional capabilites such as rotating pages and applying watermarks are coming in later releases.

Requirements: None
Key functionality: PDF editor, rearrange PDF pages, delete PDF pages, combine PDF files

Samuraj Data AB PDF Viewer

Not too much to say — it’s a very basic, barebones online viewer for PDF files.

Requirements: None
Key functionality: PDF viewer

Free online PDF storage and sharing

I’ll leave out the bunch of sites that do file sharing and just focus on ones that tend to offer more useful PDF-related functionality. You also might like to check out one of our recent posts on embedding PDF files in webpages.

Scribd

Scribd gives you a place to store as many PDF files as you like, allowing you to access them from anywhere. You can arrange, group and tag them in an variety of ways. You can make documents private or public and link straight to the file or embed it directly in your webpage so users can read the PDF file without have to open a PDF viewer. If you’re trying to share you PDF files with as many people as possible, then Scribd is a good option as it’s trying to become the YouTube for documents.

Requirements: Must have an account
Key functionality: Free PDF file storage, file sharing, PDF web page embedding

Adobe Share

Currently in beta, Adobe Share has a similar set of functionality for storing, sharing, linking to and embedding your PDF files in webpages but is less focused on the becoming the YouTube for documents.

Requirements: Must have an account
Key functionality: Free PDF file storage, file sharing, PDF web page embedding

Gunnsteinn Hall

I would like to point out a recent online tool, MergePDF.net, that enables users to combine PDF files for free:

http://www.mergepdf.net

Chris Dahl

Mahesh,

If you're looking to create PDFs from scratch via C# code, then I suggest you take a look at iTextSharp. It's a C# port of the open source iText project.

http://itextsharp.sourceforge.net/

If you're looking for a free library to convert existing documents (e.g. .doc, .xls) to PDF, I suggest you head over to the Planet PDF Forums, as i'm not sure of any such library.

http://forums.planetpdf.com

Mahesh

Hi Richard,
It's an enormous collection of PDF software. Thanks for sharing the information.
However, I'm looking for some free API or Web Services to create PDFs using C#.NET.
Any idea?

Chris Dahl

Peter,

I suggest you post that question over at the PrimoPDF forums -> http://forums.primopdf.com/.

peter

I am using primo pdf writer out of QuarkXpress 4.0 and although I get excelent pics I do not get the correct typefaces - any suggestions?

richardcrocker1

Hi postac,

Unfortunately pdffiller.com charges for its service, which means it doesn't make the cut.

popstac

pdffiller.com is another one.

Barbara D.

Hi Richard, sure enjoy reading your articles & comments and am learning so much, thank you. I am editor of the Sun Country Quilter's Newsletter of Red Bluff, Ca and needed to find a pdf convertoer - cheap and easy. I found and downloaded PrimoPDF and have been delighted with the results. Out of 51 E-readers only two had any trouble; one didn't have Adobe Reader but quickly followed instructions and was delighted with her success; the second was reading an Email with an attachment for the very first time. It took her 3 tries. till she finally said that she was clicking on the paperclip but nothing was happening...sent her to the blue, underlined attachment title and she too was thrilled with her success.

I especially enjoyed your article on Save vs Save As and will certainly apply that gem to my next newsletter. I usually do the Save As first to name a new file using the previous issue as a template. Thank you for sharing your knowledge so freely and eloquently.

richardcrocker1

Thanks for your feedback Brian. You're right about the difference negative and positive comments. People expect software to do what it claims to do, so when things 'just work', giving a positive comment is not often at the forefront of people's minds. We really appreciate you taking the time to comment here.

Brian8655

I stumbled upon the PDF Download plugin for Firefox earlier today. I was trying, unsuccessfully, to open a PDF document from a website. I hit Google in search of the PDF viewer from Adobe to do a fresh install. I stumbled upon your plugin in the search results and downloaded it out of curiousity. I didn't read too much of the file descriptions as I just needed a temporary solution to view a file that I needed.

In the mean time, I had gone to another system and tried downloading the same PDF in IE. I got the same blank window, so I determined that the issue was on the website's side and not mine.

I forgot about the nitroPDF plugin I installed until a couple of minutes ago. I clicked on a link for a PDF and your prompt window popped up. I must say I am impressed. It was a small download, it loaded quickly when I clicked the link, and the interface could not be any simpler. The button placement and labels make it so you know exactly what to do as soon as it pops up. Very nice.

Too often, people are quick to post negative comments as soon as a product does not meet expectations so I wanted to jump on here and give you 'job well done'. Thanks for the program.

richardcrocker1

Hi Chris, thanks for commenting. PDFescape didn't make the cut as it places ad/text stamps along the edge of the pages of the PDF file. If the service stops doing that, I'll gladly add them.

Chris Son

I hate to say it, but you left off an obvious one:
http://www.pdfescape.com

Much better than Samuraj or Hammer, much more like a real desktop PDF product like Nitro

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