Wondershare PDFelement 8 Levels Up The Ultimate Document Solution

No matter how much you profess that we're living in a digital age, just like our predecessors, we still rely on documents to get our message across — be it a sales pitch, an inventory list, or even an invoice. All that has changed are the forms these documents take — and the tools we use to create or modify them. With the release of Wondershare PDFelement 8, the company's latest PDF iteration, those tools have been upgraded to make working with documents more pleasurable than you might think.

When people talk about digital documents, they mostly have formats and programs like Microsoft Office's Word in mind or one of the different but related alternatives for it. Sure, many have probably heard of PDF (actually, a more open and internationally standardized document format), but they may associate it with static, read-only documents used in scholarly journals, magazines, or brochures (and not the kind of documents you might use for serious work).

PDF, however, has evolved over the decades to become a more powerful medium. It has gained support for interactive elements, multimedia, and, of course, editable fields that make PDFs more flexible and more appealing to a wide range of uses and users. If you need a document to look beautiful while also being functional, chances are you can make a PDF for that.

What hasn't changed, however, is that PDF creation and editing requires specialized tools. These tools come in all sizes and prices, and Adobe's Acrobat is often the household name because of the company's involvement with PDF. Just because it is popular, however, doesn't mean it's the best choice out there.

Quality is often associated with price, which, in many instances is a fallacy. If price were the only criteria, you'd be forgiven for presuming Acrobat is the only quality software developer in this market. That, however, is far from the truth and Wondershare's PDFelement also has a share in the category (no pun intended), because of how much more it offers for less, as the marketing slogan goes.

PDFelement really provides all that a user could ask for from an all-in-one digital document solution. It goes beyond the basics of creating, editing, and even annotating PDFs and offers all the bells and whistles you can get your hands on. Users can layout out text, images, and other objects and you can even add scanned PDFs as editable text, thanks to the (sometimes arcane) magic of OCR or Optical Character Recognition.

PDFs are often thought of as word-centric documents, but you can even incorporate "live" spreadsheets in them. Users are no longer required to sweat out calculations or break out the calculator app as PDFelement can do that automatically. And, when it comes time to collaborate with others, the software's easy-to-use annotation tools make communication over the Internet and computers less of a chore.

Granted, many users will point out how some, but not all, of these features might be available on Adobe Acrobat but here's the clincher — those same set of features will cost you more with Adobe's suite, which only offers a recurring subscription option. As we'll see later, you can get PDFelement for a one-time, inexpensive payment. How's that for bang for the buck?

PDFelement is already a well-known tool among digital document workers but Wondershare has made many upgrades with version 8. While it's natural to see new features in major releases, what makes PDFelement 8 special is that it actually makes things simpler and faster than ever before. Of course, all the power features are still there but you won't be overwhelmed by all the icons and options when you don't need them.

Adobe is the master of overloaded toolbars and menus, but in contrast, PDFelement 8's redesigned UI is clean and inviting, taking some of the stress and tension out of working with documents. The home page only presents the actions you need to take to start working with a document while toolbars now show the most common actions and options. Don't worry, all the tools and functionality are still there when you need them — not when they need you to notice them.

PDFelement 8's new improvements run deep, going beyond just a UI refresh. Wondershare boasts that the latest version not only works faster but also takes up less memory. And, when you're working on critical documents in a rush, knowing that the chances of crashing have been slashed by half is a reassuring thought.

Wondershare also introduced something new along with the release of PDFelement 8. Keeping with the times, the company has embraced the cloud but doesn't force it upon users. If you do need cloud storage for your hundreds of PDFs, not to mention the ability to electronically sign them and send them in bulk, then Wondershare's new Document Cloud is your ticket.

Now more than ever, we've become even more dependent on doing business over the Internet, relying on digital documents to get our ideas and messages across. There is no doubt that we need powerful tools for creating, editing, and annotating these documents. The question is how much should we be paying for those tools?

Wondershare PDFelement 8 is available in two forms, with two pricing options each. There's the standard PDFelement, which costs $69 a year, far lower than the leading competition, but Wondershare is also offering a one-time $79 perpetual license for the software. If you need more advanced features like OCR or creating editable fields, PDFelement Pro is yours for $79 a year or yours forever for a $129 perpetual license. One catch is that the latest PDFelement 8 version is available only on Windows, with the Mac remaining at version 7 for now.

As for the new Document Cloud, that starts at $14.99, billed quarterly, or $35.99, also billed quarterly, for the PDFelement Pro DC version. Again, unlike that other Document Cloud, this is an optional and separate subscription, and you can try it out for free with a few limitations only.

Wondershare PDFelement 8 promises an all-around, all-in-one digital document solution that won't drown you in knobs and buttons while offering all the bells and whistles you could ask for. It also delivers all of these in a package that won't burn a hole through your finances, a much-needed assurance during these uncertain days. PDFs don't need to be boring and static, but they shouldn't need a computer science degree to make either. However you PDF, Wondershare's PDFelement 8 lets you own it, just the way you like and need it.SlashGear readers: click here for a special discount on PDFelement 8.