FinePrint Offers Up Affordable PDF
Small and mid-sized businesses may have found a new friend. Undercutting Adobe by over 200 US dollars, San Francisco-based FinePrint has offered up its own solution for creating cross-platform PDF files. FinePrint's pdfFactory allows users to convert documents into portable document files, and retails for $39.95 USD; as compared to Adobe Acrobat which sells for a hefty $249 USD. PDF files can be read with Adobe's Acrobat Reader, freeware that runs on Windows, Mac OS, and all variants of UNIX. Over 200 million copies of the viewer have been installed world-wide, establishing the format as a staple of business communication.
Even as PDF becomes standard issue for distributing documents online, FinePrint contends that the overall cost of deploying an Adobe solution across entire organizations remains costly. In today's press release, President Jonathan Weiner elaborated, "Unfortunately, the cost of providing an entire workforce with PDF file writing capabilities has been prohibitive, and the Acrobat application offers more features than many users need."
Simplicity is also a goal of FinePrint's. pdfFactory allows any Windows application with printing functionality to generate a PDF file. Several documents can be combined, and edited using a special preview feature in the software. pdfFactory users can also e-mail files with just one click. The key objective of the interface is to reduce the number of steps necessary to obtain results. However, features offered in Acrobat such as indexing, bookmarks, and forms have not been implemented in the current release.
Although the company appears to directly compete against Adobe, Weiner told BetaNews, "Adobe has fully released the PDF specification and is in fact encouraging third parties to pursue PDF-based solutions." He continued, "pdfFactory will be marketed to both businesses of all sizes and individuals. The price point, ease of use and the network version make it a universal solution." Other PDF offerings include, Win2PDF and Easy PDF.
A trial version is available to download via FileForum for Windows 9x and Windows NT/2000. For more information, visit the FinePrint Web site.