Georgia architectural firm saves money by buying Software 995's Pdf995 for employees who create simple PDFs and limiting Acrobat to power users.Like many companies that have documents zipping between desktops and out the virtual door through e-mail, Georgia-based Manley Spangler Smith Architects developed a fondness for PDFs.
The firm appreciated the document control it could achieve, and the way clients and architects could swap contracts and blueprints without the need for faxing or courier services.
But with increasing affection came a downside as well. As a small firm on a strict budget, the company was feeling increasingly uncomfortable about the licensing fees for adding users. According to IT Manager J. Mayes Howard, it seemed like overkill to spend $350 per person when employees were only using Adobe Acrobat to make simple PDFs.
"We have a few power users who work with all the tools in Acrobat and create cool documents," said Howard. "But everyone else just needed a quick, simple way to create a PDF."
Click here to read eWEEK Labs' reviews of two $99 tools for creating and modifying PDFs.
After shopping around, Howard decided to try out Pdf995, a stripped-down document publishing application that was true to its name: It creates PDFs—and does it for $9.95 per user.
Published by Software995, the application is part of a suite of document publishing tools that includes Pdf995, PdfEdit995 and Signature995. The latter two build on the PDF creation tool by offering additional functionality like automatic link insertion and stronger encryption.
Pdf995 itself allows users to create documents that can be viewed on any computer that has a PDF viewer. Its main advantage is in its ease of use, allowing anyone to create PDF files simply by selecting the "print" command from any application.
Manley Spangler Smith took its time deciding what software to buy. Howard noted that the firm tested Pdf995 for over a year using the free download and got used to the small pop-up window that often appeared promoting the company, a frequent tactic used by companies looking to woo users into switching from free to paid subscriptions.
Click here to read Don Fluckinger's recent column on Nitro, Arts PDF's alternative to Acrobat.
After the testing period, the firm bought 25 licenses, and with volume discounting, the price dropped to $8 per user. There haven't been any glitches in terms of interoperability with other applications, and it plays well with Acrobat, Howard noted.
"We feel that by having just six or seven licenses with Acrobat, and having the rest of our employees using Pdf995, we're addressing our PDF creation needs without spending more than we have to," he said.
It's possible that as more companies boost their PDF creation and use, they'll look for alternatives to Acrobat as well. Although there will always be "power users" like those seen in Howard's firm, there will also be lower-level users like administrative assistants and interns, who only need to whip up a PDF and e-mail it to clients or vendors.
"PDFs will continue to be used more, I think, and people will get more comfortable with them," said Howard, adding that an important advantage to the format is that documents made into PDFs seem to slip past spam filters more easily than Word files or other types of attachments. In an era when spam filters are set to an increasingly smaller mesh, this could be an important advantage.
"Sometimes you don't want to play around with what's in a PDF, you just want to send a document to a client that they can't alter," noted Howard. "In that case, something like Pdf995 is a very good option, in my opinion."
