PDF Converter Pro 12.1

PDF Converter Pro is capable of transforming nearly any document available in digital form into a PDF or PDF/A file. The new version of this versatile Abdio tool has largely increased the number of file formats supported for the input from 149 (an already respectable figure) to more than 500. This includes not only all text-based file formats you can think of, but also quite a few image- and graphic-based file types.

The program’s interface offers two conversion windows for you to choose from – a ribbon-based colorful one with oversized intuitive icons, and a less lively one with standard menu options instead. Either way, both open the same dialogs and produce the same high-quality PDF files.

One of the main assets of this tool is, undoubtedly, the large amount of input file formats supported. To make it easier and more intuitive to browse this extensive list of file types, the program has organized them in categories. Some refer to the most popular programs and suites of tools, such as Microsoft Office, Microsoft Visio, AutoCAD, Adobe Photoshop, CorelDraw, or WordPerfect. Less obvious file formats include databases (dBase, FoxBase, Paradox, R:BASE, etc.), spreadsheets (Lotus, Enable, Novell Perfect Works, etc.), presentations (Harvard Graphics, Corel/Novell Presentations, Freelance, etc.), graphic formats (Photoshop, Illustrator, Ami Draw, bitmap files, JPEG, TIFF, and many others), compressed archives (ZIP, GZIP, LZA, LZH, etc.), and even e-mail files, such as PST and MSG. The list is, if nothing else, impressive.

The conversion process itself is pretty standard – you may select and put together on the same conversion list any mixture of supported input files and then move to the settings dialog to customize your output. Here the options are fairly scarce – output path, page range (if any), apply compression to the output file (or not), and set the page margins. Regrettably, these settings will be applied to all the files involved in the conversion process in the most egalitarian way, rendering batch conversion useless in some instances. The resulting files will try to preserve the original layout as much as possible, which – in most cases – translates into high-quality, nicely-converted PDF files.