Foxit Reader Ditches Printer/Create PDF...

[ameerat42]

No, they haven't sent it over to New Zealand :p

Foxit Reader is a (reportedly) popular alternative to Adobe PDF Reader, and I have been
using it for years, ever since AK (or was it Rick) put me onto it.

But in version 10.X they ditched two of it's most attractive features:
1) Print (anything) to PDF - where it acted as a virtual printer that created PDFs of anything
you could throw at it, and

2) Create PDF, which... [does as it says).

So I combed the web, and after only a few stokes of the implement found a heap of refs.
Basically, to retrieve those lost features, you have to uninstall the latest 10.X version and
reinstall the last 9.X version... - AND THEN, you have to SWITCH OFF automatic updates in
"File-Preferences-Updater..."

Well, I just did all that, and now I'm :nod: again.

Some refs:
https://forums.foxitsoftware.com/forum/portable-document-format-pdf-tools/foxit-reader/177686-foxit-pdf-printer-gone-after-foxit-reader-upgrade

and the 9.X setup file:
http://cdn01.foxitsoftware.com/produ...L10N_Setup.exe

[Jaded62]

I use foxit irregularly when Acrobat won't play the game. Sometimes Acrobat won't print tech schematics to A1 or 2 for some reason. Usually its to PDF project spec documents that are protected and which can't be OCR'd. Which I find a pain as to read every word of a 500 page tech brief to tender on is a bit of a stretch for me. Easier if I can search for key words.

Anyway, re point 1 above, there's Microsoft to PDF print driver which I do use and works.

[ameerat42]

Yes, that's right, Jaded. I used it once or twice to try, but I got too spoilt by Foxit :D

[Tannin]

Blimey! Why are you still using Foxit?

Foxit was the go-to PDF reader back about 15 or 20 years ago - we used to load it on all our customer systems and always used it ourselves - but it got huge and slow and clumsy and bloated and horrible more than a decade ago. (And if you like slow and horrible, you might as well just use the Adobe product, which is much the same only possibly less secure.)

There are lots of other PDF readers which blow Foxit into the weeds feature-wise, performance-wise, and/or footprint-wise. I can't recommend any particular one as I don't know your requirements and I haven't stayed current with the latest choices. For myself, I have one which is small and fast, resource-light, copes gracefully with many documents open at the same time, even on small systems, and has a much more usefully configurable UI than most, but has only a small feature set - I seldom need to print and never need to edit, only heavy-duty reading. For this mix of tasks, PDF-Xchange is ideal. I doubt that it would suit your needs though. The thing is, there are lots of readers around and pretty much all of them are better than Foxit. (The same company - Tracker Software - makes full-featured products too. I haven't tried them but they might be worth a look.)

[ameerat42]

Ta for that, Tannin. It might be :clock: to look about for a different one.

[bitsnpieces]

Good to know, as I've been using Foxit for a long time note now

Thanks for the heads up

Any reason they removed these two features?

[ameerat42]

None that any of the on-line-hair-puller-outers (including me) could get from the Foxit team :confused013

Just chalk it up to the usual - "progress" :rolleyes:

[arthurking83]

....
Anyway, re point 1 above, there's Microsoft to PDF print driver which I do use and works.

This. Q n E Z way to turn anything into a pdf(if required) does images too.(with caveats).
Only thing it can't do is multi page single pdfs of multiple separate items.

For multi page pdfs in a single file, I just use Open Office open each file then once all files are loaded export to pdf.

What are you turning into pdfs? Is it scans? ... or documents already in a different format(ie. jpgs, doc, docx, odt's or whatever).

[ameerat42]

Tay, AK. The version 9.X works a treat: create blank PDF; paste from clipboard; scan multiple pages into one PDF;
default print as PDF... I've switched off "updates" :rolleyes: