September 2012 Nuance PDF Converter Enterprise 8

HP Authorized Service Provider Research September 2012 For distribution in North America

Nuance PDF Converter Enterprise 8

Category-Leading PDF Software Rates "Best Buy"

February 2013

Introduction: The Holy Grail

In this report, I am going to make a case for why I think Nuance PDF Converter Enterprise 8 (Nuance PDF) is one of the most powerful programs you can possibly have on your Windows PC, and why it is a tremendous value. As one might predict from Nuance, a company known for world-class voice-to-text technology, optical character recognition (OCR) technology, and overall document and graphics pedigree, its latest version of Nuance PDF Converter Enterprise is a powerful and versatile program that is delightfully easy to use.

I have had the privilege of more or less living with the program for a couple of months and exploring how it could make a difference for me in my own work life. I also reached out to a variety of other business users to ascertain how its capabilities span a variety of professional environments and represent a state-of-the-art tool for document management.

To provide a little background, I have been working with portable document format (PDF) files for many years as a member of the printing and imaging industry. As manager of HP's LaserJet marketing programs team, I was active in the original desktop publishing developments in the emerging Macintosh and PC worlds of the late 1980s, with players such as Apple, HP, and others, including start-ups such as Aldus and even Xerox. I can trace the critical importance of desktop publishing in moving Microsoft's Windows operating environment from an unproven, almost experimental computer environment--compared to the entrenched, non-graphical MS-DOS standard--to its evolution into what might have been the very first "killer app." Adobe's Postscript Page Description Language, of course, played a big role, as did alternatives such as HP's PCL. But it was the PostScript side of the industry and the vision of a common imaging model that brought about the portable document format and its requisite software, although perhaps a more apt term to describe the format would be universal rather than portable.

This brings me to some of my hands-on and more recent history with PDF, as well as a particular project I worked on and that I have reflected on while getting to know Nuance PDF Converter Enterprise 8. This occurred well after the establishment of PDF as a document format standard, but still long enough ago to provide perspective on the power and value of Nuance's software.

During the early 2000s, I remember working with HP product development teams in the Imaging and Printing Group (IPG) that were looking to complete a document solution for HP's higher-end office printer and multifunction peripheral (MFP) customers. I was the manager in charge of partner relationships, and my marketing and engineering colleagues and I described the functionality we were looking for on behalf of our customers--the solution that would "close the loop" between hard copy and electronic documents.

The specifics of what we were seeking--under the umbrella of finding better ways for customers to have a more integrated and fluid document environment--was a tool for documents to go both directions, in and out of the PDF format. This included not only the "distiller" type of PDF creator, which had been required from the beginning, but also a reverse tool, which would allow PDF documents to be read and transformed into "native" Microsoft Office formats (typically Word but Excel and PowerPoint as well) in which editing and other cut-and-paste-related functions could be accomplished more easily.

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The ability to move documents from hard copy to electronic and back was already fairly solid, through scanning software that captured images as well as text (OCR) and, of course, printing of electronic documents. Anything else to make those documents circulate in a more fluid fashion, such as early cloud-based and document-management systems, would have been great, too. Capturing documents and annotations through voice-to-text capabilities would have seemed a bit far-fetched, however.

I became curious about the new product from Nuance and figured it was time for me to check back in on just how far this technology had come. Given that OCR-like capabilities were seen as the key to back-and-forth conversions, it came as no surprise that Nuance, the leader in OCR technology for the last decade or more, had such a solution that was at the core of the functionality of its product. In exploring the state-of-the-art in PDF conversion, I also found a solution that goes beyond and offers much more: even that futuristic voice-to-text that was just the glimmer of an idea back then.

My timing, in terms of comparisons, could not have been better. While I got to know Nuance PDF and compared it to the main PDF competitor, Adobe Acrobat X, it turned out it was time for a revision. In October 2012, Adobe Acrobat XI became available. Not only did I have a chance to get to know Nuance PDF, I also got to compare it to the latest and greatest version of its leading competition.

Nuance and Nuance PDF Converter Enterprise 8: Hands-On

After working with names that were so familiar to me--such as PaperPort, Equitrac, eCopy, and Omnipage--the modestly named Nuance PDF Converter Enterprise 8 from Nuance Communications, a high-tech "house of brands," was a surprising revelation. As someone who has created thousands of PDF files and interacted with hundreds of thousands more, I was in for an eye-opening few weeks, exploring what this powerful software package could do for me and how it compared to the other contender, Adobe Acrobat. I was also able to gain insight into other professions and work environments and how many of these powerful Nuance tools contribute to their workplace productivity.

In addition to the foundational back-and-forth conversions between PDF and a variety of file formats, Nuance

emphasized four important innovations in Nuance PDF Converter Enterprise 8, including voice annotation, advanced

PDF editing, cloud and document management integration, and the inclusion of the emerging PDF/A standard. I have

become familiar with each of these, and am duly impressed, as I found ways my own workflows could be improved

using them. But going back to the training DVD that I watched as I was ramping up my knowledge, I found the complete

list of features to be impressive as well:

? Create, Convert and Edit PDF Files;

Nuance emphasized four important

? Assemble and Compile Portfolios; ? Annotate and Stamp PDF Files; ? Use Your Voice to Add Notes to Your Document; ? Work with Scanned Documents and Forms; ? Create PDF/A Compliant Files;

innovations in Nuance PDF Converter Enterprise 8, including voice

annotation, advanced PDF editing, cloud and document management

? Redact and Bates Stamp your Document; and ? Connect to Popular Cloud Services.

integration, and the inclusion of the emerging PDF/A standard.

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As I completed my findings, I found that, in most cases, it's the combination of those easy-to-use capabilities, from the basic to the sophisticated, that really give Nuance PDF Converter Enterprise 8 its power.

Workflows and Functions

The overall needs of business users can be characterized from their central focus on the Microsoft Office suite, mostly within or at least in conjunction with a large corporate, health-care, educational, or government organization. Even with its large feature set, the product has been designed and marketed with these specifics in mind. Features and flexibility are offered to users of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Internet Explorer. Inside larger organizations, departments that will find the many capabilities of Nuance PDF a boost to productivity include human resources, sales and marketing, engineering, IT, finance and legal, and records management. Marketing agencies and publishing firms can utilize its capabilities throughout their organizations.

Is Editing PDFs Somehow Unethical?

While not everyone may think of this question, it has crossed my mind. Having worked with PDF files for about 20 years, I have always considered them to be "cast in stone." Creating a PDF was like burning a write-once DVD--it was something you did when you wanted a permanent, non-editable copy of a document. In my mind, I associate them with tax returns, newspaper articles, and course syllabi--items that have been "printed" and have never been changed, and in fact could not have been changed. When using Nuance PDF Converter Enterprise 8, I found that there are different categories of usage for PDFs. For example, there are some PDFs that I would like to edit easily without going back to a converted Word file to make changes, especially simple ones, such as dates in a new course syllabus, then recreating the PDF and giving it a new name. In fact, one of my suggestions for productivity improvements for PDFs has come from learning to use advanced editing available in Nuance PDF Converter Enterprise 8. This creates a broader perspective on just what a PDF is and can be and helps me resolve the admittedly outdated "ethical" question. Nuance confirmed that many customers have raised this as a potential issue or misperception. According to the company, this is why there are PDF security settings in the creation step. Fully editable PDFs lay the groundwork for a better understanding of how the portable document format has evolved and found broader usage and, with the power of Nuance PDF Converter Enterprise 8's editing (beyond the "touch-up" capability of the past), expands the horizon for the PDF and what it can be. Adobe, by the way, has radically changed its approach to PDFs with version XI of Acrobat. While the company had long defined PDFs as "snapshots" of documents, the new version of the software now includes editing capabilities.

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I found that, in most cases, it's the combination of those easy-touse capabilities, from the basic to the sophisticated, that really give Nuance PDF Converter Enterprise 8 its power.

Close-Up with a Power User

In addition to reviewing my own workflows and those of professional associates across a range of professional fields, I interviewed a "power PDF user" who is also an administrator for this report. This person is responsible for recommending PDF software for up to 1,000 users in his own sphere of influence (his operational division). Through his regional role, he also has the power to influence those in other divisions across a national organization. Although this individual knows Nuance PDF Converter Enterprise 8 "inside and out" and has strongly recommended Nuance PDF software over its nearest rival, he will remain anonymous here. Suffice it to say he is extremely knowledgeable and represents a government organization that is a household name. Most of what follows is in his own words, as he goes back several years and traces the organization's original evaluation of version 6, up to the present day and its evaluation of version 8. Q: Describe your organization. A: Our part of the federal government agency has over 700 users of all types ? from engineers to administrative officers. Q: How do you use Nuance PDF Converter Enterprise 8 today? A: My guesstimate of how our part of the agency uses PDF Converter Enterprise 8 is based on empirical observations. The list is in estimated decreasing order to feature/process use.

1. Edit PDF metadata and similar to meet Section 508 (by Web developers). 2. Edit PDFs to update small bits of information. 3. Create PDFs from within Microsoft Office 2010 (though many now use Office's "Save and

Send" to create a PDF, which then opens in Nuance PDF for any editing, adding metadata, etc.). 4. Create PDFs from within Nuance PDF from a networked scanner. 5. Edit PDFs to remove selected pages and resave them. 6. Edit PDFs to mark up an existing PDF and return it to the sender (used to mark up layout diagrams, for example).

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