features


Platforms:
Windows 7 / 8 / 2008 / 2012 / 2016
(includes x64 platforms)

Each edition of pdfMachine has a particular subset of the listed features.

Compare editions

PDF creation is easy and quick - just print to "Broadgun pdfMachine"

pdfMachine is simple and fast with no complicated options. Our pdf writer pdfMachine converts a print stream from an application directly into a PDF. Once you have installed the pdfMachine pdf writer, open your document that you want to convert, then click "print", select the "Broadgun pdfMachine" printer and that's it! Using the pdfMachine add-in for Microsoft Office makes it even easier.

For a short movie demo, click here.

Features:

Text highlighting / Underlining / Strikeout

Text mark-up, shape drawing, lines and arrows. Text highlighting, underlining and strikeout.

Scanning Support

Use the pdfScanMachine utility to scan your documents directly to PDF format. JBIG2 compression is supported, resulting in very small PDFs for Black and White scanned images. WIA, WIA2 and TWAIN scanner drivers are supported. Auto deskewing of pages is supported.

OCR

Using optical character recognition (OCR) scanned PDFs can be converted into searchable text that is stored invisibly with the PDF when saved. This allows readers of the PDF to search the PDF for the text, and also to copy and paste the converted text. 

Upload to sign here

An easy way for pdfMachine users to get others to sign their PDFs without the signers installing any software. pdfMachine users can also use it to easily sign PDF documents they receive. Read more

Redaction :

Redaction allows you to permanently remove text and images from the PDF, replacing them with black blocks. The information is removed, not just hidden. Redaction provides a means to protect sensitive or confidential information. Click here to see how.

Voice annotations

If you have a microphone on your PC you can easily add voice annotations to a PDF. For a short demo, click here

Custom stamp annotations, text annotations

Add your own stylish custom stamp annotations. For a short demo, click here

PDF Stationery

Use existing PDF files as you would pre-printed stationery. The first page of an existing PDF file is merged on to every page of your new PDF file. More Details >>
This is a great way to get those legacy applications producing great looking customised PDF files. Details on using stationery with Parameter Parsing >>

Text and image watermarks

Text and image watermarks can be placed on each page of the PDF file. Transparent and gradient backgrounds are supported.

Security

Implements PDF 40 bit, 128 bit and 256 bit encryption. Documents can be password protected - rights for printing/ copying/ modifying can be awarded. For details, click here.

Active URLs

PDF hyperlinks are auto-generated from web URLS and email addresses. This is in addition to the generation of active urls from hyperlinks and bookmarks within Word and PowerPoint.

Auto Hyperlinks from Text

You can specify text strings (in the pdfMachine options) that will be automatically mapped to hyperlinks. e.g. you may setup pdfMachine to place a hyperlink on the text "broadgun software" to the website http://www.pdfmachine.com. Click here to learn more.

Stamper

The stamper is a nice way to ask a user to fill out a form then have the results of that form "stamped" onto the PDF. Click here to learn more.

N-Up Printing

Shrink several pages onto one page. A great paper saver or handy booklet making feature.

Custom toolbar support

Add your own buttons to the pdfMachine toolbar to call programs or scripts. Details here.

Set Document Properties

Set PDF properties such as Author, Title and Keywords.

Small File Sizes

The PDF files created by PDF machine are quite small in comparison to original documents. Text in images are encoded as text in the PDF where possible, to reduce file size, and allow the text to be searched for in the PDF.

Network Installations

pdfMachine supports "point and print" installation. pdfMachine can be installed like any other network printer. Click here for help on installing as a shared printer.

PDF creation

PDF files can be created by printing, scanning or opening and existing PDF and inserting pages. You can open and assemble PDF files even if they have not been created by pdfMachine.

Mail Integration

Integrates with MAPI compliant mail programs such as Outlook, Outlook Express and Netscape to ease the sending of PDFs via email. Supports Simple MAPI, Extended MAPI, Outlook and SMTP. HTML style emails can be sent with PDF attachments. Support for SSL / TLS / SMTP mail, eg gmail. More >>

PDF Page Editing

Easily insert, append, rotate, delete and rearrange pages within a PDF file.

Split PDF

The PDF can easily be split into two using the 'Split PDF at page' menu item. All pages of the PDF can be exploded into separate PDF documents using the 'Split PDF into many PDFs' menu item. Click here for more details on the 'split' menu items.

Parameter parsing can be used to automate splitting PDFs during the PDF creation process

Sticky notes / comments:

You can edit and create comments to be placed on the pdf. This is a great workflow review tool.

Add a Pay Now button to your PDF :

Using the Parameter Parsing feature, any image can be made into a clickable button that launches a customizable URL. Easily add "Pay Now" buttons that connect straight to PayPal to your PDF. More >>

File Embedding / Attaching

It is possible to attach or embed files and documents in their native format into a PDF file. This means the PDF format becomes a container for other documents, which is a convenient way to treat related documents for emailing, encrypting and signing.

PDF/A :

PDF/A is an archival PDF file format. PDF/A provides a mechanism for representing electronic documents in a manner that preserves their visual appearance over time, independent of the tools and systems used for creating, storing or rendering the files. pdfMachine can produce files that conform to PDF/A-1b, PDF/A-2b or PDF/A-3b. More information about PDF/A >>

Digital Signatures

pdfMachine is the easy way to digitally sign your PDF files. For details, click here.

Parameter Parsing

Parameters to control almost any pdfMachine option can be dynamically "parsed" out of a PDF file. e.g. parameters such as "email to" and "email subject" can be dynamically "parsed" out of a PDF file for automatic email sending. You can use the "splitPDF" parameter to split a large report into a number of PDFs. This makes it great for integration with legacy applications that operate in "batch" mode. This product is ideal to perform email merges from a legacy application.

Bookmark Editing

pdfMachine supports PDF bookmarks. PDF bookmarks are 'hyperlinks' that appear as a table of contents on the left hand side of your PDF file. When you click on a bookmark you are taken directly to that page in the PDF. It is easy to add and edit bookmarks. Bookmarks can also be set to take you to a particular destination on the page.

Microsoft Office and Browser Integration

Quickly convert your Microsoft Office docs to PDFs with the pdfMachine MS Office add-in. A pdfMachine toolbar is added to Word, Excel and PowerPoint.
Automatically generates PDF bookmarks from Word and PowerPoint documents.
In Word and PowerPoint, using the pdfMachine office add-in causes all internal bookmarks and hyperlinks to be converted to PDF hyperlinks, even if they are on images.
Chrome and Edge Extensions are available to allow you to convert a web page directly to PDF, and open in pdfMachine.

Printing Profiles

Multiple "print profiles" or multiple pdfMachine printers can be easily setup with different options enabled.
e.g. You may setup one printer to always encrypt a PDF document, and another with "normal" settings.

Terminal Server support

Once pdfMachine has been installed on a Terminal Server then users can remote login and start using pdfMachine.

Set Next Action

Have control of what happens to the PDF file after it has been generated. Launch another application or automatically send the PDF as an email. More details >>.

Windows x64 drivers

If you are running a 64 bit platform of Vista, Windows 7, Windows 2008 Server, Windows 2012 server, Windows 8 or Windows 10 then pdfMachine will work for you. pdfMachine ships with a native 64 bit printer driver.

Multilingual font support

pdfMachine supports all Asian languages, Hebrew, Arabic and others.