Wondershare PDFelement Pro

About Wondershare PDFelement Pro

PDFelement's pitch is that a document editor should not require a training course. The tools are grouped by what someone is trying to do rather than by which subsystem implements them, so editing, converting, filling a form or signing a contract each has its own clearly labelled tab with the relevant tools inside and nothing else competing for attention.

Under the plain interface the feature set is genuinely complete. Text edits in paragraph or line mode with reflow, images and shapes are placed and resized freely, pages reorganise from a thumbnail panel, watermarks and backgrounds apply across a document, and headers, footers and page numbering generate automatically across a whole file or a page range.

Recognition and forms cover the paperwork side. Optical recognition handles scans in a long list of languages and can produce either fully editable text or a searchable layer under the original page. Form fields are detected automatically on a scanned layout, filled forms collect their responses into a spreadsheet, and forms can be built from scratch with calculation and validation rules.

The batch tools are what make it viable on volume. Convert, compress, watermark, protect, extract data and apply recognition across an entire folder in one operation, with the settings saved so the same job runs again later without reconfiguring. Compression in particular is worth setting up properly, since it holds readability while cutting a scanned document down dramatically.

What is included in this build

• Task grouped interface with tools organised by intent rather than subsystem
• Paragraph and line mode text editing with reflow and free object placement
• Optical recognition producing editable text or a searchable layer under the page
• Automatic form field detection with response collection into a spreadsheet
• Form building from scratch with calculation and validation rules
• Batch convert, compress, watermark, protect and extract across a folder
• Watermarks, backgrounds, headers, footers and automatic page numbering
• Redaction, password protection and permission control

Changed in version 12.1.28.4370

• Improved recognition accuracy on low quality scans
• Faster batch compression with better readability retention
• Additional export presets for common office formats
• Form field detection improved on multi column layouts
• Reduced memory use on documents with very high page counts

Installation walkthrough

These steps assume a clean machine. If a previous release of the same application is present, deal with that first, since an overlapping install is the most common cause of a setup that stops halfway.

1. Close any browser windows before starting.
2. Disable real-time protection until the install has completed.
3. Extract the archive to a short folder path and run setup as administrator.
4. Allow the recognition language packs to finish installing before first use.
5. Set the default save location and compression preset in preferences.

System requirements and file details

Frequently asked about this title