



Nitro attributed the problems to the PDF being encoded to conform to an older version of the PDF specification, and possibly due to tweaks in the most recent version of Nitro PDF. Several of the other documents that I converted–even ones that had been saved to more recent PDF specification versions–had incorrect fonts, font sizes, and spacing and missing images when they got to Word. When I tried the “Precisely laid out” mode, which uses more text boxes to achieve more accurate layouts, Nitro PDF crashed itself and Microsoft Word over the course of many attempts. That was about half a minute faster than Acrobat X Pro ($449), but it was nearly twice as long as Foxit PhantomPDF Business 5.0 ($199) required to finish the job. Nitro Pro offers three different modes for when it performs Word document conversions: “Highly editable (with layout),” “Highly editable (single column),” and “Precisely laid out.” When I used the first mode on my test document–a 58-page, monochrome PDF computer user manual–the application took 2 minutes and 15 seconds to convert the file. Nitro Pro 7 introduces a useful new search-and-redact feature.The application wasn’t nearly as proficient at the task of converting from PDF to other formats. As most PDF editors do, it performed beautifully on my test documents, producing perfect text, spacing, image reproduction, and overall layout. As most of the other PDF editors I’ve seen, Nitro Pro does a fine job of converting *to* PDF when you install it, it adds its own menu to your Microsoft Office menus. The most basic of Nitro Pro 7’s duties is converting documents from their native formats (often Microsoft Office documents) to PDFs, as well as converting PDFs into more editable formats (again, often Microsoft Office documents).
