ABBYY FineReader vs. Adobe Acrobat

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
ABBYY FineReader
Score 9.0 out of 10
N/A
ABBYY FineReader is a PDF editor that allows users to convert, edit, share, and collaborate on PDFs. FineReader also converts scanned documents into searchable PDF files.
$16
per month per user
Adobe Acrobat
Score 8.8 out of 10
N/A
Adobe Acrobat DC is the current version of the well-established document / PDF management solution, part of the Adobe Document Cloud (the other part being Adobe's eSign services based on technology acquired with EchoSign in 2011).
$19.99
per month
Pricing
ABBYY FineReaderAdobe Acrobat
Editions & Modules
FineReader PDF Standard for Windows
$16
per month per user
FineReader PDF Corporate for Windows
$24
per month per user
FineReader PDF for Mac®
$69
per year per user
FineReader PDF Standard for Windows
$99
per year per user
FineReader PDF Corporate for Windows
$165
per year per user
Acrobat Pro for Individuals
$19.99
per month
Acrobat Pro for Teams
$23.99
per month per user
Acrobat Studio for Individuals
$24.99
per month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
ABBYY FineReaderAdobe Acrobat
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeOptional
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
ABBYY FineReaderAdobe Acrobat
User Ratings
ABBYY FineReaderAdobe Acrobat
Likelihood to Recommend
10.0
(0 ratings)
9.1
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
9.7
(0 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
9.3
(0 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
8.1
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
-
(0 ratings)
7.8
(0 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
9.6
(0 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
8.5
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
-
(0 ratings)
4.0
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
-
(0 ratings)
5.5
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
ABBYY FineReaderAdobe Acrobat
Likelihood to Recommend
The most common scenario is a need to do a high-level OCR-scan of a document followed by heavy editing. I believe that FineReader is in its own league in that regard, and there is no single reason why would someone choose an alternative soft for the purpose.
Another common scenario is a need of detailed comparison of pdf documents. A massive help!
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Adobe Acrobat is well-suited for editing documents and combining them into a single document if you have such a need. It is super easy, and you can even rearrange the order in which you combine them by simply dragging the documents into the desired order. Adobe Acrobat is great for adding contact documents to your website that customers fill out and complete. Adobe sends it to your email and alerts you so you can then manage the contact from there.
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Pros
  • Read and analyze complicated documents
  • Automatically recognize tables and charts
  • Convert any documents into various common formats
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  • The edit PDF tool is a game changer for our business. There is no other tool that is as easy to use for small, quick PDF edits.
  • Adobe Acrobat makes adding, deleting, and combining PDFs very simple and seamless.
  • The comment tools, and the function to share for my comments with my colleagues, makes it easy to collaborate with my team on the same PDF document.
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Cons
  • Conversion to MS Word (formatting accuracy issues occur)
  • Conversion to MS Excel (formatting accuracy issues occur)
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  • Maintain the layout when converting; sometimes, it loses the layout, and things are misaligned.
  • This makes it easier to write in custom text on a PDF, but sometimes I have to convert it from a PDF to a doc to achieve.
  • Menu could be easier to find things.
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Likelihood to Renew
No answers on this topic
Adobe Acrobat works seamlessly with the other Adobe products we use that are industry-standard. We will certainly continue to use Adobe InDesign, Photoshop, and Illustrator, meaning it will always be convenient to work seamlessly with Adobe Acrobat for our organization. We are happy with the performance of Acrobat and it's meets our expectations.
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Usability
No answers on this topic
The features on the desktop version are all toolbar based, which makes it a little more cumbersome on a smaller device (and much simpler on a large screen). The web forms adjust well to different screen size so work well on mobile, tablet and computer
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Reliability and Availability
No answers on this topic
We have not had availability issues with Adobe Acrobat, or at least none that I am personally aware of. Some may encounter crashes of the software during outages of electricity in their city or neighborhood, which no one can plan for, but with generators in our organization, we have been lucky not to have outages
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Performance
No answers on this topic
One of the best features of Adobe Acrobat is its speed and stability. When dealing with massive multi-page files, having to reload a crashed program over and over again would slow down progress unnecessarily. And expanding on that, having the table of contents generated allows me to skip to different pages with ease, a necessary feature with exceptionally long files. word searches are even more helpful with text recognition.
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Support Rating
No answers on this topic
For a while, Acrobat DC crashed pretty frequently. I contacted Adobe Acrobat support about the problem. At first support was unable to provide a solution. After about a month Adobe's software engineers provided a fix. I just wish it had taken less than a month to solve the problem.
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Online Training
No answers on this topic
Easy to follow and understand
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Implementation Rating
No answers on this topic
I was not involved with the implementation process, so I cannot answer this question. However, when it was installed on my computer system, they did so virtually. I just sat there while they took control of my computer over the network and watch them install it, lickety split
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Alternatives Considered
While Adobe Reader can identify documents and convert them to some other various formats, it cannot process the documents to identify tables for use in Excel. We only had success by letting Adobe read a file for any identifiable text but it wasn't always accurate. FineReaders ability to handle hundreds of pages at once felt leaps and bounds above Adobe
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In my opinion, both complement each other. Microsoft clearly has with Copilot the AI Edge. However, the visual dynamics of Adobe Creative are Outstanding and provide a balanced approach to creativity, utilizing both Excellent, user-friendly Tools.
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Scalability
No answers on this topic
I find that many users aren't aware of many features of the software they use, nor may they be comfortable with learning multiple-step processes. For the simplest of PDF purposes (scanning, downloading, exporting), it gets a thumbs-up. For anything involving electronic signatures, meh--causes eyes to glaze over, or forgetting what all is involved.
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Return on Investment
  • Great positive impact on productivity as it helps to avoid spending so much time scanning or editing documents
  • Staff use the time saved with this tool on the substantive tasks of their position
  • Our objective, being a public institution, is of a benefit to the population and not commercial, therefore everything that we add to perform efficiently and effectively, our work is always well appreciated.
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  • Automation of contract offer generation enabled the HR team to reduce the time to process contracts by 97%.
  • The automated workflow is more accurate and decreased document errors by up to 90 percent.
  • The signature collecting process was cut from a minimum of 30 minutes to only 2 minutes.
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ScreenShots

ABBYY FineReader Screenshots

Screenshot of a display of the options: view, edit, and convert PDFs or compare different versions.Screenshot of PDF editing in FineReader, which is almost like a Word document, where users can rewrite text paragraphs, edit the content in tables, or rearrange the layout.Screenshot of the software's collaboration features, with the ablity to comment on, annotate, or mark up documents.Screenshot of PDF to Word document conversion.Screenshot of fillable fields, in a PDFScreenshot of PDF organization options, which include the ability to merge and rearrange pages, or adding Bates numbering and stamps.

Adobe Acrobat Screenshots

Screenshot of where to create, edit, convert, and share PDF files all from within Microsoft Teams – as part of Acrobat integrations with Microsoft 365 apps.Screenshot of Liquid Mode in Adobe Acrobat Reader mobile app, where users can read PDFs on phones and tablets without having to pinch and zoom. Navigate lengthy documents with intelligent outline and search tools, while maximizing readability and comfort with font size and line spacing that are adjustable.Screenshot of where to fill and sign PDF forms from anywhere and on any device. Here, users can collect signatures, digitally track progress, and automatically archive the signed document.Screenshot of the Adobe Scan mobile app, used to capture and convert documents into high-quality, interactive PDF documents that can be filled out, signed, and shared. This eliminates the hassle of finding a printer, filling a form by hand, and scanning it again.