A free alternative to Acrobat Pro that feels like the real thing. Excel too.

If you work in an office, you live in two programs: Excel and a PDF reader. Excel you probably have. Acrobat Pro, the version that actually lets you edit PDFs, is a different story. Many people never buy it simply because it is expensive. Now there is an almost identical tool you can use for free.

The Acrobat Pro problem

You know the moment. A client sends five separate PDFs and you need them as one file. A contract needs a page removed. A form has to be filled in and sent back today. The free Acrobat Reader lets you look, but not much more, and the Pro subscription costs every single month.

So people improvise. They upload company documents to random “free PDF” websites, print and scan pages, or ask the one colleague who has Acrobat to do it for them. None of that is great, especially the first one: you never really know where those uploaded files end up.

PdfCraft: free PDF editing that looks familiar

PdfCraft is made by a team called ArtCraft, who are building free versions of the programs offices pay for every month. It is designed to look and work like Acrobat, so there is almost nothing new to learn. These are the everyday jobs it handles:

• Merge several PDFs into oneDrop the files in and combine them.
• Split a long PDFPull out only the pages you need.
• Rotate, delete or reorder pagesDrag pages around like cards on a table.
• Highlight and commentMark up contracts and offers, then send them back.
• Fill in formsType straight into the PDF instead of printing it.
• Find text fastSearch a 200-page document in a second.

Two things office workers will appreciate. There is no sign-up and no subscription: you download it and use it. And it works on your own computer, even offline, so your documents never get uploaded anywhere. It runs on Windows and Mac.

GridCraft: a free spreadsheet that works like Excel

From the same team comes GridCraft, a free spreadsheet built to feel like Excel. The ribbon at the top, the formula bar, the sheet tabs, the keyboard shortcuts you already use: they are all where your hands expect them.

• Opens and saves normal Excel files (.xlsx), so you can share them with anyone.
• Almost all the Excel formulas you know, from SUM and IF to VLOOKUP and XLOOKUP.
• Charts, tables, filters, sorting and colour rules for highlighting numbers.
• Budgets, reports and lists look the way you would build them in Excel.

If you only use Excel for everyday work like lists, simple reports and budgets, this is worth a try. If your company runs on huge files full of macros, keep Excel for those for now.

And later: Photoshop

Not everyone in an office edits photos, but plenty of people do it now and then: a product picture for the website, a logo on a presentation, a quick crop for a social media post. For that, ArtCraft is building PhotoCraft, a free take on Photoshop with layers, text, filters and one-click background selection. It is newer than the other two, so think of it as one to watch rather than one to rely on just yet.

The same team is also working on free versions of Word and PowerPoint. The full office, without the monthly bill, is clearly where this is going.

Should you switch today?

Here is my honest advice:

1. 01For PDFs, try PdfCraft today. If you were never going to pay for Acrobat Pro anyway, you have nothing to lose.
2. 02For Excel, install GridCraft and test it on a copy of a real file. Use it for simpler work first.
3. 03For Photoshop, have a look, but give it a few months before you depend on it.

Threat or opportunity: which side are you on?

A few weeks ago these apps did not exist. Today you can get free alternatives to software that companies have charged for over decades. Things are moving this fast largely because of AI, which lets small teams build in weeks what used to take years. The same AI can even work these programs for you: fill in the spreadsheet, sort the PDFs, write the report.

For some, that is a threat. If your job is mostly copying numbers between files, merging PDFs and rebuilding the same report every Monday, AI is coming for exactly those tasks.

For others, it is an opportunity. Free tools instead of monthly bills, and the boring parts of the job done for you, so you can spend your day on the work that actually needs a person. The people who learn to use these tools, instead of competing with them, will get a lot more done with a lot less effort.

I know which side I am on. Which side are you on?