When you find yourself with a document you need to change, nothing is more annoying than realizing it is a non-editable PDF. Although great in many ways, PDFs are very inflexible in others, and that's where ABBYY PDF Transformer comes in.

This handy application performs multiple jobs, from converting a document into a PDF, merging various PDFs into one single document and transforming PDFs into other formats (Word, Excel, HTML, etc.). ABBYY PDF Transformer comes in a variety of languages, provides a good help file and, best of all, lets you apply passwords and restrict editing of the documents you create.

ABBYY PDF Transformer has trial version limitations, namely that the screenshot reader function is unavailable. It also limits both the number of times you can save a document and the length of time you can use the trial version for. In fact, there are so many different variations on the restrictions that it is a little difficult to figure out exactly what you can do and when.

Another problem I discovered was that in the PDF to other document option, Abbyy PDF Transformer only saves the first two pages, rather than limiting you to two pages overall. This is irritating, as the title page is often not the most useful in a document. Finally, ABBYY PDF Transformer only operates from the start menu - personally, I would prefer a central interface from which I could manage all areas of the program.

ABBYY PDF Transformer is a useful download, but has some serious flaws you'll have to forgive.