Software : Round up: The best free WinZip alternative 2016

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Round up: The best free WinZip alternative 2016 Posted: The best free file compression software The best free WinZip alternative First released in 1991, WinZip is the best-known software for creating and opening compressed file archives. It's a great tool, but at £31.14 (US$35.94, AU$47.94) it's rather expensive - especially when there are so many excellent free alternatives. Windows (from XP onwards) has a built-in compression tool, accessed by right-clicking one or more folders/files, and selecting 'Send to > Compressed (zipped) folder'. This is fine for very occasional use, but is very limited. It can only read and create ZIP files (there are dozens of other formats), it doesn't let you create multiple volumes of a particular size, can't repair damaged archives, and doesn't support encryption. In fact, if you use it to compress an encrypted file, it will be decrypted when extracted. It's therefore a good idea to have a different WinZip alternative on hand for compressing and opening file archives, and we've picked out the best. Have we missed your preferred tool? Let us know in the comments below. 1. 7-Zip The ultimate lightweight compression tool - no frills and no strings attached 7-Zip is open source, meaning it's completely free, even for commercial use. It's only 1MB in size, and is available as a portable version that can be run directly from a USB stick. 7-Zip isn't the most attractive WinZip alternative around, but it's so well designed that you won't miss the slick interfaces of its paid-for equivalents. You can locate files to be archived using a simple Windows Explorer-style file tree, or drag and drop them into the main window. It can pack and unpack 7z, XZ, BZIP2, GZIP, TAR, ZIP and WIM archives, and unpack AR, ARJ, CAB, CHM, CPIO, CramFS, DMG, EXT, FAT, GPT, HFS, IHEX, ISO, LZH, LZMA, MBR, MSI, NSIS, NTFS, QCOW2, RAR, RPM, SquashFS, UDF, UEFI, VDI, VHD, VMDK, WIM, XAR and Z. Its own 7z format is designed for high compression, and is supported by almost all file achiving tools - both paid-for and free - making it an ideal choice for sharing. You can apply password protection to packaged archives and split them into volumes, which is handy for sharing particularly large archives. The only key feature it's missing is the ability to repair damaged archives. 2. PeaZip Another excellent open source archiver. Larger than 7-Zip, but with more features PeaZip is another open source WinZip alternative, but with a few more features in a considerably larger package (around 10MB compared to 7-Zip's 1MB). PeaZip's standard installation will make file associations and add context menu options automatically, which you might not want if you're trying it for the first time. Select 'Custom' if you want to make your own choices. Alternatively, you can use the 1.8MB portable version, which runs without being installed and won't make changes to your PC. PeaZip can pack and unpack to 7z, ARC/WRC, SFX, BZ2, GZ, PAQ/LPAQ/ZPAQ, PEA, QUAD/BALZ/BCM, SPLIT, TAR, UPX, WIM and ZIP. It can also unpack ACE, ARJ, CAB, CHM, compound files (eg MSI, DOC, PPT, XLS), CPIO, DEB, EAR, ISO, JAR, LZMA, LZH, NSIS installers, OpenOffice's OpenDocument, PET/PUP, PAK/PK3/PK4, RAR, RPM, SMZIP, U3P, WAR, XPI, Z and ZIPX. PEA, its own format, prioritises security over compression, with optional integrity check and authenticated encryption. Unlike 7-Zip, it can repair damaged archives. Its handy extra features include the ability to convert archive formats and test archives for errors. It can't batch compress or watermark images as some of the other tools here can, but can rotate and crop them for you. A portable version of PeaZip is also available. 3. Zipware Incredibly user-friendly. An excellent choice if you're new to file compression WinZip alternative Zipware is wonderfully simple to use - simply choose 'New' or 'Open', choose your source file or archive, tweak a few optional settings and you're done. It's free to use, but if you decide to stick with it, the website invites you to make a donation to support its development. The software itself doesn't nag you for money though. Its standout feature is integrated virus-scanning: if an archive is under 32GB, you can check it for threats with VirusTotal. This is unlikely to be of interest to power users, but is a helpful addition for anyone who's unsure about extracting downloaded archives (or who knows someone with a tendency to accidentally open such things). Zipware can read ZIP, ZIPX, 7Z, RAR, RAR5, ISO, VHD, MSI, GZIP, BZIP2, TAR, CPIO, DEB, DMG, LZH, LZMA, LZMA2, PPMd, NSIS, RPM, UDF, WIM, XAR, XPI, CBR, CBZ, XZ and Z archives. It can create ZIP, 7Z and EXE archives. 4. Ashampoo Zip Free Optimized for touch, but promotion of paid-for features can be overbearing Before you can install Ashampoo Zip Free (or any of the company's software), you must register for a free account using your email address. You'll be sent a free activation key, then prompted to create a profile including your name and date of birth, but you can skip this step. Watch out for potentially unwanted programs when running the installer; we ended up with an unwanted price comparison tool on our test PC, which wasn't picked up by Unchecky. Ashampoo Zip Free's main features are presented as Windows-style tiles, but here the free program's limitations start to show, with paid-for features like encryption and archive format conversion (which are included with open source tools) locked out until you open your wallet. This free WinZip alternative redeems itself with a very clear interface, which has an optional touch mode with larger, tap-friendly icons. All of the key features are immediately obvious rather than hidden behind ribbons and menus. Interestingly, it also gives previews of files before you extract an archive. This happens automatically, so don't be alarmed if a music file begins playing on mouseover. You aren't given many choices when creating archives; most of the interesting features come into play when you're unpacking and sharing. 5. WinRAR (trial) The only way to create RAR archives, WinRAR is designed for power users WinRAR is another premium tool with a history extending back to the early 90s, making it a useful point of comparison for today's free alternatives. After the 40-day free trial period, a single-user WinRAR licence costs €29.95 (about £23.24, US$33.54, AU$46.52). The proprietary RAR format can only be created using WinRAR, but can be extracted by almost any other WinZip alternative. As with 7z, this makes it a good choice for file-sharing. RAR archives are also typically smaller than their ZIP equivalents. WInRAR can unpack CAB, ARJ, LZH, TAR, GZ/TAR.GZ, BZ2/TAR.BZ2, ACE, UUE, JAR, ISO, 7Z, XZ and Z archives, and compress in RAR and ZIP formats. WinRAR's appearance has remained largely unchanged over the years, with command line and simple graphical interfaces (custom themes are available, with an equally old-school feel). That doesn't matter though; this is a tool designed for power users. Its efficiency is particularly apparent when faced with larger tasks, which it handles with aplomb. You can even set it to turn off your PC once it's finished creating mammoth archives (or dozens of smaller ones).

Round up: The best free PDF editor 2016 Posted: Free PDF editors The best PDF editor Adobe describes PDF as "three letters that changed the world", and it has a point: the Portable Document Format, to give it its Sunday name, was invented by Adobe to make it easy to share electronic documents. It's now an open standard used in everything from publishing to public bodies, and there are stacks of tools to create, edit, annotate and organise PDFs. But which is the best? We've sorted through the options and picked out the very best PDF editor you can download. If you're a Mac user, don't forget about the Preview app - it's a very useful PDF editor in its own right, although some other programs can do even more. 1. Foxit Reader Flexible and powerful, Foxit Reader is the best free PDF editor around Of all the free PDF tools available for Windows, Foxit Reader is our favorite. It looks and feels rather like Microsoft Office so it's instantly familiar, it has a tabbed interface for working on multiple PDFs simultaneously, and it enables you to complete forms and annotate documents. It also includes security tools for protecting your PDFs. It's expandable via a bunch of add-ons and if you find yourself needing even more power its paid-for sibling, PhantomPDF, has extensive organisation, sharing and document tracking features for a very reasonable US$109 (about £80, AU$140). 2. Adobe Reader Adobe's cross-platform PDF editor is superb for marking up documents Yes, Adobe Reader on the desktop has a reputation for being overly complex and overly needy - but the iOS and Android editions haven't inherited its flaws and stand on their own virtual feet as fast, flexible and lightweight PDF editors. Some of the best features require an Acrobat Pro subscription, so for example editing text isn't possible without Pro, but you can sign and fill forms and export Office documents to PDF. There's support for Dropbox too. 3. PDF24 Creator A printer driver with added editing features for perfect conversions One of the simplest ways to create PDFs in Windows is to install a PDF printer driver. Windows sees it as a printer driver, but instead of controlling hardware it actually converts documents to PDFs. That's what PDF24 Creator offers, but it also adds its own Assistant that can split or merge PDF files, adjust document properties, re-order pages, password protect PDFs and add digital watermarks or signatures. It's hardly the prettiest PDF editor around but it gets on with the job and doesn't require loads of system resources. 4. Adobe Acrobat DC (trial) Edit text, replace and tweak images, add signatures and much more besides The DC stands for Document Cloud, and Adobe Acrobat Reader DC is designed to cover every eventuality - for a price. You can try out the software for free, but the license is an annual subscription that works out at £11.42 (about US$15, AU$20) per month for the Standard editor and £13.33 (about US$18, AU$20) per month for Pro. The Standard edition gives you online access via Adobe's Document Cloud, the ability to create PDFs from almost any source, to work on PDFs via the mobile apps and to electronically sign documents. Going Pro adds multimedia support, the ability to edit scanned documents and the option to request electronic signatures. 5. Nitro PDF Reader Surprisingly powerful, with support for both image and text editing Here's another free PDF editor that looks awfully like Microsoft Office, and once again that's no bad thing. Nitro PDF Reader has a feature set that shames some paid-for apps: despite a price tag of zero it offers document to PDF conversion, annotation and highlighting, image extraction, text editing and e-signatures. It's definitely one to try before you consider paying for a PDF app. 6. PDF-XChange Editor A free PDF editor with OCR for converting image-based PDFs Tracker's PDF-XChange Editor comes in three and a half flavors: a free Lite version for non-commercial use, two paid-for versions at US$43.50 (about £30, AU$60) and US$54.50 (about £40, AU$70) respectively, and stripped-down version of the less expensive premium edition. The free version is quite limited - it's a print-to-PDF app to create searchable PDFs from pretty much any Windows app - but it also has has OCR scanning, Google Drive and Office 365 support, commenting and annotation, markup and file conversion. Paying for a license adds the ability to create forms, more advanced organizational tools and more extensive editing options. 7. SlimPDF Reader A tiny tool that's lacking features, but won't stress underpowered PCs The name should set expectations here: SlimPDF Reader promises to be "10% of the size of Adobe Reader but views 100% of PDFs". It's microscopic by app standards - just 1.43MB - and that's largely because it doesn't really do anything other than view PDFs. That's not necessarily a bad thing, though: its tiny footprint means it doesn't drag your system down like more advanced PDF editord often do, and it's ridiculously fast on even the most modest PCs. 8. Icecream PDF Converter Split hefty documents into manageable sections before conversion Icecream PDF Converter comes from the same developer as the useful Icecream Ebook Reader (which also doubles as a good-looking PDF viewer). This PDF editor and reader is all about the file formats, though. You can drag and drop PDFs onto the app and convert them to JPG, PNG, BMP, TIFF, GIF, EPS, HTML or WMF format, and you can also convert ebooks and Microsoft Office documents to PDF. It can also run batch conversions and partial conversions for when you only need a few pages of a huge document. That's the good news. The bad news is that you're limited to 10 page PDFs when you export and five files per conversion to PDF unless you buy the Pro version for £14.95 (about US$20, AU$30). 9. AbleWord Convert documents from text format to PDF, and vice versa Here's a blast from the past: AbleWord looks very like an old version of Microsoft Word or a recent OpenOffice app. It works like those apps too, but the unique selling point here is that it supports PDF files as well as the usual DOC, DOCX and RTF formats, and that means it's a handy PDF editor for anybody who needs to create documents in PDF format or convert between Word and PDF formats. OpenOffice can export text documents in PDF format too, but reading them requires installing an extension. AbleWord, by contrast, has PDF import built-in. 10. PDFsam Basic A versatile tool for merging and splitting PDFs in multiple configurations PDFsam is an acronym of PDF Split and Merge, so you can probably guess what it does. Yep, it splits and merges PDFs. You can use this free PDF editor to combine multiple documents or break a single document into multiples, you can merge alternate pages - handy if you're trying to turn single-sided scans of double-sided documents into something readable - and you can split by size, which is useful if you're splitting a huge document across USB drives or other small storage options. There's also a handy tool for rotating pages across multiple documents.

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