Adobe Acrobat Pro alternative

I just switched to a new MacBook Pro with Snow Leopard. I use Adobe Acrobat Pro a lot, mostly to be able to search through PDF text and occasionally lift quotes from scientific papers in PDF Format. But, alas, I found that my old software will not load in the new computer, probably (I can't remember) because I've used up the number of allotted installations.

I don't really want to lay out $400 or more for Adobe Acrobat Professional 9, especially because that software has all sorts of capabilities that I don't need.

Any suggestions for a cheaper alternative?

Maybe I am confused, but I can search through text and "lift quotes" with Preview. Am I missing the point of your question?

Give Skim a try.

Designed for annotating scientific papers.
Allows for notes, underline, strikethrough, highlights, and more.

I don't do much of any of that stuff myself, but still prefer it to Preview.
Best of all it's free.

the-porcus said:

I just switched to a new MacBook Pro with Snow Leopard. I use Adobe Acrobat Pro a lot, mostly to be able to search through PDF text and occasionally lift quotes from scientific papers in PDF Format. But, alas, I found that my old software will not load in the new computer, probably (I can't remember) because I've used up the number of allotted installations.

I don't really want to lay out $400 or more for Adobe Acrobat Professional 9, especially because that software has all sorts of capabilities that I don't need.

Any suggestions for a cheaper alternative?

Click to expand...

If your Adobe program was being used on a Mac previously you can simply give Adobe a call and they can reset your account.

However if you switched from Windows to Mac you won't be allowed to load it. I use a number of Adobe programs (Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Flash, etc.) and when I switched from Windows to Mac I couldn't load the suite on my new iMac (even though the disk says it's good for either). I called Adobe and was told I could buy an upgrade but otherwise I was out of luck. (They were fairly arrogant and rude about it.) I paid full boat for the original suite and shouldn't have to pay more just because I switched my OS. Their software is some of the best available and if I wasn't so accustomed to using it I'd find something else. I know I could have used VMWare Fusion or Boot Camp, etc., but the whole point (for me at least) was to leave everything Windows far behind. That particular policy of Adobe's is a rip off IMO and s/b illegal.

Phew, glad I was able to vent.

In any case, yes, Preview will allow you to do quite a few things with .pdf files. Read up on it and give it a try.

Preview tutorials: Mac 101: Preview