The fact that Adobe hasn't done it just doesn't make sense to users.' 'But we just wanted a PDF reader that people want to use, it just works. 'It does give me a bit of a smile,' Lorenz said of taking on Adobe on the PDF front. A public feud between the companies has included Apple chief executive Steve Jobs listing what he sees as Flash flaws.

The assault on Adobe Reader comes as the California firm's Flash video software has been shunned by iPhone, iPad, and iPod maker Apple.

That is something we want to turn on its head.' 'Adobe Reader is one of those things people just have to put up with. 'No one has offered functionality to work with PDF without a catch until now,' O'Reilly said. Nitro is betting that if it wins fans for its free Reader, a percentage will upgrade to a professional version that the 10-year-old San Francisco firm sells for 99 dollars. 'There was nobody else offering free, powerful, no-strings-attached tools for PDF functionality.' 'We saw a big hole in the market,' said Nitro senior vice president of sales and marketing Gina O'Reilly. Nitro sells professional PDF software that competes with Adobe, but the reader released on Tuesday is the first free offering to let people do more than simply read and print such files. 'This stuff is a no-brainer but no one else has done it.'

'The whole point is to enable users to get the work done and move on,' Lorenz said. Nitro Reader also lets people scan signatures into computers and add them to PDF documents. Security built into Nitro includes letting users block access to selected websites, lock files with passwords, and turn off Java Script technology exploited by hackers to execute attacks.

Nitro pdf software