Compare the Top PDF SDK as of April 2025

What is PDF SDK?

PDF SDKs (Software Development Kits) provide developers with the tools and libraries needed to integrate PDF functionality into their applications or websites. These SDKs offer features like viewing, editing, creating, converting, and annotating PDFs, allowing developers to build custom PDF solutions tailored to their needs. PDF SDKs often include APIs for manipulating text, images, and form data, as well as for handling document security, such as encryption and password protection. By using PDF SDKs, developers can add robust PDF capabilities to their software without having to build these features from scratch, saving time and resources. Compare and read user reviews of the best PDF SDK currently available using the table below. This list is updated regularly.

  • 1
    Pdftools

    Pdftools

    PDF Tools

    Whether you have thousands of documents or millions, Pdftools has the products and services to help make processing a breeze. Designed for document-heavy industries, Pdftools’ suite of SDKs and APIs are here to make your document workflows easier, faster, and stress-free. Built on SDKs and APIs, the Pdftools products integrate seamlessly into your existing (or new) systems and applications. Process thousands of documents every minute. Our tools are precision-engineered to be efficient and run at blazing speeds. We’re engineers at heart, so we’re only satisfied with the most reliable, orderly, and usable, and well-documented platforms. Shrink file sizes down, but keep the quality and interactivity. Your documents will always be compliant for long-term archiving. We’ve obsessed over every detail in our products, and documented everything so it’s easy to get started.
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    Starting Price: $0/month/user
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  • 2
    Apryse PDF SDK
    Apryse, previously known as PDFTron, takes document solutions to the next level, making work better and life simpler. Bring PDF viewing, annotating, editing, creation, and generation to any web, mobile, desktop or server framework or application. As a global leader in document processing technology, Apryse gives developers, enterprise customers and small businesses the tools they need to reach their document goals faster and easier. Our product portfolio includes Apryse SDK, Fluent, iText and XODO. Apryse technology works with all major platforms and a wide variety of unique file types.
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  • 3
    Nutrient SDK
    Nutrient is the comprehensive solution for all your PDF needs, offering tools that effortlessly integrate and operate PDF functionality across any platform. 1. SDK PRODUCTS Integrate robust PDF functionality into iOS, Android, Windows, web (JavaScript), or any cross-platform technology, providing capabilities such as PDF viewing, markup, collaboration, and more. 2. LIBRARIES Utilize our potent .NET and Java libraries to boost your backend applications with batch processing of redactions and PDF forms, OCR’d scanned text, and editing of PDF documents, directly from your application server. 3. PROCESSOR Our dynamic PDF microservice, Processor, enables swift generation of PDFs from HTML, including HTML forms, along with Office-to-PDF conversions, OCR, redaction, and XFDF merging and exporting. 4. PDF API Use hosted PDF API to generate, convert, and modify PDF documents in your workflows. We manage the development and server administration, letting you focus on what you do best.
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  • 4
    Adobe PDF Library SDK

    Adobe PDF Library SDK

    Datalogics Inc.

    Shorten development times & get to market faster with Adobe PDF Library. Global OEMs, SaaS and enterprise end-users rely on Adobe PDF Library to automate the creation, editing and management of PDFs. An Adobe partner, our SDK uses the same source code as Acrobat for stability, reliability and quality results. Adobe PDF Library gives developers flexible programming language and platform options, and is currently available in .NET, .NET Framework, Java and C/C++ on Windows, Linux, MacOS, as well as via NuGet and Maven. Our extensive documentation includes getting started guides, API references, and hundreds of sample code examples on GitHub to help developers precisely create and define PDF workflow solutions. Pricing for Adobe PDF Library is based on your business model & software usage. Free trial includes access to our PDF technology experts who can help with proof of concept as well as extend your free trial license if needed. Download and get started today!
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  • 5
    pdfRest

    pdfRest

    Datalogics Inc.

    pdfRest API Toolkit was made by developers, for developers. Rapidly integrate PDF workflows with any business application, simply and seamlessly. pdfRest API Toolkit includes all of the PDF processing tools you'll need, to make your job easy. PDF to Word, PDF to Excel, PDF to PowerPoint, Add to PDF, Query PDF, Extract Text, Convert to PDF, PDF to Images, Convert to PDF/A, Convert to PDF/X, Compress PDF, Linearize PDF, Flatten Forms, Flatten Transparencies, Flatten Annotations, Flatten Layers, Merge PDFs, Split PDF, Encrypt PDF, Decrypt PDF, Restrict PDF, Watermark PDF, Import Form Data, Export Form Data, Convert PDF Colors, OCR PDF, API Polling, Upload Files, Zip Files. Get up and running fast with the pdfRest Postman Collection or start from functional sample code in .NET, JavaScript, Python, PHP, and cURL from the pdfRest GitHub repository. Gold-standard processing powered by Adobe® PDF Library™ ensures the highest quality results. Free to get started with no commitment.
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    Starting Price: $0 per month
  • 6
    PrizmDoc

    PrizmDoc

    Accusoft

    Through a collection of UI components and content manipulation APIs, PrizmDoc provides customizable document processing to help developers deliver in-browser document creation, editing, and collaboration functionality, to enhance their software applications. Our functionality integrates on the client and server side smoothly, creating a seamless experience for both you and your users. Render and display dozens of file types, from Adobe PDFs and Microsoft Office files to CAD and DICOM formats, in a browser without the need to download or open native applications. Designed for seamless integration with your application, our zero footprint HTML5 viewer is fully customizable, from quick integrations with minimal configuration to complete programmatic control using our extensive JavaScript API.
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    PDF Automation Server
    PDF Automation Server – PDF Processing Server PDF Automation Server is a modular server product that provides a rich set of PDF processing functions for different environments. Use PAS as an essential tool to streamline your PDF processing, document workflows and web service orchestration in your organization. REST API Module Use REST API calls to easily integrate into your existing document workflows HTML5 PDF Module Convert documents and serve end-users PDF files directly in the browser Workflow Module Automate the receiving, processing & routing of documents with the PAS Workflow Module Robust REST API PDF Automation Server provides a complete set of PDF processing and conversion functions in a robust REST server environment that can easily integrate into your existing document workflows and work with 3rd party integration and orchestration products. HTML PDF Markup Module PDF Automation Server provides a module to enable markup of PDF documents in the browser.
    Starting Price: $2,400
  • 8
    MuPDF

    MuPDF

    Artifex Software

    Add powerful PDF functionality to all of your software application projects. MuPDF is a highly versatile, customizable PDF SDK that can be used as a PDF renderer, viewer, or library. The tiny footprint and lightning-fast performance make MuPDF a perfect fit for mobile browsers, eBooks, and embedded applications where small size is key. MuPDF supports a variety of interactive features including annotations, form filling, digital signatures, redactions, text search, and progressive loading. The wide range of input and output formats and our full range of platform support deliver a flexible solution to easily and successfully fulfill your project’s unique needs. MuPDF supports PDF, XPS, OpenXPS, EPUB, FictionBook 2 and CBZ. The MuPDF API easily integrates with all of the major platforms including Android, iOS, Linux, macOS, OpenBSD, and Windows. C++ and Python bindings have been added making it easy to use the MuPDF library from these languages.
    Starting Price: $749/per platform*
  • 9
    ComPDFKit PDF SDK

    ComPDFKit PDF SDK

    PDF Technologies, Inc.

    ComPDFKit offers a top-quality PDF SDK, PDF API, and PDF Server for developers or companies. It allows them to integrate PDF editing, annotating, converting, form filling, digital signing, comparing, measuring, and redacting into any device. ComPDFKit Updates: 1. ComPDFKit API - Sign up and Get 1000 Free Files Processing Monthly. Allow you to edit & convert PDF files, split/merge/insert/rotate/delete/extract PDF pages, and process PDFs with OCR, image processing, form recognizer, layout analysis, trim correction, and stamp inspection. 2. Free Online Tools Work with PDF in ComPDFKit online PDF tools to convert PDF files to/from docx, xlsx, pptx, png, jpg, html, txt, csv, rtf files, etc. 3. Web Demo View, Edit, Annotate, Compare, Sign, Encrypt, Decrypt, watermark PDF files, and Create/fill out PDF forms online for free. 4. Community License Start-ups and Individual developers can get affordable prices from ComPDFKit.
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    KDAN PDF Reader

    KDAN PDF Reader

    Kdan Mobile Software

    KDAN PDF Reader is your all-in-one PDF solution. Edit, sign, OCR scan, convert, annotate, and fill forms in PDF documents. With innovative AI features, speed up your document workflow! Designed for Mac, iPhone, and iPad, KDAN PDF Reader is trusted by millions for its comprehensive features and efficiency. AI FEATURE • Analyze and extract key information or tables from a PDF, then convert the data into spreadsheets for further analysis or visualization. • Chat with PDF and get document analysis, advice, new ideas, or content summary • Text redaction - automatically identify and block sensitive information in a document
    Starting Price: $59.99/year (billed annually)
  • 11
    ByteScout PDF Suite
    Fast to market engine to setup reading of unstructured PDF, images, scanned documents using powerful and easy to use extraction templates editor. Create templates in a visual editor with no programming or coding required. Supports fields, tables, pdf forms, multi-paged tables, unstructured tables. Use OCR engine with multi-language OCR support, re-use built-in AI-powered templates. Extract text, tables, images, attachments and other data from PDF, Reads Tables to CSV, Gets text from Images, Extracts Attachments, supports OCR with one or more languages. Handle noisy images and damaged texts transparently with the built-in OCR filters. Convert to common data structures like TXT, JSON, XLS, XLSX, CSV or XML. AI powered tables and document analysis functions.
    Starting Price: $10 per user per year
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    novaPDF

    novaPDF

    Softland

    Using novaPDF Pro you can easily create high quality searchable PDF files in an affordable and reliable way from any Windows application. It installs as a printer driver and helps you generate the PDF files by simply selecting the "print" command from any application (you can convert Word documents, Excel sheets, PowerPoint presentations, AutoCad drawings, emails or web pages). You can password protect the PDF files you create and permissions can be restricted to prevent the document from being viewed, printed, modified, copied or annotated. Your PDF files will be secured with 40-bit and 128-bit encryption algorithms. Features include: customizable resolution, PDF security, PDF links, PDF bookmarks, text/image compression, profiles and more. novaPDF also includes a PDF SDK for developers that want to integrate PDF creation capabilities in their software.
    Starting Price: $19.99 (one time payment)
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    Document APIs

    Document APIs

    GrapeCity

    Fast, efficient Document APIs for .NET Standard 2.0 and Java Take total document control with ultra-fast, low-footprint document APIs for enterprise apps. Generate, load, edit, save spreadsheets, PDF, images, and DOCX files. Create large spreadsheets, Word, images, and PDF documents, fast. No dependencies on Excel, Word, or Acrobat Run on Windows, Mac, Linux Deploy to Azure, AWS, and AWS Lambda What’s New in GrapeCity Documents v5: - Full support for .NET 6 - SVG support for GrapeCity Documents for PDF and Imaging - Print PDF documents on Windows with GrapeCity Documents for PDF - UI enhancements for GrapeCity Documents for PDF Viewer - And much more!
    Starting Price: $999 per developer
  • 14
    PDF Conversion SDK

    PDF Conversion SDK

    Visual Integrity Technologies

    Add PDF Features with 2 API Calls Open, Edit, and View PDF. All that's needed is two API calls and a configuration file. Within a day, you can add, open, import, edit and view PDF features in your app. When formats don't match one-to-one, the SDK neutralizes the differences. This includes adding cropping, fills, color management and fonts. The PDF Conversion SDK processes all PDF versions including ISO Standard PDF 2.0. Any PDF from file or print-ready memory is valid input. Conversions flow straight through without intermediate steps or compromised quality. No printer driver. The PDF Conversion SDK runs on Windows, MacOS and Linux. It supports .NET. Example code included. Removes redundant information & compresses data. This ensures great performance for fast web and application viewing. Search for objects and text strings. Convert PDF to your native file format. Change the contents of a PDF page. Extract images from PDF. Retrieve metadata from PDF (layers, geospecification, etc).
    Starting Price: $199 per year
  • 15
    PDF Xpansion SDK

    PDF Xpansion SDK

    Soft Xpansion GmbH & Co. KG

    The PDF Xpansion SDK 17 provides features, methods and functionality that let software developers create PDF and PDF/A enabled applications and software solutions. It offers a wide range of options for creating and editing PDF, PDF/A and XPS documents, for displaying and printing them on paper, for conversions between these formats, exporting and/or importing from/to other file formats. Moreover, PDF Xpansion SDK 17 comes with eInvoicing functionality for the formats ZUGFeRD, Factur-X and XRechnung. It enables software developers to integrate EU-compliant electronic invoicing functionality (creation, display and reading of electronic invoices) according to EU standard 16931 in applications. The SDK is made to integrate those functions into both Windows desktop applications for the PC and for Windows Apps. The pricing model is very flexible, since it allows a modularized purchase of separate functionality, so that only those features have to be paid for that are really needed.
    Starting Price: €500 (one-time & royalty free)
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    AmindPDF

    AmindPDF

    AmindPDF

    AmindPDF's user interface is very user-friendly and makes the operation of PDF easy. It can recognize PDF text as paragraphs or whole blocks of text, allowing users to edit text directly and smoothly, like in MS Word. for PDF protection, it allows adding passwords, setting document permissions, placing signatures, adding watermarks to PDF It also supports batch operations to process files, such as merge/split tool, compression tool, creation tool, Bates numbering tool, and conversion tool, so users can process multiple PDF files at once. AmindPDF is available for a number of platforms: Windows, iOS, and Android. Users are able to use the same PDF tool on a computer or mobile phone. So AmindPDF let you process or edit PDFs anytime, anywhere.
    Starting Price: $9.90
  • 17
    PDFix SDK
    PDFix SDK provides the power to make existing PDF files accessible automatically. It helps you convert PDF files to high-quality accessible PDF/UA . Our auto-tag feature recognizes all important structures in your documents like texts, images, tables, headers/footers, headings, lists, and reading order. Automated batch processing saves time, and reduces remediation costs. Have you ever tried to get any data from various PDF files? Then you know how painful it is. Machine learning techniques help us to create an algorithm that allows you to extract data in an easily readable structured way. Thanks to that, you can recognize all logical structures as texts, headings, images, tables, headers/footers, list, etc. You can also scrape these data from your PDFs and convert them to your favorite output as HTML, CSV, JSON, or XML.
    Starting Price: $490 per year
  • 18
    FPDF

    FPDF

    FPDF

    FPDF is a solution written in PHP that allows you to generate PDF documents directly from PHP, so you can use the PDFlib library. The F of FPDF means free, so you can use it for any purpose and modify it to your liking to satisfy your needs. FPDF does not need any extension for PHP (except Zlib to enable compression and GD for GIF support) and works with PHP5 (≥ 5.1), PHP7 and PHP8. The tutorials will allow you to quickly access FPDF. FPDF generates documents in many other languages apart from the Western European ones, like Central, Cyrillic, Greek and Baltic, if they have TrueType or Type1 sources with the set of appropriate characters. UTF-8 is also available. The speed of generation of a document is less than that of PDFlib. Without the resentment, however, is very reasonable and is adequate for the majority of cases, unless its documents are specifically compiled or extended.
    Starting Price: Free
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    Kdan PDF SDK

    Kdan PDF SDK

    Kdan Mobile Software

    Integrate with Kdan PDF SDK library to enable PDF viewing, editing, signing, annotating, and more in your own applications for mobile, desktop, and web. Kdan PDF SDK extends your app's features with a set of professional PDF capabilities on smartphones and tablets. We offer a variety of flexible kit plans. Developers can start with our demo version and select the plan that meets their needs. Kdan's PDF viewer engine has been perfected by 10 years of innovation and experience. We introduce regular updates to ensure the stability of your apps. The PDF SDK easily integrates within your app using our SDK documentation and gives you more time to focus on designing your app. Developers can design unique user experiences with fully customizable UI source code or use the default built-in Ul elements directly for your apps. No matter what platform you integrate with, our PDF SDK helps developers build powerful apps that can view, edit, and annotate PDFs.
    Starting Price: $89.99 one-time payment
  • 20
    GDPicture Document Processing SDKs
    The only Document Processing SDKs with 3000+ features. GdPicture is altogether a PDF, OCR, barcode, document imaging, and formats SDK with more than 3,000 functionalities, for any software development. Five-in-One Toolkit! Unlike most SDK companies that sell separate toolkits, GdPicture delivers an all-in-one SDK without extra costs or complex licensing. Offers advanced set of APIs with leading-edge technologies like artificial intelligence, machine learning, fuzzy logic algorithms, etc. for any of your development projects. With ~15 years of continuous research and a focus on innovation, our SDKs have become the most comprehensive solution in the market.
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    ByteScout PDF Viewer SDK
    PDF Viewer SDK is a visual control to create your own PDF reader in .NET desktop apps. Controls for viewing PDF files in your .NET desktop app, works offline with no Internet connection required, helper function zoom in and zoom out, change page, copy text to the clipboard, search text, night mode for PDF reading (sets the background to black, inverts text). You will find a mixture of very sophisticated technologies in all our tools. It helps them to achieve better performance. We prepared lots of source code samples and documentation helping to quickly start working with our products. You will find a mixture of very sophisticated technologies in all our tools. It helps them to achieve better performance. We keep updating our SDKs, API, and free apps all the time. Also, our team is ready to fix bugs and issues if you find any. We prepared lots of source code samples and documentation helping to quickly start working with our products.
    Starting Price: $881.99 one-time payment
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    FormVu

    FormVu

    IDR Solutions

    FormVu is an SDK designed to convert PDF Form files into standalone HTML with interactive form components. Here are some of its key features: -Interactive Conversion: Converts PDF forms into HTML while retaining their appearance and functionality. -Data Security: Runs on your own servers, ensuring customer data remains secure and private. -Versatile Integration: Supports both AcroForms and XFA Forms and can be integrated into web applications. -Flexible Output: Allows saving filled forms back as PDFs or posting data as HTML form data or JSON. -Users can continue to use Forms in a web browser. Converted PDF forms retain their appearance and interaction. Data can be saved to the original file. -PDF forms can be easily and securely integrated into a Web application workflow while retaining all their interaction and functionality. -Forms are converted and hosted on your Computers. FormVu is not a cloud service and makes no calls outside. So customer data is always
    Starting Price: $1,800 per month
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    JPedal

    JPedal

    IDR Solutions

    JPedal is a versatile Java PDF Library for displaying, converting, printing, and parsing PDFs in Java applications. With over 20 years of development, it supports a wide range of PDF files. Key features include: -PDF to Image Conversion: Converts PDFs to images in various formats. -Java Swing PDF Viewer: Offers multi-page display, search, printing, and annotation editing. -Text and Image Extraction: High-quality extraction of text and images from PDFs. -PDF Search: Supports searching with wildcards and regular expressions. -Form & Annotation Handling: Supports XFA and AcroForms, enabling form data access and annotation editing. -Document Manipulation: Allows deleting, merging, splitting, and optimizing PDFs. -Security & Performance: Runs locally without third-party dependencies, processing PDFs up to 3x faster than alternatives.
    Starting Price: $950 one time fee
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    PDFKit.NET 5.0

    PDFKit.NET 5.0

    TallComponents

    Create and manipulate PDF documents. Split, append, stamp, encrypt, extract, fill, and more. PDFKit.NET is a 100% managed (verifiable) .NET class library for creating and manipulating PDF documents. It consists of just a single assembly that can be xcopy-deployed. It has no dependencies other than the .NET framework. Central to PDFKit.NET is a consistent and highly intuitive object model consisting of classes like document, page collection, page, canvas, shape, bookmark, annotation, field, etc. The focus of the development team is always to ease the task of integrating our class library into a larger application. Fill text fields, checkboxes, radio buttons, etc., and save the form either editable or flattened with the PDFKit.NET 5.0. With PDFKit.NET 5.0 you can populate and consume dynamic XFA documents with the new XFA processor API. Extract all graphics on a page as a collection of shapes with PDFKit 5.0. Shapes can be text, images, and curves.
    Starting Price: $990 per year
  • 25
    pdfToolbox

    pdfToolbox

    callas software GmbH

    pdfToolbox offers powerful, dynamic, and easy-to-integrate PDF processing, from quick visual inspection and fixing to fully unattended processing of thousands of files. Using rock-solid Adobe technology pdfToolbox provides checking and fixing of even very complex problems, color management, impositioning, conversion to and from PDF, and more. pdfToolbox technology is used by small companies, large publishers, and print providers as well as OEMs that integrate the technology in their own solutions. pdfToolbox Desktop is a manual PDF preflight and correction application, available as a plug-in in Adobe Acrobat Pro or as a standalone application. pdfToolbox offers prepress operators an easy-to-use interface for all pre-press actions, which gets you to each action you might need in three simple steps. You can easily customize this further, so you have your favorite actions at your fingertips.
    Starting Price: Free
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    ByteScout PDF SDK
    The Bytescout PDF Generator SDK is a unique and multi-functional product available for developers of any level and experience. It is flexible for new updates and changes – see SDK updates here PDF generation is a complex process where this SDK is the perfect help to cover all possible work. You will facilitate the creation of rich reports allowing PDF SDK features. All you need to do is properly install the program and you can get started. The software runs directly on your computer without complicating the process. Many developers voted for Bytescout products when it came to .NET PDF generation. If you need an SDK for JS, you can check the Javascript PDF generator and its updates. In order to extract text from PDF – just see the PDF Extractor page on the website. PDF rendering can be helpful when converting documents to images or doing OCR processing. If you just need to add a viewing PDF functionality for your documents, try the C# PDF library.
    Starting Price: $1,102.99 one-time payment
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    Anvil

    Anvil

    Anvil

    Anvil provides companies who require a high volume of PDFs to be filled, generated, maintained, and/or signed a customizable, embedded, logic-based workflow platform.
    Starting Price: $0 per month
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    PDFlib

    PDFlib

    PDFlib

    PDFlib GmbH is completely focused on PDF technology. Customers are using our products since 1997. In 2006 we were one of the founding members of the PDF Association (formerly PDF/A Competence Center). The company closely follows development and market trends such as ISO standards for PDF. PDFlib GmbH products are distributed all over the world with major markets in Europe, North America and Japan. PDFlib is a well-established developer component for generating and manipulating PDF documents. PDFlib’s main targets are dynamic PDF creation on a web server and PDF creation in any kind of server, desktop or mobile application. You can use PDFlib to dynamically create PDF documents from database contents, similar to dynamic Web pages. Since 1997 PDFlib has proven itself in a wide range of use cases and development environments. Application programmers use PDFlib to create PDF output with text, images, graphics and interactive elements.
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    Foxit PDF SDK

    Foxit PDF SDK

    Foxit Software

    Our high-performance libraries add robust PDF functionality to enterprise, mobile, and cloud applications across all platforms: Web, Windows, Android, iOS, Mac, UWP and Linux, using the most popular developer languages and environments. Build on a modern tech stack that integrates tightly with the platform you’re working on. We continuously improve our products and they gain new features every month. We grow with you as your requirements change and your project evolves. Our core API is designed from the ground up to deliver a seamless development experience across all platforms, without requiring deep PDF knowledge. Foxit is known for our management of edge cases, and for working with 100% of PDF files across all standards. With only one SDK to work with, you dramatically reduce your exposure to third parties. We provide sample, projects, demos, API docs and more for every single feature in the PDF SDK to get you up to speed quickly. You will receive support by real developers.
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    TechPDFKit

    TechPDFKit

    PDF Technologies

    Seamlessly enable high-performance PDF viewing, annotating, editing, signing, and more in your apps or any mobile, desktop or server framework. Build on a modern tech stack that integrates tightly with the platform you're working on. We grow with you as your requirements change and your project evolves. Maintain a smooth viewing experience in even the most complex PDF documents with a fast and battle-tested rendering engine. Lightning-fast search delivers near-instant results to your users. Markup PDFs with highlights, stamps, and comments, draw and add notes to PDFs, or create custom annotations. Make use of many more annotation types, each with its own style controls. Apply electronic and digital signatures in PDFs to speed up paperless workflow and secure document signing. Certify, and validate certificate-based documents you receive. Automatically detect font and size of the original text content. Easily update PDF documents by changing text and images.
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