Nitro has two options for creating PDFs: either convert a file directly from one of over 300 supported formats (including HTML, Microsoft Office and plain text), or use the application’s own virtual print driver. Now Nitro Reader is here and it's giving Adobe Reader some serious competition. For a long time, Adobe had the market all to itself, but in recent years a crop of free alternatives have sprung up, all keen to grab a slice of its market. Most people use Adobe Reader to view PDF files, and are perfectly happy to do so, despite the fact little has changed since it first appeared on the scene. It doesn’t matter if you’ve written a Word document, put together a spreadsheet or laid out a brochure or invitation, exporting it to PDF means the outside world can easily view and print it with the help of free software. The program also installs it.The key reason for the success of the PDF format is that it allows you to view a document exactly the way it was created without having to open it in another application first. The latter task is now called QuickSign, but it appears procedurally identical to the old process: Load a picture of your signature, drag it and place it on the document, then double-click it to embed it. It also has the ability to extract both text and graphics as well as embed a graphic of your signature. This ability means you can fill in PDF forms whether they have editable fields or not. It installs a driver that turns any kind of document into a PDF by simply printing it, and it’s one of a handful of free tools that allows you to add your own text to any kind of PDF. Nitro PDF Reader was never just a reader.

Its new browser integration is nice as well. This is no mean feat, as it was very fast before. The new version 2 of the PDF viewer/creator/editor whose interface mimics Microsoft Office’s to a great extent (2007 and now 2010–a good thing in my book), is now noticeably faster both opening and saving PDFs. It’s leaner, it’s meaner, it’s Nitro PDF Reader.

Nitro pdf reader 32 bit