*** If you're reading this before February 5th 2011, visit the following URL to get this $30 app free! Make sure you note your registration number. This is a limited time offer, and there appear to be no strings attached as far as I can see.

http://www.pdfzilla.com/giveaway.html

***

PDFZilla is a useful and quite well known app which converts Adobe PDF files into all sorts of other formats such as text, RTF and Word documents, images, and SWF Flash animations. PDFs, which are the files that most people use Adobe Reader for, are very convenient containers for all manner of documents including images and graphics as well as text and various fonts and effects. And since the acquisition of the Flash file format from Macromedia, animated Flash movies may also be included to create a multimedia presentation.

The problem is, once you've created or downloaded one, there's no easy way to extract or edit content. Unlike a word-processing document, which you can simply edit in a free application, PDF pages are more like paper documents than electronic ones; you can't simply add and delete words or move paragraphs around, or insert images. And once a PDF is created, you can't correct any of your errors without a relatively expensive bit of editing software, or alternatively starting over.

This makes PDF format files ideal for large, multi-media documents and books that aren't intended to be modified, or legal documents that need signatures and a greater degree of protection against illicit alterations. But if a situation arises where you really need to alter or add to one, that's not so easy.

This application converts PDF files into a wide range of other file formats, which can then be edited in the normal way. You'll probably already know if you can make use of it in your line of work or document creation, in which case you might also be impressed that it will batch-process hundreds of thousands of documents in a single run, too.

A neat offer for reviewers, by the way, and bloggers and webmasters and online columnists, is that the company will give you a free license in return for your writing a review of the product. Currently that's worth thirty bucks. But before you get started, there's a catch (of course). You have to agree to either put the review on your front page, or keep a link to it from the front page for at least two months. Which unfortunately means that SJ reviewers don't qualify. Boo. But if you want a free copy anyway, it looks like you can just start a blog on Blogger for free, and post the link there. Seems like a good deal to me, and it might even tempt you into the wonderful world of online self-publishing.