5 Must-Have Work From Home PDF Tools Online

PDFs certainly look professional, but if you don't have the right tools, it's impossible to do anything to them.

During this time where sharing documents online has become a foundation of remote work, you can't afford to fumble around with a PDF document for hours, trying to get it to listen to you. So what are you supposed to do instead?

We've put together this guide to show you a few helpful PDF tools online that will make working from home a lot more manageable, so let's get started!

Why Working From Home Has Become the New Normal

The coronavirus has forced many employees out of the office and into the relative safety of their own homes. In fact, by the end of 2020, about one-fifth of the American workforce were performing their jobs remotely.

This started as a temporary change, but it might not stay that way.

Businesses have invested a lot of money in digital tools to enable their employees to keep working from home. Returning to the office would cause these companies to lose money.

Many employees (and employers) also realized working from home... well, it works. The switch has gone better than expected for many companies, and many employees have expressed a desire to stay at home (at least during part of the week).

Because of these things, we can expect working from home to be the new normal long after the pandemic ends, at least to some extent.

The Reason Companies Are Choosing to Go Paperless

Even before COVID-19 threw the workforce into chaos, a majority of businesses were already starting the transition to paperless operations.

Why?

Cutting out paper clears up a lot of office space. It also makes working more convenient, all the information you need is digitalized and at your fingertips.

When you get rid of all this paper, you also get rid of the costs that come with it. This can help you save a lot of money and invest it in other areas of your business.

Customers also care about the impact your business is making on the environment. Going paperless makes you more eco-friendly, which can attract more interested buyers to your products/services.

Overall, getting rid of paper helps you save money, improve employee productivity, and streamline your business process. And since they don't have paper anymore, many companies have made the switch to PDF documents instead.

Transitioning to PDF documents gives businesses more features than other types of digital documents, such as Word. For example, with PDFs, you get:

• Graphic Integrity - The PDF documents will look the same (keep the same formatting) no matter who's looking at it on what type of device
• Security - You can protect your content with passwords and electronic signatures
• Small File Size - Uploading the PDF file or sharing it with coworkers won't take hours
• Versatility - You can use PDF documents on any operating system, whether you have Mac, PC, etc.
• Diversity - PDFs aren't limited to text-content only, you can add images, graphs, hyperlinks, etc.

PDF documents give businesses a way to share content (and work together on the same documents) without leaving sensitive information at risk on the internet.

If you're working from home and spend a lot of time creating or reading PDF files, you'll want to make sure you have these PDF tools on hand. They'll make editing or uploading these documents a lot faster (and easier), which can improve your productivity. Here are some of the most important.

1. PDF Converter

How many times have you found yourself stuck with a PDF document that needs some major changes? Instead of starting from scratch, you can simply convert your PDF file to a Word document. After updating the information, you can convert the file back to PDF form and present it to the rest of your team.

This also gives you a way to change documents that were originally Word to PDFs in a matter of seconds.

2. Compress PDF

There's no length limit to PDF documents. If you need to share a lot of information, you could end up with a document that's dozens (or even hundreds) of pages long.

This might be helpful for your coworkers, but it can be difficult to upload a file this large to the web or send it through an email. This tool allows you to shrink the document without losing any content, which makes it a lot easier to share.

3. PDF Editor

Do you need to make small, quick changes to a PDF document? Instead of going through the process of converting it, you can use a PDF editing tool instead. This will allow you to add notes, highlight content, provide your signature, etc.

4. Merge PDF

Trying to keep track of multiple different documents can be challenging, and it can also put you at risk of missing important information. There are tools that allow you to combine these separate documents into the same PDF file so your team gets a clear and concise layout of the content you want to share.

5. Protect PDF

Worried hackers will get their hands on your PDFs if you upload them to the web? Use a PDF protecting tool to secure your content first. With this tool, you can put passwords on your PDF and encrypt the data so none one can see it even if they do stumble across it.

Make Working From Home Even More Efficient Today

Using PDF tools online can make collaborating with a remote team faster and easier. You'll be able to stay on task and meet necessary deadlines without a problem.

And these are just a few of the PDF tools that can benefit your workday. Make sure you take a look at some of the other options available to you!