PDF Tools for Freelancers: How to Make PDFs Work for You and Your Clients.
Knowing how to use the tools of any trade is important for anyone in business. If you’re a freelancer — aka self-employed, a sole trader, or an independent contractor — it’s even more vital. You need to be efficient, organized, and professional with documentation, as well as the services you provide to your clients.
With that in mind, we’ve summarised here some PDF terms, tools and tips for freelancers to help you work quickly and efficiently with PDF files in your own business and with your clients.
What you’ll learn
- The benefits of PDFs for freelancers and clients
- Free PDF tools for freelancers
- Tips on how to use PDF features in Acrobat products
It's about you as a freelancer — and your client.
Freelancers are in a somewhat unique situation when it comes to skill and resource management. Being a self-employed freelancer, you may also work with both big and small businesses, locally and globally — all with their own systems and requirements that also may need to be able to quickly understand and adapt to.
Freelancing is great for people who want to work flexible hours, work locations, a variety of projects and clients, and perhaps step away from any office politics. You may have already worked from home or worked remotely as an employee and loved it. However, be mindful that going it alone as a freelancer means you have to take care of your whole business. You are your business. You are the marketing department, client relationship manager, creative team/service provider, and accounts department all in one — so you need easy tools for working with electronic documents professionally.
Free PDF tools for freelancers.
There are many free online tools and apps available for working with PDFs. Always do your research before using and/or downloading any online app or software. Make sure it is safe and secure both in terms of protecting your own device and computer system, and the content within the PDFs you are working with. As a freelancer, your client is trusting you with their business, so be mindful of the privacy and security of their information, as well as yours.
Free Adobe PDF tools that are useful for freelancers include —
- Acrobat Reader — not just a reader or a viewer, you can also use the free Adobe Acrobat Reader to sign, comment, collaborate and print PDF files on your smartphone or computer.
- Acrobat mobile scanner app — use the free mobile scanner app to scan documents directly into PDF files from your phone. Perfect for making copies of receipts and paper documents.
- Acrobat online — with our online PDF tools you can convert, edit, compress, sign, complete forms, rearrange pages and more. Being completely web-based, as long as you have internet access, you can work from anywhere, anytime.
Depending on how frequently you need to work with PDFs and the types of features you need, you might want to check out the free trials on Acrobat Pro and Acrobat Standard.
Creative freelancers might want to explore the apps in Adobe Creative Cloud. Not only do you get Acrobat Pro, but you also have access to the power of Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, and more.
Tips for how to use PDF features.
The most useful PDF tools for freelancers are often those that give you document flexibility. It’s the features that allow you to edit, rearrange and repurpose PDF files for your clients, and your own freelancing business.
- Merge: Combine PDFs easily with PDF merge capabilities. For instance, if you're working on a pitch for a new client and want to borrow sections from past pitches to highlight your breadth of relevant work, you can easily extract and merge PDF files into a new, repurposed document. Less paperwork, more efficiency.
- Compress: Chances are you're sharing lots of documents back and forth with clients for editing, feedback, and finalizing. If you're working on lengthy documents, compression technology is key. Compress your PDFs to share over email easily and securely.
- Fill and sign: Going paperless saves time and money. Take care of contracts in minutes so you can get busy doing the actual work. And once the work is completed, you can submit electronic invoices quickly, so you get paid faster. It’s easy to fill form fields and add text boxes, checkmarks, or your signature or initials. Fill and sign PDFs, then share your PDF file securely in just a few clicks. The recipients will receive a link or attachment by email.
- Convert to and from file formats: Whether your file is Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, JPG, or PNG, you can convert it to PDF online. With a PDF, you can lock in formatting and ensure a consistent viewing experience on desktop or mobile. Just drag and drop.
- Add comments: Streamline feedback and collaboration with clients. Add sticky notes, comments, and highlights for yourself and/or others to review. With the edit PDF tool, you can annotate any PDF file you are reviewing with others.
- Rearrange pages: If you’ve got a PDF with pages you need to reorganize, use the rearrange PDF pages tool, rotate PDF pages, add pages to PDF, delete pages, or just extract the PDF pages that you need.
Safe, secure, and easy for freelancers to use.
Portable Document Format files (PDFs) are a trusted way for businesses to send and receive a range of documentation relating to freelancing — contracts, terms and conditions, invoicing, receipts, and forms, to name a few. PDFs are safe and secure. They can be encrypted, password protected, edited and collaborated on. And, of course, they’re easily sent and received between a range of devices and systems.
PDFs can be of value to use in your own freelancing business. For example, creative and dynamic freelance portfolios in PDF format may be a great way to distribute and showcase your line of work. Or PDFs are an efficient way to keep safe and secure the financial records you need to retain for your end-of-year tax preparation.
