Windows desktop
PDF24 Creator
Updated .
The desk covers a virtual PDF printer, a page-level Creator, a Reader, conversion, compression, OCR, screen capture, and scanner import. Version 11.32.0 adds a Toolbox with Ctrl+K, local e-invoice checks, and PDF/A validation. The program runs on the PC.
Print to the PDF24 printer from any Windows program and you get a PDF. That is the original job of the software. You can install more than one PDF24 printer and point each one at a different profile: output folder, file name, PDF/A, a watermark, page numbers, an overlay, or a signature.
Two printer kinds exist in 11.32.0. Driverless uses Windows Protected Print and the Microsoft virtual print class driver. It is the default for a new install where Windows supports it, which is Windows 11 24H2 and later, and Windows Server 2025, on x64 and ARM64. Legacy is the classic PostScript driver. Remote Desktop printing to a redirected PDF24 printer needs Legacy. Custom paper sizes from the print server properties need Legacy too. Windows does not offer either of those to a driverless printer.
Version 11.31.0, released 5 October 2026, could replace a classic printer with the driverless one during an update. Version 11.32.0 keeps the kind already installed. If background apps are forbidden by policy, driverless jobs failed with error 3003 until the installer allowed the PDF24 printer packages to run in the background. If a policy still blocks them, Settings offers Fix now. The Remote Desktop guide and the error 3003 guide spell out the order of checks.
Job ticket
PDF24 printer
Auto-save can write the PDF to a folder with a file name pattern. The assistant then offers save, email, or fax. Digital letter paper lays a second PDF under or over the print, which is how a blank letterhead becomes part of the file. From 11.32.0 the driverless printer also accepts PostScript and PDF up to version 2.0 passed through by an application. Those jobs used to vanish.
The Creator is the drag and drop window for assembling a PDF. Merge or split. Add, remove, extract, rotate, sort, and move pages. Drop in Word, Excel, or images and they convert on import. Several preview modes and an integrated viewer are in the same place. After the edit you can save, print, email, or fax.
In 11.32.0 you can pin one document so it stays at the top while you drop pages onto it. The folder tree remembers what you expanded, and it shows system folders such as OneDrive and Nextcloud the way Explorer does. A Network node lists SMB shares. The file list sorts by date and has a details view.
Merge can add a clickable table of contents and a cover page in front of each file, and it can print the file name on every page. Bookmarks from the source files are kept. A setting uses the name of the first document instead of Document1. Deleting or reordering pages no longer leaves form fields visible but dead. Overlays of a different page size are fitted to the page instead of sitting at the bottom left.
Signing on save creates a PAdES signature with SHA-256 and the certificate chain, not SHA-1. You can add a timestamp from DigiCert, Sectigo, GlobalSign, FreeTSA, or your own service, plus validation data for long-term validation. Smart cards and tokens open through CNG. ECDSA keys work. If signing fails, you get the reason and a choice to save without a signature, instead of a silently empty signature. Self-signed certificates are 2048-bit and SHA-256.
The file tools and the Explorer context menu join files, apply profiles, set or clear a password, convert, split, compress, and send. Batch jobs in 11.32.0 continue when one file is damaged or cannot be opened. The result page lists the failures instead of cancelling the whole run.
Text and log files are converted by PDF24 itself, so a .txt file associated with LibreOffice still becomes a PDF. ANSI umlauts and UTF-8 or UTF-16 are read, and missing glyphs come from a matching system font. Office macros stay off during conversion, so Word, Excel, or PowerPoint do not run automatic macros just because another program is driving them.
The Reader is meant to open fast and stay light. It is a full viewer, not a stub that only exists to feed the printer. From 11.31.0 the print dialog has a live preview: printer and paper, odd and even pages, ranges in the order you type them, scaling, duplex, copies, booklet, headers and footers, and a virtual Create new PDF printer. 11.32.0 adds poster printing, with margin, overlap, and cut and alignment marks, and it takes the printer's duplex and color settings instead of forcing single-sided output.
| Area | What 11.32.0 does |
|---|---|
| Save | The original file is replaced only after the new file is fully written. A full disk or a failed network drive no longer deletes the PDF you had open. The Save tooltip says Save file. |
| Comments | Add comment works again, including from the page menu. Stamps, lines, shapes, and freehand drawings can be deleted from the context menu. Those marks print. On 11.31.0 they showed on screen and vanished on paper. |
| Search | The current hit is orange so it stands apart from the selection. Double-click selects numbers with separators, dates, and versions as a whole, including words inside tables. |
| Copy count is honored. PostScript printers keep characters such as Romanian s and t with comma. Print without a dialog no longer steals focus or flashes an empty Reader window. | |
| Explorer | Preview and thumbnails can be turned off for the current user or for all users. A closed Reader no longer lingers and delays the next file. |
Output settings can be saved as profiles: metadata, password, compression, resolution, watermark, page numbers, underlay and overlay, attachments, and signature. PDF/A-4 and PDF/A-4f are selectable, with an option to force conformance when a lossy step such as flattening a form is the only way through.
| Component | What it is for | In 11.32.0 | In 9.20.0 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ghostscript | Parts of conversion and output quality. Many conversions still run without it, with differences the version notes describe. | Optional, on by default. Settings can point at a system copy. | Included in the smaller branch. |
| qpdf | PDF file operations alongside Ghostscript. | Optional, on by default. Can use a system copy. | Included. |
| Tesseract | OCR, on the PC, including hot folders. | Optional, on by default. | Included. No Toolbox UI around it. |
| OpenJDK | Java tools, including PDF/A checks with veraPDF. | Optional, on by default. The x86 build carries a real 32-bit Java runtime, which 11.31.x lacked, so Java functions returned nothing on 32-bit Windows. | Not included. |
| WebView2 153.0.4234.32 | Draws the Toolbox. If the bundled runtime does not start, PDF24 uses the one already in Windows. | Optional. The EXE preselects it only when no runtime is installed. MSI property WEBVIEW2=No skips the bundle. | Not included. No Toolbox. |
| PDF printer | Virtual printer, driverless or classic. | Can be deselected. Choose the kind at install. | Included, without the 11.32.0 printer-type fix. |
Convert PDF writes Markdown with headings, lists, tables, footnotes, and embedded images, and it writes TIFF, lossless, color or grayscale, including without Java. PDF to Excel can put one worksheet per table, the default since 11.31.0, or one worksheet per page, the older layout. UDF documents from UYAP, Outlook .msg and .oft files, and .jfif or .jpe images convert to PDF. If the associated program is slow, as with Hancom Office and HWP files, the PDF24 printer stays the default until the job arrives, not for a fixed 5 seconds.
The compress tool is for a PDF that is larger than the page count suggests. In 11.32.0, images that differ only by a transparency mask are no longer treated as duplicates, which had made several slides look identical. Images inside tile patterns are reduced, so a page printed from Firefox, or a newspaper article, gets smaller. Optimize fonts no longer distorts LaTeX files or garbles PowerPoint text that embedded the same font twice. Files that came from iLovePDF or Canva no longer turn letters into boxes after compression.
A driverless-printer regression from 11.31.0 embedded every font on every page. A 30-page document was 1.5 MB instead of 244 KB. 11.32.0 fixes that, and it fixes landscape pages that had been stored as portrait with the content rotated.
Quality levels still reduce JPEG images even when Ghostscript is absent. Grayscale conversion, including the fax profile, no longer makes photos too light, and it keeps JPEG photos as JPEG.
Recognize text in PDFs and images and write a text layer. It uses Tesseract and stays on the PC. A hot folder starts a finished file immediately and labels an incomplete one. Pages that contain only spaces are not skipped as if they were real text. The language-data failure on Korean, Greek, Serbian, Azerbaijani, Uzbek, and some other languages is fixed in 11.32.0. If OCR still reports Could not open data file, update first, then see the OCR guide.
Overlay combines a document with digital paper, the same idea as letterhead on the printer. Watermarks can be an image, with size, opacity, position, angle, and tiling, or several lines of text. Missing glyphs, such as Chinese in Calibri, come from a matching system font. You choose whether the watermark is inserted as a graphic or as text.
Screen capture writes a PDF or an image of the screen. Scanner and camera import uses TWAIN. On ARM64, TWAIN sources are offered again in 11.32.0. The tool launcher, and the Toolbox start page, open the sub-applications. Settings hold the defaults, including whether Save starts in the source folder or in a fixed folder.
Validate e-invoice checks XRechnung, ZUGFeRD or Factur-X, and Peppol, as XML, PDF, or a ZIP of several files, using the official rules. Errors are explained in plain words. The result list saves as CSV. Validate PDF/A checks PDF/A-1 through PDF/A-4 and PDF/UA-1 and PDF/UA-2 with veraPDF, locally, and it needs Java. Extract attachments saves embedded files under their names, which is how you pull the XML out of an e-invoice. Create electronic invoice can use the newer generator, with quotes, delivery notes, and bilingual documents. The previous generator stays the default.
Make PDF fillable keeps field names when you copy a field, can link fields that share a name across pages, and places fields correctly on rotated or cropped pages. Edit can paste an image with Ctrl+V. A saved signature comes back at its last size. Redaction, comments, and bookmarks are in the Toolbox. Edit bookmarks can create named destinations and can detect bookmarks from headings. A crafted invoice could previously inject markup into Create invoice visually. 11.32.0 inserts those fields as plain text. Update if you open invoices you did not write yourself.
Install and printer guides cover error 1920, the ARM installer, and antivirus quarantine. File sizes are on the download page.