Wes Yemliak,

Whoa, nice catch! I found them in this folder: C:\Program Files\Softland\novaPDF 10\Driver\

But apparently they are Softland-developed files for monitoring usage and/or licensing (and hopefully not for reporting general computer/browser history as their title might suggest): https://forum.novapdf.com/support-troubleshooting-f6/googleanalytics-exe-t79207.html

However, if you delete or rename Telemetry.dll in order to disable it, these novaPDF items (in the Windows Start menu) will no longer work: Getting Started, Activation, Printer Monitor, Printer Manager.

As mentioned in that article, in your Windows Start menu for novaPDF, launch Getting Started (or Printer Manager, or Printer Monitor); select the Tools tab; at the bottom under the "Tools" section click on Settings; then uncheck the boxes for Send Anonymous Usage Statistics (and/or Show News Page).

A relevant comment/reply from Softland posted on this page might go a long way towards reassuring future novaPDF users and GOTD visitors that nothing sinister is going on with their offerings.

Brian Carr,
Why on Earth should Microsoft waist resources on supporting / testing old versions of Win10 ?

Every newer version has fail-corrections, newer and better functions
so hanging on to desolate versions is quite stupid

Update (free) for Heavens sake, then you will even get a print driver !

Tobiasson, Europe

Hi Tobiasson, my hardware is about two years old with AMD A12 which I liked because it had good performance and low power / heat. Previously I had an Intel CPU which ran hot (poorly designed HP notebook) and burned out at just over two years. However, recent updates for Win 10 and various drivers fail now. No one accepts responsibility for testing / updating the numerous components and drivers for older hardware. I am on 1803 now and would love to go to 2003 but all versions since 1803 have had serious stability issues and don't work on my system. What to do? Which version of Win 10 are you running? Thanks for you input. Brian

Mike H,

My own little test:

Yes, searchable text was produced in the created PDF file when "printing" via novaPDF from a Wordpad document.

No, searchable/selectable text was not produced when "printing" this page from my Firefox web browser.

Other novaPDF feature info in this table:

https://www.novapdf.com/compare-editions.html

Hmarx,

However, if you installed Text-R Professional (offered here on March 12) or similar OCR image-to-text software, then you can convert the non-text PDF into a searchable/selectable file.

Mike H, I just checked, and the answer is no -- it is not searchable (unfortunately).

Mike H,

For all the talk about Foxit Reader, I went ahead and installed it (despite my reservations regarding privacy outlined in another comment) and "printed" this web page using "Microsoft print to PDF", novaPDF, and Foxit Reader from both my normal Firefox browser as well as Microsoft's EDGE browser (total of 6 PDF files).

Whether or not this is a good test is debatable, but here are the results:

The three PDF files "printed" from Firefox all looked identical; none were text searchable/selectable; MS print to PDF created the biggest file (2285kB), Foxit was 1865kB, novaPDF the smallest (1765kB).

The three PDF files "printed from MS EDGE all looked near-identical; this time all three WERE text-searchable/selectable; again, MS print to PDF was biggest (394kB), Foxit in the middle (238kB), and novaPDF smallest (217kB).

(I forgot to choose to "embed fonts" in the novaPDF options, and didn't want to repeat the "test" for all three virtual printers since this GOTD page keeps increasing in size over time as more people add comments.)

(I need to figure out why using Firefox produces non-text PDF files, and wonder why the EDGE-produced versions are so much smaller when the same content is "printed".)

Otherwise, novaPDF seems to work just as well as the more complicated Foxit Reader.

Hmarx,

Reading my own comment supplied me with my own answer:

Using Firefox produces bigger PDF files because they are basically multi-page/linked images.

Those produced by EDGE are text-based and therefore compress much smaller.

Duane,

Thanks for that info, though I didn't attempt or mention the result of "printing" to PDF from MS Word.

And, TK -- you are right in that I did not perform any settings tweaks to ensure equal PDF document specifications. I just "printed" using the out-of-the-box default settings for all three as likely over 95% of users would do.

Mainly I was surprised to discover that "print to PDF" within my installed version of Firefox (74.0) by whatever product resulted in a non-text-searchable file as, apparently, are others:

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1278859

Perhaps it is due to the Firefox extensions installed which I might later investigate.

Hmarx,

I have had v10.3 installed since last offered. I've used it occasionally, and so far it has worked unobtrusively and reliably to print-create PDF files with no fuss and minimal errors, maintaining the original document layout for the most part.

For example, when printing this GOTD page using either "Micro print to PDF" or "novaPDF 10" as the selected virtual printer, the outputted files appear identical when viewed/displayed; however the PDF file sizes are different with novaPDF being smaller (1673kB vs 1269kB).

novaPDF has many more settings for paper size, scaling, dpi, etc., than "Microsoft print to PDF".

Most of novaPDF's settings, tools, "about" and licensing, etc., are available as the printer "preferences"; i.e., using any application's menu (your Internet browser, or Notepad, etc.), select FILE > PRINT... > SELECT PRINTER > novaPDF 10 > PREFERENCES

Seconded here. Foxit does the same for free. Plus many other features, with lifetime free updates and no instal-today hassle ;)

Gary and Martin...

Foxit _Reader_ doesn't allow you to 'type on any PDF'. This version allows you to 'read' pdfs and/or 'print to' pdfs from other programs, which is how you can 'write to a pdf'.

Also, Gary, your link was to the actual GotD download page for Foxit Reader, not the company page for it. The actual link is:

https://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf-reader/ (what you posted actually links to the GotD download page, not to the basic Foxit page).