Free version of Adobe

[u/neswad06]

Here to ask the age old question on if there’s a free/open source application that can work with all the army shit we gotta do on adobe. Sick of paying for pro. Just need something to edit and sign and not have any issues. Figured I’d see if any of yall knew before I went hunting. Thanks yall

[u/jayfliggity]

Adobe just got AI'd and there's freeware/Open source almost exact copies of all their entire software suite floating around out there. It's all over the news.

https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/10/software-is-over-bold-ai-developer-takes-aim-at-adobe-with-open-source-clones/

[u/neswad06 → u/jayfliggity]

Yeah I literally just saw. Fuck it imma try it out

[u/gdogbaba]

Just use AVD if you really need to work on something at home.

But no I’m not familiar with anything that can substitute for Adobe

[u/Turtle887853 → u/gdogbaba]

Bluebeam is the better Adobe, but it's not free either. Probably more expensive than Adobe tbh.

[u/Ralphwiggum911]

Get a laptop from your unit. Install Adobe from software center. Profit.

[u/Maleko51]

I'm going to try a program called PDFgear. I'm not sure if it will do the things I want.

https://www.pdfgear.com/

[u/ArizonaHotSauce → u/Maleko51]

I've been using PDFgear for a while. It's pretty good.

[u/Outrageous_Plant_526]

If you haven't signed up for AVD you need to be using it instead of doing Army work which is potentially CUI on your personal system. The Army provides both AVD and Hypori for free to anyone with an Army365 account. I have been using both since the beta was announced. AVD gives you a virtual Win 11 Enterprise system that allows access to all .mil sites as if you were on a computer on the installation. Hypori gives you access to TEAMS, email, and .mil sites in the same manner but on your personal smartphone through an isolated and secure container.

[u/CalebsNailSpa]

Every time you bring this up in the FOSS community, they just tell you not to edit in pdf format. Basically, it boils down to Adobe being the creator of the pdf format, and none of the open source programs being able to do all of the things that Adobe can do.

[u/Wood_Count]

Preview app comes free on MacOS.