When comparing Nuance Power PDF Advanced vs Adobe Illustrator CC, the Slant community recommends Adobe Illustrator CC for most people. In the question“What are the best PDF editors?” Adobe Illustrator CC is ranked 9th while Nuance Power PDF Advanced is ranked 20th.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Search allows for patterns
A typical search will allow you to find only the things that you know exist in a document. In comparison, pattern search enables you to find things that match certain criteria. For example, you can search for a SSN without knowing the actual SSN.
Pro Built-in speech to text conversion
Instead of typing, you can dictate the PDF.
Pro LexisNexis Casemap integration
Pro Supports bates-stamping and bates-numbering
Pro Comprehensive annotation tools
Pro Interface will be familiar to MS Office users
The editor uses a Microsoft Ribbon interface that's used throughout Windows and other Microsoft products.
Pro Amazing integration with all other Adobe Software (PS, Ae, Id...)
Pro It's the industry standard
Pro Advanced tools
Pro Has all the vector tools you could dream of
Pro Flexible, non-intrusive interface
Small palette menus and the ability to save multiple menu layouts keep the UI out of the way.
Pro There are many tutorials on the internet
Pro Frequent updates
The CC subscription model means that major releases are no longer necessary, so existing users gain immediate access to new features.
Pro Easy to learn
It's easy to learn how to work with this software.
Cons
Con Somewhat pricey
A single license costs $149.99.
Con Subscription model
Illustrator CC requires a $19.99/mo (minimum) subscription to use. Adobe no longer sells previous versions of Illustrator.
Con Heavy use of CPU/RAM
Con Steep learning curve
Con Very slow
Even in very good computers Illustrator is very slow.
Con You never truly own this software
As soon as you stop paying you to lose access to the software. This should be illegal.
Con Install useless and intrusive software
When you install any Adobe product it also installs lots of useless and intrusive software and services.
It adds two services and up to three auto-starting software that runs when you start your operating system and keep running constantly. One is for auto-updating, others for "checking" if you are not a pirate and some others that seems to be just to collect information.
Con Imprecise coordinates
Oftentimes your 140 is 139.9997 and as a vector program it doesn't rely much on precision.
Con No proper selection mode
In a vector-art program, the critical selection mode is the one in which objects must be fully enclosed by the selection marquee to be selected. In the simple example shown here, selecting all the circles should merely require you to draw a selection rectangle around them. But in Illustrator, there's no way to avoid selecting other objects as well, even though they're not totally enclosed by the selection box. Year after year, Adobe fails to fix this bizarre oversight, making Illustrator a tedious pain to use.
Con Buggy
Software can be very buggy at times.