For everyday PC User: Software to increase productivity

I have noticed that very often PC users are only using software provided with computer itself. There are so much good free or affordable software that will make life so much easier. In this article I will introduce some of them that are meant for users in every level. This is the software that I'm using daily by myself also.

In Estonian Language

PDF Xchange Viewer (free/ costs)

Very good free software for viewing and commenting PDF-s. Takes little resources and is much easier to use than Adobe Acrobat Reader. It is also including OCR (Optical Character Recognition), which is good tool for scanned documents when you need to search phrases or copy the text.

In addition you can change the order of pages, add or remove them. Unfortunately in free version you will get watermark doing this. In payd version those are removed. Even payd version is cheaper than software by Adobe.

Download LINK

OneNote (With MS Office)

I just wanted to mention OneNote. This is standard software included to office packages but many have not even heard about it. It is very good tool where you can have digital notebook with subsections and pages. You can make it work in online, thus you are able to change, view and add new notes from everywhere (phone, computer, on web) I myself are using this for making grocery lists (creating those in computer and viewing on phone), for sketching and for making different notes. You can also share notebooks and thus I have used this to solve sharing project notes between people in my workplace.

No need for separate download, included in Office packages.

Lightshot (free)

Many probably have used windows snipping tool. Lightshot is much more powerful tool. Just press prntScreen button, add some comments or schematics and save or copy this directly to the document you are creating.

Download LINK

Autodesk SketchBook (free/ costs)

Quite simple but powerful software that is meant for sketching or modifying images. I use it often for sketching different ideas in personal and work related topics. Very good tool for exampe taking image of the machine and sketching some new ideas. It has symmetry, layer, brushes and flipbook etc tools.
Possible to install as a windows desktop software or app for windows 10, android or iOS. You can use your digital sketchpad with it.

Download LINK

NirCMD (free)

Actualy, I do not want to show the software itself as much as to show what you can do with it. Thanks to this software I got different sound output devices to my taskbar. Setting it up seems complicated at first, but it is quite easy and totally worth it. For example on image below you can see that I have four icons (Speakers, bluetooth headphones, home cinema and wired headphones) Especially for those, who often change sound output device.

 LINK for setting this up

Download LINK (at the bottom of page)

AudioSwitcher (free)

Also good tool for changing between audio outputs. To some extent replaces NirCMD solution obsolete. I like NirCMD more and thus I am mainly still using NirCMD. Also enables to change default input and output devices and to add keyboard shortcuts to them.

Download LINK

CheVolume (costs)

You can use different audio outputs for different softwares with this. Not the most stable software but if you understand how it works it acts quite well. For example, useful if one person wants to listen music and other to watch movies from TV connected to computer. Downside is that it is not able to channel all kind of software, for example it is not working for chrome nor internet explorer, works with firefox thou. It might help if you put default output to those programs that it cannot channel and then channel software it can handle.

Allalaadimise LINK

MyTube (costs)

Often I like to listen music from youtube. But quite often I do not want to do it from web browser because this is rather obstructive. I liked previous MyTube version more, as in addition to full-screen mode it had full-window mode. I contacted with developer and he promised to fix this on next version. Time will tell.

Download  LINK

S-Math (free)

Very good freeware for solving different math problems. Very simplte to make snippings to add them to word document for example. Reason why to prefer this rather than excel is than you can see formulas and units.

Download LINK

Simple questionnaire, which software will interest You