PDFpen 5.0 adds 64-bit support, new redaction options
updated 06:40 pm EDT, Thu September 9, 2010
New version goes 64-bit, 10.6-only
Image adjusting and efficiency updates are at the heart of improvements in PDFPen 5.0, the PDF markup and editing tool made by Smile On My Mac. The software is now fully 64-bit and Snow Leopard only, adding the ability to have multi-core OCR processes on multiple pages in parallel, handle larger documents and generally improving the speed of the program.
As part of the new features in v5.0, users can now redact (black out), erase or replace text, including OCR text. The software automatically removes any redacted text, rather than merely placing it behind a black overlay. New search-and-redact and search-and-replace abilities are incorporated to locate and edit all cases of sensitive information.
The resolution and color depth of individual images or whole documents can be altered to reduce PDF size. Other image effects, such as contrast adjustment, are now available as well. Scanned documents can also be de-skewed to improve OCR accuracy.
Other improvements include an http "submit" button, auto-detection of URLs, enhanced selection of objects or text by auto-selection of the needed tool, PDF saving directly to Evernote, and finer controls for printing. The new version also allows for automated manipulations via AppleScript.
The company has also updated its professional version, PDFpenPro, to v5.0. New in this version is the ability to convert HTML documents and websites into PDFs while preserving hyperlinks. The Pro version is also able to create fillable PDF and web/e-mail forms, handle the backend for the submission and data-gathering of such forms, and create or edit tables of contents for PDF documents.
PDFpen 5 will retail for $60, while PDFpenPro will cost $100. Upgrades from earlier versions of either application are $25 and available for any customers who purchased the software on or after February 14, 2010. Upgrades from any version of PDFpen to PDFpenPro are $40. A fully-functional demo is available from Smile On My Mac, while the programs are available in English, Japanese, German, Italian, and French localizations.
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Jul 2006
Good deal upgrading to Pro
The update from previous regular versions to Pro 5.0 is a particularly good deal. It costs only $15 more to go to the Pro version. The ability to save webpages as pdfs with their links intact was worth that for me.
And their service is excellent. Despite this being a release day, I got a response to my question in two minutes.