July 7 - 6:55am EDT   Google Code project owner 'Colesbury', has released Firefox Mac PDF Plugin. Unlike other browsers such as Safari, Firefox by default does not allow for inline viewing of PDF files (that is, the viewing of .PDFs without need of third-party applications). Based on the PDFKit in Cocoa, the open-source Mac-PDF plugin allows users to view full .PDF documents within the browser itself, bringing Firefox into line with other browsers that already sport the feature. The plugin requires Firefox 3 and Mac OS X 10.4 or later. (Last week Adobe's PDF file format became an ISO standard and the company released Reader 9 with several new features. [full story]

July 2 - 10:35pm EDT  Just as PDF became an ISO standard, Adobe on Wednesday quietly released Adobe Reader 9, a new version of its free software for viewing and working with PDF files. Following the release of Acrobat 9 last week, the software includes native support for Adobe Flash, enabling users to include Adobe Flash Player compatible video and application files in PDF documents. The new Reader 9 application also enables users to review and comment on compatible PDFs. In addition, Adobe said that the software is expected to launch up to twice as fast as earlier versions and also includes the ability to unify a wide range of content in PDF Portfolios, which assemble multiple media types into one, compressed PDF ... [full story]

July 2 - 4:00pm EDT   The PDF format has officially been granted ISO certification, the latter organization has announced. Although its original creator and main proponent, Adobe has handed control of the format over to ISO, which is now in charge of both publishing the specifications for PDF 1.7 and updating and developing later versions. The transfer may be most significant for third-party developers, who will have open access to PDF, making it easier to support in graphic and word processing apps. [full story]

April 26 - 12:45pm EDT   SintraWorks has released PDFClerk Pro 3.0, a PDF creation tool that allows users to manipulate existing PDF documents, as well as create PDF documents. Leveraging the system defaults, users can quickly create new PDF documents with both basic and more advanced layouts and easily print booklets, while flexible and advanced options offers sophisticated layouts options and page markup options, including joining of PDFs, rearrangement/rotation, addition/deletion of pages, and the addition of hyperlinks, watermarks, and headers/footers. Version 3.0 offers outlines (a.k.a. Boomarks), giving users the ability to create and edit outline items manually or automatically. In addition, ... [full story]

February 25 - 6:20pm EST   Enfocus today unveiled several updates to PitStop Server, Instant Barcode, and Instant PDF, bringing a number of new features and enhancements. PitStop Server 4.5 now features a completely reworked user interface, due to popular demand, giving users easy access to hot folder setups, files in process, and the comprehensive history log. Using powerful control methods, users can process entire folder in either a hierarchical or flattened fashion. New users can purchase PitStop Server 4.5 for 2500 Euros (~$3700 USD). [full story]

February 7 - 10:00am EST   Recosoft has released the fourth edition of PDF2Office Professional, its flagship conversion utility. The program primarily converts PDF documents into Microsoft Office formats such as Word or PowerPoint, but also outputs to more generic formats such as RTF. As much of a document's original layout is preserved as possible, including paragraphs, styles, graphic elements and tables. [full story]

January 29 - 6:00am EST   PDF files may be convenient for storing and sharing files, but they can often be too large to email or share with others. Apago’s PDF Shrink solves this problem by condensing PDF files by up to 90-percent with little noticeable loss of quality. The program shrinks PDF files in the same way that compressing graphic files to JPEG or audio files to MP3 works. [full story]

January 18 - 1:40pm EST   Docudesk has launched deskUNPDF Professional for Mac, an application for converting as well as transforming and automating PDF workflow. The application utilizes industry-leading technology for converting PDF's to multiple output formats for editing, business-grade table-detection that enables extracting table information into Microsoft Excel (.xls), and batch conversion, according to Docudesk. The software is available for $70 (system requirements were unavailable). [full story]

January 16 - 8:15pm EST   Apago this week released PDF Shrink 4.2, a Mac OS X utility for reducing the size of PDF files. PDF Shrink optimizes the content and structure of PDF documents, making them easier to use in email attachments, on the Web, for on-screen reading, for document archiving, and more. Free to registered users of PDF Shrink 4, the update adds the ability to process entire folders of PDF files and improves compatibility with Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard and Adobe Acrobat 8. Apago is demonstrating PDF Shrink and its professional companion product, PDF Enhancer, at the Macworld Expo (booth #W-4336). According to the company, PDF Shrink can reduce most PDF files--including those created ... [full story]