This weekend’s Mac Power Users episode announced the pending release of PDFpen for Mac, version 6. I’ve been in the beta test and I really like this update. PDFpen has always been a great PDF solution on the Mac and this upgrade really improves upon it.
User Interface
The new tool bar and edit bar make performing quick edits much easier. Everything is accessible with one mouse click. The new icons are also all retina friendly and look great on my fancy MacBook Pro.
Export to Word
I’m trying to figure out if I’m an edge case but I really love this new feature. Shady attorneys send me PDFs (when they should be Word or Pages documents) for review on a weekly basis. Now I can easily take the PDF, convert it to Word, and send it back to them with change tracking. I’ve already been doing this and they think I am some sort of dark wizard. This new feature does a really terrific job, capturing things like columns, graphics, and even some typography. This feature is worth the upgrade price alone.
Form Creation
Here is another great feature I didn’t know I needed but now love. If you scan a form, you no longer have to manually add the form fill in boxes. PDFpen does it for you, with one button. (This is a Pro version only feature.)
Pricing
Because the App Store doesn’t provide for upgrade pricing, Smile is going to put the apps half off for the first 48 hours they are available in the App Store. That’s $30 for PDFpen and $40 for PDFpen Pro. Buy it then. I’d get the Pro version because some of those features are really useful and at $40 it is a steal. You can do the traditional upgrade route through Smile but if you want iCloud support (I do), you’ll need to buy it from the Mac App Store. (Both the version they sale directly on their web site and the Mac App Store version support Dropbox syncing.) Exactly when this sale starts is unclear. Last I heard, they are waiting for the green light from Apple. As soon as it does go on sale, however, I’ll post and tweet about it. You’re going to want to get in on this sale.
I love it when a software company delights me. This new version of PDFpen does just that. It takes a product that I already loved and makes it better (without screwing up the things I loved about it to begin with). Here is a video I made showing off some of my favorite new features.