#SMILE PDFPEN REVIEW PDF#

PDFs can support file attachments and annotations, and PDFpen now fully embraces that, which is handy because it lets a PDF file act as a kind of portmanteau or a sticky-note festooned marked-up copy.

If it’s yellow with an X inside, you can click it and see that a self-signed certificate was used, and obtain more information about the certificate. If the triangle is green and has a checkmark, the app has verified it clicking the corner brings up additional technical details. PDFpen shows that a PDF is signed by displaying a triangular notch in the upper-right corner. PDFpen even includes a process to create a self-signed certificate, which is useful for showing a document wasn’t tampered with but doesn’t help assure identity. You can use certificates from Adobe’s Adobe Approved Trust List (AATL), which can cost from about $150 to $300 a year as an individual, as well as so-called self-signed certificates that you can create yourself.

#SMILE PDFPEN REVIEW VERIFICATION#

PDFpen now supports validating signatures signed by Acrobat and other software, as well as adding such verification itself. (In this case, I trusted a self-signed certificate.) (There are ways outside of the PDF for assuring that the right person has access to those keys and it’s the person you think it is.)Ī valid digital signature in a PDF displays as a green checkmark in the upper right. (I don’t work inside a corporation or in industries that require document validation.) A securely signed document allows a recipient to verify both that the PDF is unchanged since it was signed and that it was sent by a person who had access to a given set of private keys associated with an identity. The PDF format and Adobe Acrobat supported digital certificates starting years ago, although I’ve never seen a signed document in the wild. (Unless otherwise noted, all new features are available in both editions.) Smile has focused on several areas that mix tools and tasks useful to individuals, groups, and people in companies or exchanging secure documents. The new version is a solid notch up from the previous release, adding a miscellaneous set of new useful features that bring it in closer parity to Adobe Acrobat.įor those who already use or know PDFpen, let me jump to the chase about new features. There’s a slight awkwardness in picking, setting values for, and switching among the app’s several tools, but it’s minor. It’s also a superb way to design forms, retrofit existing documents to contain form fields, and to fill out forms. Both editions can create and edit the contents of PDFs, allows drawing and adding text on top of files, and includes excellent optical character recognition (OCR) software. The OS X software is both full-featured and generally intuitive.

#SMILE PDFPEN REVIEW PRO#

(Multi-license pricing is available.) PDFpen Pro includes all of the basic PDFpen’s features and adds a wide variety with more niche appeal, such as Excel file export and autogenerated form fields. Version 8 is now out, and it builds on existing strengths, offering high-end features without a sky-high price: It’s $75 for the regular edition and $125 for Pro. This is why I’ve turned to Smile’s PDFpen and PDFpen Pro for many years. Adobe, the creator of PDF, will sell you or rent you its Acrobat software, which is expensive and powerful-and remains baffling across each of the multiple major revisions it’s made to the user interface over a decade. Apple’s Preview has decent core PDF support, but it’s often frustrating to use and its annotation and editing tools are weak and basic.

#SMILE PDFPEN REVIEW PORTABLE#

Portable Document Format (PDF) files are ubiquitous, and we’re often called upon to fill them in, or have the strong desire (or a job requirement) to mark them up and pass them on to other people. PDFpen is available for approximately US$85 and PDFpenPro for $140. The integration of compression methods such as MRC, CCITT reduces the file size while scanning, editing, and saving.Īlso included, a magnifier window, a callout tool, customized paper styles and orientation selection for new documents, and for Pro users, DocuSign support. Version 12 adds the ability to reduce PDF file sizes as much or as little as needed with a new Optimize PDF feature. You can export to Microsoft Word, fix typos without the original document and add comments, images and highlight text.

PDFpen provides a document reading, proofing, and navigating experience combined with a variety of editing tools, enabling users to sign PDFs, fill forms, and search and redact sensitive information. Version 12 introduces Optimize PDF, a magnifier window, a callout tool, and DocuSign support for Pro users.

#SMILE PDFPEN REVIEW UPDATE#

Smile has launched PDFpen and PDFpenPro 12, an update of its PDF editing tool for Mac.

Smile pdfpen review