Sympathy for the Developer (PDF)

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1

There’s been a lot of chatter as people run into some problems, with PDF on Devonthink.

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2023/06/29/the-state-of-mac-pdf-software/

I thought this link might give people some context as to what all developers are dealing with when it comes to the '“standard” of PDF. I know @BLUEFROG has lots of printshop experience with PDF going way back so this is old hat but it’s interesting to see how other developers have to deal with the vagaries of PDF

2 Likes
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Interesting to read and I second Adam Engst’s comments. :slight_smile:

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After a lot of testing, I’ve found that PDF Expert is the best in macOS for the things I do (but not in iOS). I’m lucky enough to have it without subscription.

In iOS I think the best is PDF Viewer from PSPDFkit that, btw, is the same framework that DTTG internally uses, then I use most of time my iPads inside DTTG.

In macOS, I have PDF Expert as default PDF app, to avoid use the piece of crap that is Preview for PDF support.

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what is better in pdf expert than in the preview app? just to get an idea… I do not know the program and with the subscription model it has to provide a real benefit for me to switch…

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I’m summarizing some I valuate most, but I’m user since it was not subscription and only had to pay some complements.

  • Fast. It is very fast, even saving big-size modified PDFs
  • Standard annotation without corrupting text layer
  • Thumbnail view with order, rotate, movement, extract, insert other PDFs or images
  • Two documents side-by-side with sync scroll
  • TouchBar support
  • Works very well with Abbyy MRC ultra-compression stuff
  • Does not fat the PDF once annotated.
  • Can create a PDF from selected images in Finder
  • Night (and Sepia) modes

Extras I paid apart:

  • Edit. Full edit, not only annotations but real PDF edition
  • OCR. Not the best, not MRC, but enough.
  • Export to other formats like Word or Excel

Things I specifically don’t use:

  • Forms, etc
  • Sync reading position
  • iOS/iPadOS version

And, if it hasn’t been clear enough: it is BLAZING FAST.