PDF Expert, What Happens if I Update?

Software
21

Yes, a nice feature, if it works with your PDF!
Mine unfortunately are often not recognised in the right way, and I end up eighter with a lot of chapters/sections in the top, that are in fact no chapters/sections, or it is missing some/a lot.
So I always had a lot to do, to fix that, and spent more time with this, as if I made the top by hand.

22

Oh yes - I should have added this is often a manual process since automatic recognition of a sensible TOC chaptering is almost never happening. But even putting the manual chapters in is worth it for high-use complex PDFs.

23

I was also surprised by this update. Although itĀ“s obvious developers can choose whatever business suits them better, I would prefer to be warned that itĀ“s an upgrade that will start to be recurrently paid by a subscription (before upgrading). I find it an opaque and insincere pratice and makes me lose faith in their company.

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24

There may be a bit too much panic here. I was able to update to version three without the added bells and whistles. So Iā€™m happy so far. It was necessary, however, to carefully navigate the installation by making the correct selections and running away screaming if you see the word pay.

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25

Another point to add to this discussion: I donā€™t need an iPad or iPhone version. On my iPad my needs are different and I use other apps (GoodReader). And I donā€™t have an iPhone. Paying for these apps ā€“ even implicitly ā€“ is a waste of money for me.

26

Without signing in (to exactly what is still unclear)? And if so, without getting the nag screen to sign in each time you open PDF Expert on the Mac?

If so, would like to hear the steps you followed.

27

Sorry, I canā€™t recall my exact procedure. Iā€™m not getting nag screens now.Version 3.0.23

28

Thankfully it seems possible to donwload version 2 for previous users. For me, itĀ“s more tha enough for the time being. A nice gesture from Readdle, for which ƍm grateful. They could make this whole process more transparent.

29

I agree, Readdle has quality products and good customer service, which is why Iā€™ve used PDF Expert for years. I also agree, as I stated, that one could consider the subscription or part thereof a donation. The subscription and/or the donation may be the right decision for many. I, however, make donations elsewhere. I make application purchase decisions based solely on the ROI for my workflow. Like many in this forum, I use PDFs a lot and need a quality application for doing so. In my opinion, PDF Expert ranks near the top in overall quality. That said, I canā€™t justify an $80/year subscription, particularly when there are viable and far less costly options in the marketplace. While not as elegant as PDF Expert, both Previewā€™s and DTā€™s annotation tools on the iPad are adequate for the job and I can use DT to extract my annotations and notes.

I genuinely wish Readdle the best and I suspect they will do fine and prosper.

30

Nope. According to Adobe ā€œThe PDF format is now an open standard, maintained by the International Organzation for Standardization (ISO).ā€

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31

Or, perhaps they are facing higher prices for everything just like the rest of us.

32

Not trying to pick a fight, of course :slight_smile:

33

Thatā€™s strange. This feature is working fine here.

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34

I never took it that way, Iā€™m pretty laid back. :slightly_smiling_face:

35

I also use PDF Expert, but if you are willing to consider a subscription and find the price too high then Highlights is a good one and its yearly subscription is $25 or $3/mo

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36

Thanks, yes, Iā€™m considering it partly because it will extract highlights directly to DEVONthink. :slightly_smiling_face:

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37

I have what may be a counter view on this. While such less expensive tools exists, they are a less elegant and more time consuming option for my case.

I have annotations and markups to make on reports and assignments from students. The volume flow in number of documents is high and the turn around needed in time from getting the documents to time to return the markup is short. I cannot afford the overhead to shuffle documents from one app to another. I cannot afford the overhead to scramble around in tools that provide PDF markup as a plug in to everything else and the kitchen sink too. Finally, my approach to annotation and markup now involves my iPad only, while the documents sometimes are only accessible through macOS. So the app has to work seamlessly with a variety of cloud services. And my approach in annotating (and note taking) is most effective with iPad apps where the tools are customized in a vertical bar situated on the left side of the iPad screen, not in menus across the top or bottom.

I do not begrudge developers the prices of apps when those apps do well at what I need. The cost is a benefit against the cursing that I would otherwise be doing on a routine basis as I slog through the friction using the cheaper options.

So I will be staying with PDFExpert. It provides me with the highest RoI even when it may be the more expensive tool in the possible options.

ā€”
JJW

2 Likes
38

But cursing is free. :joy:

Seriously, I agree completely that ā€œwhile much less expensive tools exists, they are a less elegant and more time consuming option for my case.ā€ This is why I hate to give up on PDF Expert but each of us has to balance how many subscriptions we are willing to pay for and select those that are deemed more necessary. Iā€™m blessed in that I can easily afford all of the subscriptions I want but that would not be wise stewardship of my finances so I have to make hard choices. In this instance, based on my needs, Iā€™m willing to pay the price for inconvenience more than Iā€™m wiling to pay $80/year for a PDF application. On the other hand, Iā€™m willing to pay the $50/year for Ulysses because, again for my needs, I get a high ROI. :slightly_smiling_face:

2 Likes
39

It is the same for me with PDFExpert.

ā€”
JJW

1 Like
40

I use this all the time. Acrobat can also do it.

I just noticed the price was in BRLā€¦ hence my surprise. (It just went up, probably due to currency exchange, to 37 BRL/month). While not as expensive as I first thought, still too much for me.

Thanks for the suggestion, @OogieM. Unfortunately, Highlights lacks the most basic of all PDF features: Table of Contents navigation. Moreover, it is seldom updated (the last one was a year ago), so I find it impossible to justify the subscription expense.

A cheaper option, compared to PDF Expert, that seems interesting is PDF Viewer. For some reason, I find that PDFs look better on it, but it lacks the option to add elements to the TOC, so that it wonā€™t do it for me, either.

I mostly use DEVONthink, which does much more than handle PDFs. I rely on the scriptability it affords to extract the highlights to TSV format, and ā€“ after using a CLI tool to retrieve the TOC ā€“ I blend them to create my outline of the text. I use the TOC to provide information on the text structure and indent the highlights and comments accordingly. Each item contains a link back to the PDF file in DT3.

  • Introduction
    • Subsection 1
    • Subsection 2
  • Chapter 1
    • Subsection 1
      • Highlighted text snippet
        • My note to the highlighted text
      • Another highlighted text snippet
        • Comment to the text section
    • Subsection 2
      • Yet more highlighted passages
        • Comment to the text section
  • Chapter 2
  • And so on.

I wrote a single script to do all of this, of course. It would be a pain to do it manually. So far, it seems to be working well.

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