@Bmosbacker and others: There’s a lot of posts here in relatively little time and I have not read all of them (about 70% of them only) so I may be repeating info.
Upgrading to 3 is free for version 2 users. No costs involved. No nagging involved for me (except maybe the first time). If you want to use a new feature beyond v2 then you are prompted to unlock the additional features. But there’s no need to do this and the old features work as before. All quite simple and straightforward.
If you subscribe all is unlocked on all versions for you: Mac, iPad, and iPhone.
The only features that I can see that are new to v3 (and thus need an upgrade) are scanning/OCR and exporting. I imagine they’ll add more features in the future.
Educational pricing for upgrading the new features are not in place yet: I think it comes out this week or next. But the price for educators (who already have PDF Expert from the past) will be $20 for the first year, $40 for ongoing years. I might subscribe for one year and see how much extra value it provides. But after 1 year I can always go back to the “old” features which I love.
Part of the problem is the Mac/iOS stores themselves. Developers can only charge fully for new apps or provide subscriptions. There’s no good way to offer update pricing. So due to Apple’s store requirements, developers who distribute via App store are fairly restricted in what they can do in terms of pricing.
Readdle has always been fair in not forcing users to upgrade, or upgrade to a subscription - you always got to keep what you paid for previously. As PDF Expert is central to my workflow I have decided to subscribe now even though it’s definitely not cheap.
I can’t deny part of the reason now was my intent to support Readdle as such, especially given the current circumstances, as they have always been quick to reply to support emails and I also get a lot out of Spark, in which I basically live day in day out, and which is free.
I’ve been through a number of other apps on the iPad but wasn’t happy with any of them. Foxit was probably the closest feature-wise and is much cheaper. Highlights is nice, but it only does highlights and does not support annotating with Apple Pencil.
GoodReader is a UX/UI mess. It’s probably as feature rich as PDF Expert but all that is hidden behind an atrocious UI that hasn’t been touched in years, probably since the app launched. I just can’t use that, my brain hurts.
Can you explain how to download version 2? Through a series of hardware problems requiring logic board replacements on my (previous) iMac and purchase of new Mac Studio and M1 MacBook Pro computers, I no longer have installed PDF Expert apps. Is it a simple matter of downloading and installing v3 and applying my license key, or is there a separate download site for version 2?
I use both PDF Expert v2 and Nitro PDF 13.3 on my Mac. (I used to use PDFpen Pro, but switched over to Nitro’s rebranded version when it was added to Setapp). Since Nitro PDF Pro already has all of the features now offered in PDF Expert v3, I updated PDF Expert to v3 but didn’t upgrade to get the new features. It’s working fine.
I use PDF Expert v2 for reading and annotating and Nitro PDF Pro for everything else. (I always found PDFpen Pro pretty clumsy at annotation; PDF Expert seemed more straightforward to use in that regard.)
The only thing I do with PDFs on my iPad is read and annotate, and the free version of PDF Expert does that just fine.
I still have PDF Expert on my Mac and iPad, because like you, it’s been my favorite. But I won’t accept a subscription priced PDF app, either. About six months ago, I started using PDFPenPro again. It’s a “good” app, but I don’t love using it (especially the iOS version). I’ve been trying to figure out whether I could just use GoodNotes as my PDF reader/annotator, but it adds another layer of complexity since I can’t just open from the file system and edit in place. Preview on iOS’s annotation tools are great, but it’s not efficient for me for reading/annotating a large collection of PDFs with Preview. Also the inability to access TOC entries in iOS Preview is a real problem for me. (I tried iAnnotate again, but I don’t love it.)
The Ukraine thing is not the reason for the subscription model switch. Readle did this a few years ago, and the subscription price was $50. For those of us who had the (at the time) latest Mac or iPad apps were grandfathered in and kept all the features we had. For example, the only subscription feature I believe I lacked was the one that enabled a user to make “favorite” toolbars.
Interesting, In 20+ years I don’tthink I’ve ever used a TOC in an PDF to navigate Any navigation I use is what I’ve added based on my reading, notes, highlights and annotations. But I rarely get large PDF’s. I just did a quick look, not an exhaustive search, but most of mine are in the 5-15MB range and between 5-100 pages long. For me at least no TOC needed for stuff like that. Also, nearly all the PDFs that I read and annotate are scientific papers.
I use the markdown feature to extract highlights to my Obsidian vault.
Thank you. That worked, and my existing license was automatically recognized. This is for my 14" MacBook Pro, in which PDF Expert had not been installed previously.
Interesting observation: Upon launching the already-installed PDF Expert v 2.5.21 on my primary Mac (Mac Studio) the following pop-up notice appeared:
A new version of PDF Expert is available!
PDF Expert 3.0.23 is now available - would you like to download it now?
The release notes listed various enhancements and new features, but there was no mention of a subscription requirement. That is a significant omission, in my opinion.
I’m not sure what happens if I upgrade to v3. One post above indicates that there will be nag screens to upgrade. Unless there is a way to eliminate the upgrade nag screens, I will stay with v 2.5.21 and keep the v2 installer for future use.
Another comment about PDF Expert v 2.5.21: It works very well. It is preferable to Preview for handling PDF files because it does not have Preview’s persistent bugs. After many support sessions with a Senior Apple Support rep and multiple capture logs sent to Apple Engineering, the Preview bugs were confirmed but not resolved. I can provide details in a separate thread if anyone wants. The point is, the non-subscription version of PDF Expert is excellent despite the significant absence of OCR capability.
Edited: “free version” changed to “non-subscription version”
I’ve only been “nagged” once at most since upgrading to version 3. Granted if I click on a function that requires the upgrade payment (e.g. OCR) then I am “nagged”, but that’s because the upgrade is required. But general nagging … nada.
I updated the macOS version of PDF Expert from v2 to v3. I was asked once during the update process if I wanted to upgrade to access the new features. I declined and haven’t gotten a single nag screen. In fact, I can’t find a way to upgrade to the v3 + all the new bells and whistles from within the app itself.
I have only been nagged once as well, on first launch of the app. In fact, when I dismissed the dialog and later decided to buy the subscription at 50% discount, I found out that it was apparently not possible to get back to that particular screen so I subscribed from another device. I don’t think it will nag you more than once to subscribe unless, as @Mathew_T_Mitchell says, you click on one of the features requiring an upgrade.
Sure, I’d like to know what I’m missing. I use Preview a lot to quickview a JPG, read PDFs, trim pages from the end of saved PDFs, add a simple note, etc. I’m curious if I’ve run into the bugs you have identified.
For all of you who didn’t get the nag screen each time you start PDF Expert v3: did you sign in? And I don’t mean get a subscription… but enter an e-mail address or Google account to sign in to… yeah… something.
I am currently thinking using Foxit PDF on iOS instead of PDF Expert. Anyone have any experience with it? There is an Intune version without subscription. Will it work without Intune?
Indeed, no sign in pop-up after force quitting the app and re-opening. But when I try to put a signature on a document, that nag screen shows up again.
I’ll keep version 2.5 for now and will look for a replacement. PDF Reader Pro or PDF Professional look like they might be contenders. Haven’t tried any of them though.
Update: PDF Professional doesn’t support dark mode. So that one went out in a minute. PDF Reader Pro looks very promising though. $60 For a one-time one Mac license. That’s half of PDF Expert’s one-time license. And less then a yearly subscription for PDF Expert (that’s with iPad and iPhone apps though, which I don’t need).
Whilst I was a heavy user of PDF Pen, its deprecation sent me to PDF Expert. To be clear, this is only in those instances when Preview couldn’t do what I needed.
In the interim, I acquired access to Adobe Acrobat Pro DC, through my work. I haven’t used Adobe products in years (since being over on Windows) – am I correct in presuming that Acrobat Pro (no idea what the “DC” is for) should cover all my bases, in the event that PDF Expert stops working?
Or is their a more advanced tier of Acrobat that I would need?
EDIT: Does Acrobat allow for easy redacting of text inside a PDF, for instance? Does anyone know? Nevermind –– just found the Tools section, it has “Redact” (and a few other tools) that can be downloaded – seems this will be all I need.
Any navigation I use is what I’ve added based on my reading, notes, highlights and annotations. But I rarely get large PDF’s. I just did a quick look, not an exhaustive search, but most of mine are in the 5-15MB range and between 5-100 pages long. For me at least no TOC needed for stuff like that. Also, nearly all the PDFs that I read and annotate are scientific papers.
I use Preview a lot to quickview a JPG, read PDFs, trim pages from the end of saved PDFs, add a simple note, etc. I’m curious if I’ve run into the bugs you have identified.