I am probably not understanding your question but I just tested both on iOS and found theme to be very similar. I added “PDF Pen” to one of the screenshots to disdinguish it from PDF Expert. The first two are screenshots from Expert.
In PDFE you can get a third option, to export annotations as text, but only if you use the built-in email action.
It looks like PDFPen is just letting you export the PDF itself, not the annotations?
I have been spoiled by Skim on the Mac which has quite elaborate text and rtf templating to export notes.
I suspect that you are right that only the PDF can be exported, not the annotations as a separate export.
Pdf Expert gets my vote.
Well I have PDFPen and it is crashing a lot on my MBP 2017. Thanks everyone for all the info looks like I need to get PDFExpert.
Has anyone tried PDF Viewer? Someone said it was worth a look…
Just in the last 24 hours but I like it. I think I prefer the the simplicity of the native files interface to Readdle’s alternative.
TL;DR: I use PDF Expert both on the Mac and iOS. It‘s fast, has great scrolling even with bigger files and I generally like the design. On the Mac, it has also improved a lot since it first came out in 2015 with features like Page Numbers.
I have PDFpen 9 running on my Mac mini in combination with Hazel to OCR documents scanned on my iPad but despite that, I do not use it at all.
For some time, I tried to use it more, but for some reason, the scrolling in the 60-page presentations I get in my lectures (I’m a student) was extremely stuttery. I contacted Smile and worked with them over several days trying to find a solution but in the end, we could not resolve it. Maybe this is a strange isolated case on the two or three machines I tested it on or it could be fixed in version 10, but since I never had this problem with PDF Expert, I decided to stick with it. I continue to use PDFpen 9 for OCR purposes but never as an application to actually view or work on PDF documents.
PDF Viewer is great, it’s my go-to on iPad. However there is no macOS version, and I believe the OP was looking for a solution for macOS.
I use PDF Expert, and it satisfies all my needs except bulk OCR. I was tempted to get PDFpen for that reason, but thanks to this thread my “grass is greener” urge was destroyed. Win!
1 Like
I’d recommend OCRKit from ExactScan
PDF Expert is more intuitive. I switched even though I had purchased the expensive version of PDFPen.
1 Like
I made the same switch. PDF Expert’s interface was much more intuitive (at least for me) than PDFPen Pro. Also, I contacted PDF Expert about OCR and they have indicated that is on the top of their feature list additions. I’m actually surprised they haven’t already incorporated it, since it is already in Scanner Pro.
2 Likes
PDFpen Pro does batch OCR in name only.
If you give it much more than 20 files to OCR it just hangs.
Not sure how they could ship a product without robustly testing it.
I’ve used PDF Expert and PDF Pen Pro (both Mac OS and iOS) for quite some time. My quick takes:
-PDF Pen Pro is much more powerful for many of the reasons stated above, and then some. But it’s really, really flaky on iOS, and the interface on Mac OS is a bit outdated.
-PDF Expert is a nice piece of software. But I’ve found the file management to be a bit confusing (although expansive in capability- it’s basically a cloud drive).
I’ve stopped using PDF Expert entirely, and I really only use PDF Pen Pro for OCR and an occasional quirky PDF. I used Notability quite a bit on a regular basis- it’s a simple interface and has excellent Pencil support. Recently, I’ve been using Apple Notes more regularly. I’m not ready to jump ship just yet, but Notes is pretty impressive.
I really need to create interactive forms. I won’t use them ALL the time but I do have a need. Is this enough of a reason to go with PDFPen Pro? I love love the Reedle apps.
I can get educational discount so they are both about the same for as far as price.
Hank
For those of you who are interested in purchasing PDF expert. They are currently running a 50% off sale on their site for their birthday celebration. Here’s the link to redeem: PDF Expert for Mac also the App Store prices have been discounted for iPad and iPhone apps.
3 Likes
Thanks, appreciate the tip!
PDFexpert for me too! I use it every day.
Can you export annotations with PDF Expert? I forget if you can on iOS. If you can, even though I need forms, I might go with this since I like the Reedle apps so much.