PDFpenPro or PDFexpert

Software
62

I’ve been using PDF Expert on iOS/iPadOS and PDFpenPro on Mac.

I really like the PDF Expert layout and reading experience, but needed the PDFpen Pro for creating and editing forms.

But recently I’ve come to a problem where one of the forms, once it’s been edited by PDFpen Pro, would not read in PDF Expert. The PDF is still there, but all the form fields are gone, and the contents inside them.
I could still read it in PDFpen Pro, but not PDF Expert.

This has been very irritating, and I don’t know whether it’s a PDFpen Pro or PDF Expert problem.
I think I need to just use one application across both iOS and macOS, but I need to find out which software is causing the problem first.

63

I don’t know if you’ve tried reaching out to the tech support folks at Readle or Smile about this, but I dealt with a similar issue and both teams (who I communicated with separately not jointly on the same issue) were both responsive and we resolved the issue. They will ask for the troublesome PDF to analyze. I hope this recommendation is not taken as insulting your intelligence. Running to tech support for things like this is not always my first instinct.

1 Like
64

You can try opening it in Preview. If the form is missing there too, it is probably a PDFpen problem.

65

nah it’s all cools, I’ve already sent emails to support along with the PDF file in question. I’m just waiting for their response.

66

I didn’t think about trying to open with Preview.

I just tried it and Preview opened it just fine, so that seems to point to it being a PDF Expert problem?

67

It might be worth observing there are (probably) three distinct PDF processing engines in play here - each with their own (inevitable) proclivities.

I say “(probably)” because it’s never clear which engine any PDF app is using.