PDFpen and PDFpenPro 6.0.4
Smile has updated PDFpen and PDFpenPro to version 6.0.4 with a smattering of targeted fixes for problems related to the way the PDF manipulation software handles opening, editing, and saving files. The update now treats PDF documents created via Print to PDF as new untitled documents, fixes an issue with redacting PDFs printed from Chrome, and sorts out several problems that prevented the opening of specific classes of PDF. It also squashes a bug that displayed pages as blank due to unusual coordinates, improves highlighting in documents with irregular word spacing, and fixes a problem with selection on the last line of multi-line
text fields from Correct Text. As of this writing, neither PDFpen nor PDFpenPro has been updated to version 6.0.4 in the Mac App Store. To get the most out of PDFpen 6, be sure to check out the newly released “Take Control of PDFpen 6” by our own Michael Cohen. ($59.95/$99.95 new with a 20-percent discount for TidBITS members, free update from version 6.0, 50/50.8 MB)
The article makes it sound like the BOOK is $59.95! It isn't; it's only $10. (But if you'd like to give me $59.95 for a copy of the book, I'll gladly accept it!☺)
I recently discovered what for me is a major change to this app. Like many OCR/scanning apps, PDFpen (both versions) use the built-in OS scanning interface, identical to what you'd see in Image Capture, for example. Well, because of Apple's 'sandboxing' requirements, PDFpen no longer has the "Scan To:" control.
One would assume (at least I did ;-) )that this simply means that scanned images will always go to a default, preselected folder. Nope! The scanned image is no longer sent/stored/saved ANYWHERE!
Basically, SmileSoftware has removed the IMAGE scanning/saving capabilities of PDFpen. That was actually the primary use I made of the app. OCR/PDF editing/creating was only the secondary, albeit, important use. So I now will have to depend on Image Capture for making images from scans.
I was told that my concerns would be forwarded to the developers. I hope others wanting this capability will also voice their concerns. ;-)
I believe this is a bug in version 6.0.4, since the Scan To menu was available in 6.0.3. I tested scanning today in 6.0.3 and was able to save scans where I wished; I then updated to 6.0.4, and the Scan To option was indeed missing. I will forward this information to the developers at Smile, who are typically very fast to respond to bug reports.
You are correct that the scanned image is no longer automatically saved in a duplicate location to the PDF document. If you go ahead and save the PDF from PDFpen you will have saved the scan. You are correct that this was done in response to sandboxing, as it's not possible to present the Scan To control without allowing for scanning to locations to which the Image Capture framework does not have permission to write.
Regards,
Greg
Smile Support
[email protected]
http://smilesoftware.com/