We’ve been listening to your requests, PDFpenPro users! PDFpenPro 5.2.3 can now automate the creation of PDFs from web pages via AppleScript. Here’s an example:
tellapplication “PDFpenPro”
activate
settheDoctomakenewdocumentwith data “http://smilesoftware.com” with properties {levels:2, top margin:36, bottom margin:36, right margin:36, left margin:36, follow:server, maximum pages:100}
endtell
The return value is the created document.
You’ll find additional information on converting HTML to PDF with PDFpenPro in the PDFpenPro help.
You can upgrade from PDFpen to PDFpenPro for US $40. In addition to being able to convert websites to multi-page PDFs, you’ll also be able to create cross-platform fillable forms and to construct document table of contents with PDFpenPro.
“If you use PDFpen/PDFpenPro on multiple Macs, you can sync the Library using Dropbox. The trick is in how you get PDFpen to find the Library when it’s in your Dropbox and not where it normally expects it. You do that with a symlink. Both PDFpen and PDFpenPro use the same Library location (good thinking on that Smile), ~/Library/Application Support/PDFpen.
“The only real trick here is symlink creation. For that I like to use an OSX service called SymbolicLinker. When installed, SymbolicLinker adds a “Make Symbolic Link” item to the Services context menu in Finder. Download SymbolicLinker here and move the SymbolicLinker.service file to /Library/Services (that’s /Library at the root, not in your User folder, although it should work fine there too if you don’t have multiple users on the Mac). If you do not have a Services folder in Library, just create one and put the file there. Logout and back in or reboot to activate the service. Now you’re ready to do this…
1. Shut down PDFpen is you have it open.
2. Move your ~/Library/Application Support/PDFpen folder into your Dropbox.
3. Right-click over the folder that you just moved and select Make Symbolic Link from the Services context menu. You will now have a file called “PDFpen symlink” right next to the PDFpen folder in your Dropbox.
4. Move the newly created symlink back to ~/Library/Application Support (where you just moved the original folder from) and rename it to delete the symlink portion of the file name so it is just plain “PDFpen”.
“That’s it. This also moves scripts and anything else that may be stored in that same location. (PDFpenPro scripts are in ~/Library/Application Support/PDFpenPro, so if you want those synced, you’ll need to do another symlink, but now you see how easy that is.
“Symbolic links are great combined with Dropbox when an app does not let you select where to store data. I also use them for Delicious Library and GarageSale, both of which have monster amounts of data associated with them compared to the PDFpen Library.”
—
Our thanks to Steven for the great tip! Feel free to send yours to jean@smilesoftware.com.
The Mac App Store is a big deal for third-party Mac developers like Smile. For the first time, Apple is making it easy to buy and install software without ever going to a website, downloading a demo, or clicking an installer. Because it’s built into the OS, every Mac user will have a convenient option for purchasing software.
PDFpen, PDFpenPro and DiscLabel were available on Day One. (We hope TextExpander will be available soon!) The Mac App Store is not our exclusive channel for sales. Customers are still able to download and purchase applications directly from smilesoftware.com. We have kept the same prices for both channels.
We will continue to provide updates to our existing customers outside the Mac App Store. Choose “Check for Update…” in the application menu to download the latest version. You can set automatic update checking and its frequency via the Update preference pane.
The versions of our software in the Mac App Store are functionally the same as the versions available on our site. We had to make a few adjustments to meet Apple’s criteria, and that resulted in a discrepancy in version numbers.
Updates for both Mac App Store-purchased software and independently-purchased software will be on the same schedule, although there may be a lag for the Mac App Store updates due to Apple’s review process.
You might have noticed that your Smile applications are not marked “Installed” in the Mac App Store. That’s because they weren’t purchased through the Mac App Store. The Mac App Store only supports updating products purchased via the Mac App Store. The fact that it shows some products purchased independently as installed is simply a convenience and is in some cases misleading.
If you have any questions at all, please let us know at support@smilesoftware.com. You’ll get a fast, friendly answer from our support team.
Apparently, people like the idea of a short work week, the shorter, the better. That helped Tim Ferriss’s first book, The 4-Hour Workweek, become a huge best-seller. An authority on working smarter, not harder, Tim is always looking for a better way to do things.
For the promotion of his new book, The 4-Hour Body, Tim contacted Smile with a question:
Can you make images clickable in a PDF with PDFpen?
Answer: Yes! That’s a standard PDFpen feature. Just use the URL tool to draw a rectangle of the element you want to make clickable. PDFpen will prompt you for a link and you’re done.
We followed up with Tim to learn more about how he uses PDFpen, and found out about his clever use of mini-books for promotional purposes, attractively designed with images linked to Amazon.
* * * * *
Smile: How did you find out about PDFpen?
Tim: My assistant, Charlie Hoehn, who scours the web for the best of the best.
Smile: Were you using another tool that didn’t work for you? Why?
Tim: To create excerpt “mini-books” that can be promoted by bloggers via blogs and Facebook as free downloads. It was important that we made them attractive, and that we include clickable links to Amazon, etc.
There are many more used also in e-mail campaigns.
Smile: Do you have any PDFpen tips or tricks to share?
Tim: Haha… not really. The reason I love PDFpen is that I don’t need any tips and tricks to make it work. It’s a five-minute learning curve. I just want to get #$%& done
Tim: Would you recommend PDFpen to other Mac users?
Absolutely. It saved the day.
Smile: What are you working on now?
Tim: The new book, The 4-Hour Body, is looking to be bigger than the first book, and it took three years to write. Here’s the description — lots of blood, sweat, and tears (all literal)!
The 4-Hour Body is the result of an obsessive quest, spanning more than a decade, to hack the human body. It contains the collective wisdom of hundreds of elite athletes, dozens of MDs, and thousands of hours of jaw-dropping personal experimentation. From Olympic training centers to black-market laboratories, from Silicon Valley to South Africa, Tim Ferriss, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The 4-Hour Workweek, fixated on one life-changing question:
For all things physical, what are the tiniest changes that produce the biggest results?
Thousands of tests later, this book contains the answers for both men and women.
From the gym to the bedroom, it’s all here, and it all works.
There are more than 50 topics covered, all with real-world experiments, many including more than 200 test subjects. You don’t need better genetics or more discipline. You need immediate results that compel you to continue.
That’s exactly what The 4-Hour Body delivers.
Here’s the YouTube trailer (1 min.):
We wish Tim all the best for success with his new book.
We are often asked if PDFpen supports the popular Fujitsu ScanSnap scanners. Support is not built into OS X for these scanners, so PDFpen cannot detect them when connected using its “Import from Scanner” command. With a little configuration, however, the software that comes with the ScanSnap, ScanSnap Manager, makes it easy to scan direct to PDFpen. Here’s how:
To configure, launch ScanSnap Manager, or bring it to the front via command-tab.
1) Choose Settings from the ScanSnap Manager menu.
2) In the resulting window uncheck “Use Quick Menu”.
3) Click “Detail” to show all the settings tabs.
4) Under the “Application” tab select PDFpen as the application. You’ll likely need to use “Add or Remove” to add PDFpen to the list of choices first.
5) Under “File Option” select PDF as the file format. Uncheck “Convert to searchable PDF”.
6) Go back to “Application”. Click the “Hide” button, and close the settings window.
Now when you press the scan button on the scanner it will scan and then automatically open the result in PDFpen.
One of my favorite new features of PDFpenPro 5 is the ability to create a PDF from HTML files or a web site.
Customers often ask for a printable copy of the help with our products. The help is initially created in HTML that can be indexed and viewed through Apple’s Help Viewer, and also viewed in a web browser. To print it, however, would mean going to every web page in the help and manually printing each one.
Creating the PDF was very easy in PDFpenPro. Here’s how.. in PDFpenPro select File->New->From HTML…, then enter the URL for the index page, and how many levels deep to go. One level is the page itself. Two levels does the page and the links from that page. Two is just right for the help. Click Create and a PDF will be created from the given URL and its immediate links.
The links within the resulting PDF all operate, and even a table of contents is generated!
To finish the job I chose “Number Pages” from PDFpenPro’s Script menu, and then inserted a blank page at the start of the document and used it to place a title.
The new help PDF file can now be saved and printed with ease.
David A. has a simple but time-saving method for filling out non-interactive forms in PDFpen. These are forms that don’t actually have built-in form fields to fill in. You have to use the Text tool to overlay text to fill out the form.
If you double-click the Text tool, it stays selected so that you can insert multiple text boxes, one after the other. But that strategy has its drawbacks:
My problem with double-clicking the Text tool is that I usually need the Select tool to fine-tune alignment after I enter text. So what I do is create one text box, fill it with some sample text, get the font settings I want and then copy that text box to the clipboard. Then I just stick with the Select tool, pointing and pasting wherever I want text and then editing and adjusting.
If you find yourself needing to switch between the Text tool and the Select tool often while filling out a form, this could save you time and mousing!
Approximately 150 independent Mac and iPhone software developers have pledged to contribute their sales for the day of January 20th to Haiti relief. The effort is called Indie+Relief.
The needs in Haiti are immense. Its capital lies in ruins, as many as 200,000 may be dead, and survivors are increasingly desperate for food, clean water and shelter.
Check out Indie+Relief. You’ll find an incredible collection of software from the best Mac and iPhone developers and your purchases will help ameliorate a dire situation.
We are here at Macworld San Francisco 2009. We are at booth 407: come by and say “hi”. It was a busy day, but I did manage to post a few photos on Flickr.
A couple exciting things to report: PDFpen is featured on the Modbook tablet Mac at the Axiotron booth. One of the team is at the Axiotron booth all day showing folks how cool it could be to edit PDFs on a tablet. Today, Axiotron unveiled their newest model, and their most famous member of their board of advisors, Steve Wozniak, demonstrated how to use it. At one point, Philip turned to me and said: “Look! He’s using PDFpen now.” How exciting to see our software being used by the co-founder of Apple Computers.
Later in the day we were visited by not one, not two, but three Mac celebrities. Tonya and Adam Engst of TidBITs and Take Control Books came by the booth to chat with Greg and me. And while they were there, Guy Kawasaki stopped to say hi, and ended up talking with us about TextExpander. He’s a fan.
It’s New Year’s Eve, which means we are working furiously to get ready for next week’s Macworld Expo in San Francisco. We’ll be at our booth, #407 in the South Hall of the Moscone Center, January 6 – 9, 2009.
(I have to start getting used to typing 2009…)
We’ll be showing off the latest version of PDFpen 4, as well as DiscLabel and TextExpander. Please do come by to see us and to check out the newest features of our software. (And we will have candy!)
If you don’t have an Exhibit Hall pass yet, we still have some to giveaway. Just use this link to register for the show. January 4, Sunday, is the last day to take advantage of these free passes. The number is limited, so don’t delay.
I am excited to announce that Don McAllister, the host and producer of ScreenCastsOnline, will be in the SmileOnMyMac booth on Thursday, January 8, from 2 pm to 3 pm, to talk about the Mac Switcher Bundle. The bundle is a great collection of software (TextExpander, 1Password and Witch) plus a special series of ScreenCastsOnline video tutorials aimed at helping new Mac users get the most out of their Macs.
Don will be doing short demos of the Mac Switcher Bundle software, as well as showing off ScreenCastsOnline. He’s definitely achieved Mac celebrity status with his best-of-class video tutorials and his frequent appearances on Mac Break Weekly, MacVoices, Mac Roundtable, and many others. You can hear Don on a special episode of MacVoices with me, 1Password developer Roustem Karimov and Witch developer Peter Maurer.
Don was also a faculty member on the Geek Cruise last month, and achieved celebrity status on the ship when the crew thought he was missing in Santorini. (It turns out their card readers were faulty–he was, in fact, aboard. He even has proof. You can hear the whole story on this episode of Mac Roundtable…)
Smile: How did you find out about PDFpen?
It’s New Year’s Eve, which means we are working furiously to get ready for next week’s 
Don will be doing short demos of the Mac Switcher Bundle software, as well as showing off ScreenCastsOnline. He’s definitely achieved Mac celebrity status with his best-of-class video tutorials and his frequent appearances on