Hello! I just purchased the PDF Architect 5 software a few days ago. I wanted to suggest some features/options for future updates/versions:
Thumbnail preview in Windows Explorer: Instead of just seeing a program icon for a .pdf in Windows Explorer, it would actually be a small preview of the .pdf file itself. I have had this functionality in Acrobat before and it is very useful.
A ‘Zoom Window’ feature: Instead of just the ‘Zoom In’ and ‘Zoom Out’ icons on the VIEW ribbon, there would also be a 'Zoom Window" feature that lets you window an area to enlarge.
A Revision Cloud tool: Another useful tool would be a Revision Cloud tool on the REVIEW ribbon. It is a widely used tool for reviewing and marking-up drawings.
Lastly, an option from CAPS to Title Case: Would it be possible to add a feature that would allow people to choose the CAPS for the menu bar (FILE, VIEW, etc.), or to change it to Title Case instead (File, View, etc.)?
Yes please, go back to Windows standards : Case in Menu, keyboard shortcuts including Esc to exit message boxes and such, tab and enter to select and validate dialog-box choices, etc
Yes please, thumbnail preview : an absolute must.
For me, viewing a PDF file or working on it are two very different things. Most of the time it’s for viewing, which means that most of the menus, the single-window mode and such are just in the way. For viewing it should be minimal with all required features to quickly navigate, select and copy. Nothing more.
Important things for viewing:
Hyper-fast loading
Minimal menus, tools, side windows, etc. Contents is what matter, just like a printed document.
One window per document: allows quick side by side view with other document (PDF, Word, Excel, other…) <-- this you have, I known; very good!
Keyboard shortcuts for navigating quickly.
Just a couple of thoughts inspired by CADGroup’s post.
And please don’t underestimate these features: PDF Architect is not the default PDF reader on my system because of theses things, mainly thumbnail preview actually. And working with PDF documents with PDF Architect is painful because it’s too far away from Windows standards (especially missing or undocumented keyboard shortcuts).
Finally, a reply! Thanks, Chris! I do hope that the support people actually read these posts and at least consider implementing a few of them. Based on what Adobe is charging anymore, if PDF Forge would implement some of these features they could increase their sales ALOT. I have been a little disappointed with the program so far, but I have learned to live with some of the things that are different/missing in the program, but the thumbnail thing is a killer. I may have to get a refund and go buy Acrobat if this is something that PDF Forge isn’t planning on doing. Also, a ‘Zoom Area’ tool would be nice too!
thank you for the feedback.
Could you explain the Revision Cloud tool a bit? I must admit I have never heard of this.
I will gladly create some feature request tickets out of this, I think these are mostly very reasonable suggestions.
Regarding the view, have you tried out the PDF Architect preview plugin for the Windows explorer? This will load the document in a very basic PDF Architect GUI inside the Explorer’s preview panel. Would this be something you’d like to see as optional layout for viewing PDF inside the main PDF Architect application?
Thanks for your reply! I will check out the plugin for the Windows Explorer preview. Where can I download that?
As far as the revision cloud, I made a quick video of it in action. I didn’t think I could upload it due to the size, so I shared it via a link on my OneDrive. The forum wouldn’t let me add a link, but if you will email me I will email you back the link. Just email me at: cadgroupATlive. com. just replace the AT w/ @ and remove the space before com.
Please let me know if you have any questions about anything else that I mentioned. Based on the price of PDF Architect and what others are charging (Adobe, Bluebeam, etc), I honestly believe that if you would implement some of these features, especially the markup tools (used a lot in Architecture and Engineering offices), that you could become a hugely popular alternative to those other companies.
the plugin gets installed with PDF Architect by default, but if another application already registered a preview plugin for PDF, it will in most cases not overwrite this setting. Changing this can be a bit tricky and could require (temporarily) uninstalling your current default viewer or whichever applications currently provides the PDF preview in the Explorer. I have given your account additional rights for the forum, please try posting the link again.
As for the preview, just to make sure we are on the same page, I did a screen capture of the preview I am talking about. This was done on a different computer that I have PDF Architect installed. Is this the same type of Windows Explorer preview that you are talking about (see attached PDF Thumbnail preview.png below)?
Hi, thanks for the video. Did you already find the shapes in the review section? They don't have the exact same functionality, but the "line" shape might work for your purposes.Regarding the preview, I did actually mean something different, which you can enable by going to the "view" tab in the Winodws Explorer (I am afraid my OS is in german, but here is a screenshot anyway):
You are welcome! As for the shapes in the review section, I have messed with that feature a little, but not much. I will reinvestigate that when I get back to the PC with PDF Architect on it. When I did look that feature, I thought it would be nice if we could add our own shapes to use in that, then I could add a revision cloud type shape and stretch it to fit. Will there ever be a way for a user to add their own shapes to that feature? That might be useful…
As for the preview, I like the looks of that. I will check that out and see if I can get my system to do that. It actually may work out better than what I was originally hoping for.
As for the thumbnail preview, it actually works out of the box. All I did is select PDF Architect as default program to open PDF files, but I did it via the Explorer : Open with --> Choose other app --> Choose PDF Architect 5 and tick “Always use this app…”. I’m on Windows 10 by the way.
Speed is actually OK now for my need (have an SSD drive, helps).
Still too many menus and side bars when simply viewing (and still the ugly upper case menus ). Side bars are really in the way, visually and for the real estate they occupy.
But it’s closer to what I need than I first thought.
Well, let me add a final comment here: I’ve used PDF Architect more intensively for a couple of days and just cannot get used to it.
To the contrary of what I said in my previous mail : it is slow to start.
I have chosen to abandon this product as it doesn’t fit my requirements and personal taste:
Too slow to start
Pretty ugly user interface (it strikes me at each start, just couldn’t get used to it)
Lately it started to freeze (won’t close => have to kill the process)
Too much real estate for things other than contents
No proper keyboard shortcuts
Not following windows standards in general
Ugly startup (startup dialog, flashing of a different view of the document at first)
And probably other things that irritated me.
So I switch to a different product (not Acrobat Reader; that product became just as bad). I switched to the best alternative (search the internet if your are interested) and I’m fully happy with it; all above issues are solved nicely. And the free version of the product has more features than the free version of PDF Architect.
PDF Architect team: I may not be the only person feeling this way; please check out that other products and catch up. Your product has potential and the advanced modules are rather interesting.
I too have tried and tried, yet I think I am the same as you: I just don’t see it working out and am having some of the same issues as you, and am just too busy to deal with it anymore.
Robin: I am within the 30-day refund window since I purchased this program. I have contacted www.upclk.com and started the process for a refund. I will keep you updated on the progress, as I saw in another post that someone had a difficult time getting a response from them regarding a refund.
I too have a request, but if I may say I like the suggestions above about making a windows compliant interface and in general a more simple interface. I keep searching what is the best way to do what I need to do.
Most important suggestions is to have a multiple page view of a PDF document, where you can actually drag and drop pages, and change their order, and save the changes. I’ve seen the move page interface, but unless you want to manipulate first or last page changes, it is really hard to use because you need to know all the page numbers, which is totally not practical if you have more than 4 pages.
However, it works only partially, since the thumbnails on the page preview are fixed size, they do not allow to read the contents, and, when enlarged to the right to get several columns, it covers the main page totally. The main page does not resize to the visible space, so we get to see at most vertical half page, or the even pages with double page display.
So the interface is still getting in the way of what the user wants to see.
What I’d like to have, are resizeable thumbs in the preview area, and a main page display area besides the preview area that maximizes the zoom on the current page into the remaining space, without being covered up by the preview area.
I requested a refund from www.upclk.com online on 12/31/17. I haven’t heard anything to date, but realize it is the holidays. Should I just wait or should you guys contact them about it?
please allow a few more days for them to respond, it can take up to 10 business days although it is usually faster.
If you haven’t heard from them / received your refund by then please let us know and we will look into the situation.
