VESTOKES  I just finished another demo of this product and still find it is too slow and crashes whenever I try to do something as simple as changing the font size of text in a paragraph. This happened when I demoed it on Leopard and continues with Snow Leopard.

I am again deleting it from my system.   
(Version 4.5)

JALSHERM  This is the BEST program for viewing, and editing PDFs. It is easy to use and saves me several steps when editing forms, maps and documents!  
(Version 4.1.3)

BRUSKI2007  I have been using PDFPen for a couple of months now and have to say that the set of features is excellent. I mostly use this app for deleting pages and its OCR features.

However, I find it to be extremely buggy. It is almost impossible for it to do an OCR scan of any sizeable document without it crashing. If it doesn't crash it usually hangs, forcing me to force quit the app. If the bugs were crushed this would deserve the full five stars but it is not there yet.  
(Version 4.1)

ALANTERRA  I just wanted to put in a short review saying how much I like PDFPen. If you are considering Acrobat Pro, definitely check out PDFPen--it might be better and cheaper for your purposes.

I first bought PDFPen for "light editing" of PDFs. Even though I own Acrobat Pro 8, I wanted a program that was specifically meant for editing pdf documents. You know when you have a form that has spaces that you are supposed to fill out--like with an IBM Selectric typewriter--PDFPen does that perfectly. It also assembles PDFs out of a group of separate documents, so you can take the form, delete the 3 pages of instructions, add the essay answer, paste in your signature and date, and just email back the final application without scanning or printing.

But, I just figured out today that the other thing PDFPen does well is that it "understands" multi-column documents. If you have ever tried to select text in a two-column document using Preview, you know what a PITA it can be. But PDFPen understands the document better, so you can select just the text you want.

I also use PDFPen to highlight passages in documents, just like reading a real paper document with a yellow highlighter in your hand!

I haven't tried the OCR yet, but have read that it is as reliable (or unreliable) as Acrobat's. I'll compare the two programs later.

But, in general, there is little that most of us need to do with a PDF that PDFPen can't do.

A

Oh, PS, I don't think it has ever crashed on me. I'm not sure I can say that about any other program I use (maybe BBEdit, not sure).  
(Version 4.0.4)

JOHN_ALLEN  Version 3.x of PDF Pen was a little buggy / sometimes slow for me. But still it got done what I wanted.  
(Version 4.0.3)

COBRA_BYTE  I've been using PDFPen for years and it keeps getting better and better!

I use it fill out forms and add my signature for PDFs that I need to endorse before sending them out.

Customer service is top-notch and I'll keep coming back to SmileOnMyMac products.  
(Version 4.0.3)

MITCHWILSON  Having purchased within 6 months, and being generally unhappy with this buggy software, I was more than disappointed to find that they want another $25 from me so soon. I would suggest waiting until they get the kinks worked out before purchasing.  
(Version 4.0)

SHARIK14  The last time I tried this app, it was still version 3 – and still dreadful, terribly designed, incredibly slow, buggy, regular crashes, and generally unusable.

The only thing that even tempts me to upgrade is the version 4 inclusion of OCR – but now I find that (despite the complete lack of utility in earlier versions) they want me to pay $25 for it.

No way, guys. I no longer trust you.  
(Version 4.0)

JFM  I have just bought the upgrade to version 4, and I am really glad I have done it: it is a major step forward, it makes handling pages much more pleasant with the sidebar showing pages and an easy way to change their size. Moreover, the general design is much more convincing than the previous versions. I was using it quite frequently already, although I didn't enjoy it too much. Now I feel that I will be using it more, but also enjoy using it: from a useful tool, it has become a nice tool.

(By the way, I posted this comment because I was quite perplexed to read previous comments about a "buggy" app: in my experience for the past 3 years, it has alway been stable.)  
(Version 4.0)

MTCOBRA  Interesting. I'm looking at the site for PDFpen 3.5, yet when I do Get Info, About, or Check for Updates on my PDFpen 3.4.2, it reports that I have the latest version.

Perhaps the inability to detect new versions is one of the things corrected or added in this new, 3.5 edition?

I recall having had to PUSH the update (rather than PULL) the last time I updated PDFpen.   
(Version 3.5)

JAYHAWKBABE  I, too, really want to like this application and was disappointed by it's speed, or rather lack there of, compared to Preview/Skim for even a small PDF file. I had problems with the PDF displaying funny at times, as well.

In the meantime, I use the FREE program FormulatePro. It's only on version 0.4, so there aren't a lot of bells and whistles, but you can type on forms and it's FREE. Very happy.  
(Version 3.4.1)

DCOTTON  This is by far the buggiest commercial software I ever tried to use. I downloaded the demo yesterday, with every intent to purchase because I needed a cost effective way to file a PDF form on Mac OS-X 10.5). The software crashed 3 times in the first hour for reasons that weren't at all clear-- I got to know the little Bug Report Ladybug that appeared in my dock quite well. After I was able to keep it running long enough to edit my PDF file, it's behavior was even more unpredictable. One of the fields I edited included a company name on the first page that was replicated on every following page. The name appeared where it should have, but also appeared a second time on every subsequent page about an inch lower in the middle of the document text. There was also a date field at the top of the first page. When I selected it, the text box appeared as though it had been flipped above a horizontal axis and the text I typed was displayed upside down and backwards. . .just bizarre.

I gave up and built the doc in Word. There is clearly a market for something cheaper that Adobe Acrobat to edit PDF forms. Pity this doesn't work better.  
(Version 3.3.2)

MMUECK  I tried this out by editing a 99 page pdf file that I wanted to mark up and cull a bunch of pages. I have the latest MacBook Pro, and even then working on this document was excruciatingly sloooow. By comparison, Apple's Preview was able to navigate this document at near instantaneous speeds. Didn't much care for some of the user interface polish either (some of the toolbar icon sizes and graphics). I don't know if this is the best software out there for this task, but I've definitely been motivated to go ahead and look everywhere else before paying anything...  
(Version 3.2)

SHENZHOU  Developer asking for US$25/- to upgrade from version 2.x to version 3.

I cannot see any new features that distinguishes this version from earlier versions.  
(Version 3.0)

BMEGUY  I'd really like to use this app, but all of the pdfs I use have two columns, so until it can do rectangular text selections (like Preview or TextEdit or most other cocoa apps) it's useless to me.

Here's hoping for the future.  
(Version 2.3.4)

HAMIDLMT  I agree with some of the other reviewers... slow once you get into mildly complex edits. I bought this for a project. I so rarely have a need to modify a .pdf, but a need arose. I downloaded the demo and started making changes... it worked brilliantly! I thought... hey, this works great, I'll buy it! Shortly after the purchase, the slow crawl to virtual unusability began.

The program bogs down quickly. I sent an email to the developer and they quickly responded. They asked for a sample file and I sent it. So far, the issue hasn't been addressed and it's been months.

It got me through a problem... but, it was a pure pain to use.  
(Version 2.3.1)

POOP1  Useful for filling in short forms or adding a signature, but too slow for anything more complex.  
(Version 2.3.1)

ANONYMOUS  Still eats up lotsa RAM & CPU (I've tried to rearrange some pages in a 13 MB pdf doc).

iBook G4 (late 2004), 1.2 GHz, 768 MB RAM  
(Version 2.3)

ANONYMOUS  I bought a license and I'm sorry I did. This app is good only for VERY minor pdf changes. Put a few text boxes on a form and it slows to a crawl, even on my top-of-the-line PowerBook. It is also still full of bugs, and crashes frequently.   
(Version 2.2.1)

ANONYMOUS  Version 2.2.2 is just as slow.  
(Version 2.2.1)

DK0R  I purchased version 2.2.1 and it is EXTREMELY slow On OS X 10.4.2.  
(Version 2.2.1)

ANONYMOUS  It crashed after I opened a 700+ pages document

and browsed between pages for a while.

Last time I tried 2.0 it was very slow when saving big files.  
(Version 2.1)

AHARON DAVIDSON  Excellent product + excellent support. A month ago, I gave 5 stars to PDFpen v.1.2.1. A couple of weeks ago, I have complained about some annoying bug concerning old-style link annotations in v.2.0, and was promised that this will be taken care immediately. Indeed, as promised, among other new things, this old-style link annotations function now properly under v.2.0.1. In turn, 5 stars to the product, and 5 stars for the support.  
(Version 2.0.1)

ANONYMOUS  Wonderful App! Used it may times and it's stable and very easy to use right away.

Minor Update Issue:

The 2.0.1 update seems to be pointing back to the download for the 2.0 version. When you expand the dmg you get 2.0 again, and if you use the built in update; it says 2.0.1 is available and when you go to download it, it takes you back to the web site to the 2.0 download again...  
(Version 2.0.1)

ANONYMOUS  Fast, very easy and stable.

All i want.

Thanks  
(Version 2.0)

KIWILEGAL  This is simply an awesome product if you are looking to work with digital files - PDF. Terribly simple to use, does an awful lot of useful things that Adobe Acrobat would charge $100s for and does it quickly.

Learning curve almost zero.

And support responds really quick, at least on the one exchange I had with them.

I have used the program since 1.2.1 and the only criticism I could level is that occasionally I have experienced unexpected quits when working with large PDFs. But for me at least, this developer deserves all the support it can get.  
(Version 2.0)

AHARON DAVIDSON  In the moment of urgent need to paste-cut-reorganize-print a pdf proposal, facing an online submittion deadline within a couple of hours, I called CombinePDFs and then PDFLab to the rescue.

- CombinePDFs produced a pdf file, which when printed via Acrobat Reader, showed new fonts...

- PDFLab has never gone beyond the first page...

- Consequently, under pressure and even without testing it first, I had to buy PDFpen, and what a relief it was. It is a perfect application. 5-stars easily!  
(Version 1.2.1)

BERNDT FARWER  I have been waiting for an app with this functionality for quite a while, so I immediately tried it and I must say it is very easy to use ... but on the downside it does have some quirks, which is not too surprising, being a 1.0 version.

Nevertheless very promising, great for putting together readers, etc.

Also very promising for adding remarks, comments to PDF documets, of which I tend to receive more and more ... students hand in their homework and theses, and I apply my comments using PDFpen.  
(Version 1.0)