Sonny Software

I have a couple of requests relating to the usage and annotations of PDFs

• The PDF view always defaults to "Actual Size" and I don't see any way to change this default. Can the default be changed to "automatically resize" or give us the ability to change the default?
• I love the brand new color highlighting options in the drop-down in v.13, thanks! Could we be given the ability to customize these colors?
• In v.12, I could click on a PDF highlight, then open the color options and change the color. I can't do this in v. 13. To change the color in v.13, I have to delete the highlight, then do it over. Can you allow us to choose a highlight, and then using the color drop-down click a different color to change it?
• I'm so happy to have in v.13 the automatic recognition of page numbers in the notestream. The problem, though, is that so many PDFs (eg. JSTOR, SagePub) add cover pages to the PDF. This of course throws the numbering off. Could there be a way for us to either (1) tell Bookends there is a cover page and ignore it, or (2) delete a page of the PDF within Bookends — rather than having to open in Preview to delete.

Thanks

1. If you change the setting using the Action popup menu to automatically resize Bookends should remember it.

2. It's not something I plan. I used the colors from Preview, BTW.

3. I'll file that as a feature request.

4. Having Bookends actually alter PDFs is something I probably don't see coming (it could be dangerous). As for telling Bookends that a PDF has a cover page, this would only be temporary and would have to be done each time the PDF was viewed -- unlike Sente, Bookends doesn't store information about PDFs in the database, the PDF stands alone. Off hand I can't think of a satisfactory way of doing what you want other than to use a real PDF app to strip off the cover page.

Jon
Sonny Software

Thanks for the reply.

1. I thought Bookends should remember, but I'm having to "automatically resize" every time...
2. Okay. I find them a little stark, but I'll get used to it.
4. Deleting the first page I suspect is best. I'm not sure why this would be dangerous, but I'll get used to deleting it in Preview. Thanks Jon

1. Please contact tech support and we can walk through this.

4. Dangerous in that it irreversibly alters the PDF, and any problems can lead to mutilation of the documents (the current PDFKit bugs in macOS are annoying, but not dangerous...bugs in splicing PDFs would be much worse).

Jon
Sonny Software

Thanks. I've played with it and figured it out. The issue is that I was always right-clicking to automatically resize, I didn't realize it was in the other contextual menu.

It is in the right-click contextual menu, but that's the wrong one to use. Use the Action popup menu (the button with the gear icon that contains all the Bookends commands). The option Automatically Resize is a toggle (checkmark on or off), the setting of which is remembered.

Jon
Sonny Software