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[2021-01-11]
- PDF-ShellTools 3.4 released.
New in this release:
  • Favorite bookmarks functionality, with custom caption and virtual folder organization, added to the PDF-ShellTools Reader. Works as PDF bookmarks, where a page index and view destination can be targeted, but maintained externally.
  • Enhanced reader new tab interface, with access to the most recently used list and now also with a Windows Search field, to easily locate documents by searching with the Windows Search advanced query syntax. Provides also access to the new bookmark favorites list functionality. The thumbnails can now show a caption and its size can be changed.
  • The Reader pinned documents now remember the last page index and view.
  • Merge functionality added to the Reader, to easily merge opened documents.
  • Open width shell menu functionality now available from the preview handler and the Reader tabs.
  • The Reader, when pinned to the Windows Task Bar, provides now a recent opened documents jump list and a task to open the manager.
  • View image, to extract and show PDF image objects in a new tab, functionality added to the Reader.
  • Text read out loud added to the Reader tool.
  • Adds support to the JPEG 2000 image file format, so it can now use this image file format in any of the tools that can handle image files, such as the merge, stamp and reader tools.
  • The Split tool has now the option to delete the source file(s) after splitting.
  • The stamp tool can now show the preview of the document page on the stamp designer, instead of just showing a blank page. Useful when batch stamping similar documents, in order to more easily define the position of each stamp object.
  • Dynamic file renaming added to the stamp tool, so it can give a custom name to the PDF after stamping. Uses the same functionality of the file rename tool.
  • Bates number logging added to the stamp tool, so it can save, to an external text file, the range of bates numbers stamped on each document.
  • In the stamp tool, when the stamp object is a PDF document, it is now possible to define a list of source pages to use, instead of just a fixed page. Useful when different pages need to be stamped with different content. E.g. stamp a letterhead on the first page and a watermark on the rest of the pages.
  • The digital signing tool can now position the visible part of the signature by searching for a key word/phrase.
  • In tools where a list, interval or sequence of pages can be defined, it is now possible to set the page index reference to the the last page of the document, instead of the first one, so it is now possible to reference, e.g., the penultimate page of a document by typing _2 as the page index specified.
  • The merge and insert pages tools now have the possibility to define a number of copies, of each document specified pages, being merged/inserted.
  • Several bug fixes and other small improvements.

[2019-01-23]
- PDF-ShellTools 3.3 released.
New in this release:
  • The PDF-ShellTools Reader new tab interface has now a MRU (Most Recently Used) list, that shows thumbnails of the most recently opened documents, the user can click to easily reopen that document.
    It integrates also a Windows Search powered file explorer, that makes use of the Windows Search index database to populate the folders tree and files view and speed searching a document by indexed metadata.
  • The Windows Search Index browser has been enhanced with metadata filters and thumbnail views.
    It can now also be started standalone. The installer creates a specific program group shortcut for this. There is also a new my tool, named "Open in Windows Search Explorer", that can be activated to add its menu item to the PDF-ShellTools shell context menu, in order to open the WS Index explorer in the context folder.
  • Several bug fixes and other small improvements.

[2018-11-27]
- PDF-ShellTools 3.2 released.
New in this release:
  • The tools now include a built-in PDF reader. Multi-tab capable, able to read, and covert to PDF, other file formats. This first release also includes the possibility to add and edit bookmarks.
  • Thumbnail handler shell extension. Enables the Windows shell, or third party applications, to show thumbnails for PDF documents.
  • It is now possible to register the preview handler tools for other file types, extending the handy metadata edit, file rename and metadata capture functionality, directly from the preview pane, to these other file types.
  • "Last", "portrait" and "landscape" are now supported page selectors, that can be used by any of the tools that accept affected pages definition, i.e. rotate all the portrait pages, apply stamp the the last page, etc.
  • The rotate pages tool has now auto-deskew functionality.
  • 256-bit AES support added to the password security tool.
  • Skip colors and replace colors functionality added to the optimize images tool. Handy to remove image background colors or to put in evidence only one aspect of the image.
  • The tools can now convert to PDF any image format, if a WIC compatible codec for that format is registered in the system.
  • RenderToFile and RenderToImage methods added to the scripts page object. Used to rasterize a PDF page to a raster image format. To demonstrate this functionality, a PDF rasterize script is included. This script is useful to rasterize complex to render PDFs, in order to reduce the file size, make it quicker to open in the reader, etc.
  • DialogBox method added to the scripts API PDFE root object. Used to ask the user for input with a properties dialog, with support for input fields, property selectors, check boxes and check list boxes.
  • Clipboard object property added to the scripts API PDFE root object. Used to interact with the Windows clipboard.
  • UseSourceDPI and DefaultDPI parameters added to the merge and insert pages tools command line interface.
  • New "don't change file timestamps" extra option added to some of the tools, in order to keep the file creation and modification file system timestamps when modifying the source pdf file, i.e. rotate pages, set password security, etc.
  • Several bug fixes and other small improvements.

[2017-01-25]
- PDF-ShellTools 3.1.1 released.
New in this release:
  • Fixes a bug that was making the tools help infotips showing garbled text for some languages.
  • The split tool was producing broken PDFs when using the option "keep bookmarks".
  • The extract images tool can now be used to extract images from other file formats, such as: .cbz, .cbr, .epub, .xps, .oxps, .docx, .pptx and .xlsx. It can also extract frames from animated GIFs and individual pages from multi-page TIFFs.

[2017-01-10]
- PDF-ShellTools 3.1 released.
New in this release:
  • For increasingly stability, the preview handler tools now run on its own out-of-process server.
  • File renaming functionality added to the preview handler tool, with an optional filename field showing on its metadata pane. Useful for situations when the Windows Explorer complains the renaming is not possible because the file is locked in the preview handler.
  • Enhancements added to the find duplicates tool, now with dynamic selectors to easily select the files to delete, based in custom defined rules such as newest/oldest modification date, higher/smaller filename length, or any other characteristic that can be defined by a custom script.
  • When converting images to PDF, with the merge and insert pages tools, it is now possible to use the image DPI information to properly scale the page, or define a default DPI value for images without embedded DPI information.
  • The Windows Search index browser tool can now browse any of the indexed file types in the Windows Search index, not just PDF.
  • Embedded files property added to the My Scripts API, to access any other PDF embedded files not included in the list of attachments.
  • Annotations property added to the My Scripts API, to access PDF annotations, at a specific page, or entire document, and by annotation type.
  • Enhancement of the My Scripts API PDFE object echo method, now with options to append, replace or clear the console, and colors support added for scripts output when running from the command line interface.
  • The My Script functions, used in tools such as the InfoEdit, rename and find duplicates, can now define customizable parameters the user can then easily configure from the function parameters panel, when defining the function call. This functionality is demonstrated in the HasAttachments and the new HasAnnotations and FileHash sample functions, and some of the new find duplicates dynamic select scripts.
  • Various bug fixes and other small improvements.

[2016-06-14]
- PDF-ShellTools 3.0 released!
New in this release:
  • A new shell extension. The PDF filter handler metadata properties extender, to extend the installed PDF filter with all the custom defined metadata properties.
  • Optimize images tool, able to color convert and resample the document images, to reduce the file size.
  • Barcodes stamp object added to the stamp tool. To stamp 1D, 2D and composite type barcodes, such as Code 128, Data Matrix, QR Code, etc.
  • The stamp tool dynamic text functionality can now also use custom scripts to generate the dynamic value. This dynamic data functionality is also shared by the new barcode stamp object, so barcodes can also be generated dynamically.
  • Parameters filler helper added to the My Tools functionality.
  • The InfoEdit property sheet handler extension can now edit all the defined metadata properties and use advanced edit expressions to make reference not only to static text but also other metadata fields content and dynamic generated data functions and scripts.
  • Bookmarks optimization added to the merge and delete pages tools, in order to keep only the relevant bookmarks, when target pages are no longer included in the new document.
  • Adds the possibility to use the My Scripts API from an external host, such as the Windows Script Host, MS Office tools or any other technology that can instantiate COM/ActiveX objects.
  • Many bug fixes and other small improvements.

[2015-12-22]
- PDF Explorer 1.5.66.2 released
Bugs fix release, that also adds:

[2015-12-15]
- PDF-ShellTools 2.6.3 released!
Bugs fix release, that also adds:
  • Split by top-level bookmarks functionality added to the split/extract pages tool.
  • The My Scripts API Bookmark object has now a DestPageIndex property that returns the bookmark destination page index.
  • Some missing parameters, related to functionality added in previous releases, to the command line interface of the Merge and Insert pages tools.

[2015-11-03]
- PDF Explorer 1.5.66.1 released
Minor bug fixes and adoption of a slightly different versioning schema.

[2015-10-28]
- PDF-ShellTools 2.6.2 released
Minor bug fixes release.

[2015-09-01]
- PDF Explorer 1.5.0.66 released
This is mainly a maintenance, bug fix, release.
Also adds:
  • Attachments and Bookmarks handling to the My Scripts API.
  • Two scripted functions (HasBookmarks and HasAttachments), ready to use in the file renamer, edit info fields and find duplicates tool.
  • Two new sample scripts.
  • Possibility to select, as internal PDF reader, a NPAPI PDF reader by path, instead of being limited to just the ones that are registered in the system.

[2015-08-31]
- PDF-ShellTools 2.6.1 released!
Maintenance release that fixes several bugs.
Also adds:
  • Attachments and Bookmarks handling to the My Scripts API.
  • Two scripted functions (HasBookmarks and HasAttachments), ready to use in the file renamer and find duplicates tool.
  • Two new sample scripts.

[2015-06-17]
- PDF Explorer 1.5.0.65 released!
New in this release:
  • The GUI is now high DPI aware (i.e. the program GUI scales accordingly to the screen DPI and system font size). Per-monitor on Windows 8.1 and up.
  • Optimize images tool, able to color convert and resample the document images, to reduce the file size.
  • Option to automatically add a blank page, while merging documents with a odd number of pages. This ensure each merged document starts at a new page.
  • The My Scripts API now implements the setters of the page boxes (MediaBox, CropBox, etc.) and rotation angle.
  • Close method added to the IFileObject of the My Scripts API. To close any file open handle, so the respective PDF file could be moved, deleted or edited by the script itself or another process, while the script is still running.
  • KeepAlwaysOnTop parameter added to the BringWindowToFront method of the My Scripts API.
  • Many bug fixes and other small improvements.

[2015-04-28]
- PDF-ShellTools 2.6 released!
New in this release:
  • The GUI is now high DPI aware (per-monitor on Windows 8.1 and up), i.e. the GUI scales accordingly to the screen DPI.
  • On multi-monitor systems, the tool dialog window will open at the monitor where the mouse is.
  • ConvertImagesToBW command line function. To convert PDF color images to black and white, or grayscale. Mainly used to reduce PDF file size.
  • Show console window option added to the My Tools functionality.
  • Close method added to the IFileObject of the My Scripts API. To close any file open handle, so the respective PDF file could be moved, deleted or edited by the script itself or another process, while the script is still running.
  • Some bug fixes and other small improvements.

[2015-02-18]
- PDF-ShellTools 2.5 released!
New in this release:
  • My Tools - The versatility of the command line interface, to pre-configure the tools functions, directly available from the Shell context menu, i.e. create a menu item to rotate the PDF pages with a specific angle or to stamp a specific pre-created stamp, etc..
  • Possibility to have the metadata edit pane, of the preview handler tools, in a stand alone window.
  • Backup and restore settings functionality added to the manager, as well as the possibility to define any user specific settings as the default settings for all the users.
  • Command line parameter to specify the shell extension handlers to register at install time.
  • Possibility to define a custom metadata property as of multi-values type.
  • Many bug fixes, especially in the scripting API, and other small improvements.

[2014-10-28]
- PDF-ShellTools 2.4.1 released!
New in this release:

[2014-10-22]
- PDF-ShellTools 2.4 released!
New in this release:
  • Preview handler tools - view, edit and capture metadata, directly from the Windows Explorer preview pane. Easily fill the metadata properties, extracting text or OCRing page snapshots of the text to extract.
  • Command line interface added to the extract images tool.
  • Command line interface added to the My Scripts tool.
  • The My Scripts API now implements the setters of the page boxes (MediaBox, CropBox, etc.) and rotation angle.
  • BatesStartNum parameter added to the Stamp tool, to define the bates numbering start number directly from the command line.
  • Fix several issues that occur when installing, or running, from a standard user (not administrator) Windows account.
  • Many bug fixes and other small improvements.

[2014-05-06]
- PDF Explorer 1.5.0.64 released!
New in this release:
  • Access to cloud-stored PDFs, from services such as Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive, added to the DBRemote scanning mode.
  • Scripting functionality added to the find duplicates tool. It provides the possibility to define more specific compare strategies, other than the simple metadata comparison available previously.
  • It's now easy to share a My Scripts script with the import and export functions added to the My Scripts editor.
  • A custom field definition can now have spaces, and other special characters, to specify any of the path field names.
  • Possibility to put the PDFInfo preview panel to occupy the full height of the program, instead of just the height of the grid as previously. This is done from the right-click menu of the button that opens this panel.
  • Many bug fixes and other small improvements

[2014-03-04]
- PDF-ShellTools 2.3.1 released!
Fix two important bugs in the property handler and adds small enhancements to the Windows Search index browser tool.

[2014-02-19]
- PDF-ShellTools 2.3 released!
New in this release:
  • Windows Search tools, to manage the Windows Search PDFs metadata indexation, are now available from the manager.
  • It's now easy to share a My Scripts script with the import and export functions added to the My Scripts editor.
  • Many bug fixes, with an important one in the 64-bit version of the property handler.

[2014-01-27]
- PDF-ShellTools 2.2 released!
New in this release:
  • Document JavaScripts tool, to add, delete and edit PDF JavaScript actions to events such as: document open and close events, page show or hide events, mouse events on page elements or interactive form fields validate, format or calculate events. It includes command line interface.
  • The stamp/watermark tool has now a new type of stamp object. Named multimedia is used to add Flash SWF animations, MP3 audio, Flash FLV's and H.264 video. Useful to add animated logos, audio and video content. The content can be embedded or remotely accessed (e.g. YouTube videos). Supports the creation of play lists for audio and video content. Supports JavaScript event actions.
  • The rotate tool is not limited to rotation angles of 90-degrees increments anymore. Any angle is now suitable, adding deskew possibilities to the tool.
  • Possibility to dynamically specify the bookmark names added to the merge/rearrange and insert/append tools, with access to document metadata, numbering and script functions.
  • The attachments tool can now search for other embedded files, that are not marked as attachments.
  • Export to CSV functionality added to the find duplicates tool.
  • Added support to the password protection Adobe standard security algorithm revision 6, so it can now work with password protected PDFs created by Acrobat X, and up.
  • MergeBlankPage method added to the merger object of the the My Scripts API.
  • As usually, includes many bug fixes and other small improvements.

[2014-01-15]
- PDF Explorer 1.5.0.63 released!
New in this release:
  • Expression composer, identical to the used in the batch rename tool, added to the edit info fields batch tool. With it it is possible to better use the built-in text manipulation functions and, more importantly, preview how the new metadata will look like for each of the files.
  • Fix critical bugs in the task automation folders tool, and web interface tool.
  • Fix several tools problems that where happening with multi–byte character set languages, like Chinese, Japanese etc.

[2013-12-19]
- PDF Explorer 1.5.0.62 released!
New in this release:
  • Document JavaScripts tool, to add, delete and edit PDF JavaScript actions to events such as: document open and close events, page show or hide events, mouse events on page elements or interactive form fields validate, format or calculate events.
  • The stamp/watermark tool has now a new type of stamp object. Named multimedia is used to add Flash SWF animations, MP3 audio, Flash FLV's and H.264 video. Useful to add animated logos, audio and video content. The content can be embedded or remotely accessed (e.g. YouTube videos). Supports the creation of play lists for audio and video content. Supports JavaScript event actions.
  • The rotate tool is not limited to rotation angles of 90-degrees increments anymore. Any angle is now suitable, adding deskew possibilities to the tool.
  • Possibility to dynamically specify the bookmark names added to the merge/rearrange and insert/append tools, with access to document metadata, numbering and script functions.
  • The attachments tool can now search for other embedded files, that are not marked as attachments.
  • Export to CSV functionality added to the find duplicates tool.
  • Added support for PDF reader NPAPI plugins (the type of plugins used by browsers such as Firefox, Opera and Chrome) to be used as the internal PDF reader.
  • Added support to the password protection Adobe standard security algorithm revision 6, so it can now work with password protected PDFs created by Acrobat X, and up.
  • GetShareFileURL function added to the web interface API. Used to generate a URL that grants guest access to documents in user restricted access folders.
  • MergeBlankPage method added to the merger object of the the My Scripts API.
  • As usually, includes many bug fixes and other small improvements.

[2013-03-21]
- Patch 3 for PDF Explorer 1.5.0.61 released.

Fix important bugs in the image extractor and add digital signature tools, and many more of minor importance.
Also adds a InfoEdit validator script functionality that enables the possibility to validate/process the edited metadata before it is saved.


[2013-03-19]
- PDF-ShellTools 2.1.3 released!
Maintenance release to fix several bugs.

[2013-03-05]
- Patch 2 for PDF Explorer 1.5.0.61 released.
Maintenance release, that fixes a long list of bugs but that also adds some enhancements.

[2013-01-29]
- PDF-ShellTools 2.1.2 released!
This release fixes essentially this two bugs:
  • The column handler now works on 64-bit Windows.
  • Windows Explorer alike tools (64-bit) were crashing, when showing the context menu for PDF files or at the closing of the program.

[2013-01-25]
- Patch 1 for PDF Explorer 1.5.0.61 released.
This is essentially a bug fix release, that also adds some minor enhancements.

[2013-01-24]
- PDF-ShellTools 2.1.1 released!
This is a patch release that fix a myriad of bugs.

[2013-01-17]
- PDF Explorer 1.5.0.61 released!
New in this release:
  • Add signature tool, to digitally sign PDF documents.
  • Renewed Extract Images batch tool, now able to extract also entire page renderings.
  • The Images View has now a thumbnails zoom selector, and the possibility to extract also entire page renderings.
  • Renewed Rename batch tool, now with the possibility to use functions for numbering, search/replace and dates in the composition of the new file name, that can be previewed before applied.
  • Possibility to add event actions (such as: open a web link, run a JavaScript or play a sound) to any of the stamp objects of the Stamp/Watermark tool.
  • PDF type stamp objects have now the possibility to be previewed in place, while designing the stamp.
  • The custom fields editor can now import metadata fields settings from the document metadata info object, that are not included in the document XMP metadata stream.
  • More functionality added to the My Scripts API.
  • The Edit Info Fields and Search & Extract batch tools have now the option to edit the metadata only in the database.
  • While using scripted functions, in the Rename and Edit Info Fields batch tools, part of the expression can be passed as parameter.
  • All the new tools have now dedicated chapters added to the user's guide.
  • Includes also many bug fixes and other small improvements.

[2013-01-08]
- PDF-ShellTools 2.1 released!
New in this release:
  • Scripting functionality added to the Rename tool.
  • More functionality added to the My Scripts API.
  • The Windows Search indexer was not indexing custom defined metadata properties, in 32-bit Windows.
  • Many other small bug fixes and general improvements.

[2012-12-12]
- PDF-ShellTools 2.0.1 released!
This release includes essentially bug fixes.

[2012-12-04]
- PDF-ShellTools 2.0 released!
New in this major version release:
  • Add Signature tool, to digitally sign our PDF documents.
  • A new powerful context menu tool, the My Scripts. This tool uses the Windows Automation technology to enable the custom creation of scripts, that have access to all the functionality of the technology (i.e. can run scripts developed for the Windows Script Host), plus PDF-ShellTools specific features. Code your own tool, with the embedded editor and debugger, in JScript or VBScript, or any other Active Scripting enabled language, and run it directly from the Windows shell context menu.
  • Find Duplicates tool, to easily find and manage document duplicates.
  • Extract Images tool, with drag&drop and batch extraction of image objects or entire page renderings.
  • Renewed Rename tool, now with the possibility to access all the metadata registered fields, plus functions for numbering, search/replace and to use dates in the composition of the new file name.
  • Possibility to add OnClick Actions (such as: open a web link, run a JavaScript or play a sound) to any of the stamp objects of the Stamp/Watermark tool.
  • PDF type stamp objects have now the possibility to be previewed in place, while designing the stamp.
  • The advanced custom fields editor can now import metadata fields settings from the document metadata info object, that are not declared in the document XMP metadata stream.
  • And, as usual with new versions, includes many bug fixes and other small improvements.

[2012-08-16]
- Patch 6 for PDF-ShellTools 1.0.0.13 released

This release includes essentially bug fixes.


[2012-08-13]
- PDFrizator 0.6.0.29 released!
Maintenance release to fix some annoying bugs introduced in the previous version.

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