Sunday, September 5, 2010

JPdfBookmarks 2.4.1

Hello, this is an important update to jpdfbookmarks, it adds many important features, I recommend to try it.

Version 2.4.1 now supports password encrypted PDF files, both user password and owner password, it means you can edit  bookmarks of PDF files protected by passwords (if you know them of course), and the password protection will be kept when you save the modified file maintaining the original passwords. It is not possible to add password encryption to files that don't have it already, or to remove it from files that have it with this version, probably this will be added in a future release. Be aware that during the execution a temporary unencrypted copy of the file is created  for the internal use of jpdfbookmarks during the program execution, it is deleted when you exit the applicaiton or close the file. Also the passwords are stored in memory unencrypted for the duration of the execution, so you are not prompted for the passwords each time you want to save the file.

Each bookmark can have now multiple actions associated with it, for example it can point to a page in the current PDF and open the browser to a certain address. This is supported also when parsing bookmarks text files, to add more than one action to a single bookmark you just add a new line without a title for example:
  

The blank space before the second action is only to align the two actions but is ignored by jpdfbookmarks.
In the graphic user interface if you try to set a new action on a bookmark you are now asked if you want to add the action to the bookmark or if you want to substitute it.


To see all the actions associated to a bookmark use the Actions button on the toolbar or the context menu.



It is also possible now to add bookmarks that open an arbitrary file on the system using the default associated application, for example you can open a text file that on Windows will be probably opened with Notepad and on Ubuntu with gedit.

Now a simple selection with mouse or keyboard will not activate the bookmarks anymore in jpdfbookmarks, you need a double click or to press ENTER or SPACE keys to activate them. I think this is better to work on bookmarks but if you prefer the old behavior you can modify it in the options dialog.

You can set bookmarks pointing to another PDF very easily using the "Open Linked PDF" action, this will create a clipboard shared by the two instances of jpdfbookmarks so that you can cut, copy and paste bookmarks between the two PDF files, the program automatically tries to create a relative path from the file where the bookmark is to the target file, so you should be able to pass the files to another system and the bookmarks should work fine assumed that the relative paths are maintained. 


To create a bookmark from a view in another PDF use the "Copy Linked" button, then go to the other file and paste on the bookmarks tree. 



I'm thinking to create some video tutorials for this features because they are definitely easier to show then to explain for me.

As usual I look forward to reading your feedback and bugs report, thank you.

4 comments:

GymGarner said...

I could not change zoom level in multi-bookmarks in 2.4.1.

Is this something that was lost as versions went forward from 1.2?

Thanx for a nice program.
Jim

flavianopetrocchi said...

Hello, thank you for posting. I think the easier way to accomplish this is to adjust one of the bookmarks to the zoom level wanted, then use the command Tools->Dump to dump all bookmarks to a text file. Adjust the zoom value of the other bookmarks to the same level of the one you adjusted in the gui, save the text file and then re-apply it to the pdf file using the command Tools->Load. If you need further assistance please use the forum. Best regards.

Anonymous said...

Very useful and convivial software. I searched for a long time how to export and import bookmarks from a pdf to another one.
Thank you very much for this very good job.
Janou from France...

Anonymous said...

hi.

your software is very useful

i'm trying to export bookmark structure from one to another pdf file

i tried the method you mentioned but all the bookmarks are appearing as individual bookmarks. (that is in the new file, the links between parent and child bookmarks have been broken and each is appearing as an individual