Red Software Blog

UPDATE: Red Software is no longer affiliated with PDFescape, but this feature is still available in our RAD PDF technology. Edit your PDF with our online implementation, free of charge!

At Red Software, we constantly receive requests for feature updates and improvements. One of the most common requests is for "Simplified field notation" support. Our free PDF editor, PDFescape, has had built in calculation support for some time, allowing addition, multiplication, averaging, mininmum, and maximum calculations.

Today, we're proud to announce support for "Simplified field notation", allowing custom formulas and more advanced PDF form field calculations. With this update, even simple scripts which use the advanced "Custom JavaScript Calculation" / "Custom Calculation Script" method will work properly in PDFescape.

See PDFescape's calculation features in action!

UPDATE: Red Software is no longer affiliated with PDFescape.

While our free PDF editor has been used by millions to alter PDF files and fill in PDF forms, a smaller number of PDFescape users have discovered PDFescape's PDF publishing service. This service allows you to upload a master copy of your file to our servers. We provide you with a link which creates a new copy of the PDF form or file each time it is clicked so that multiple users can each view or alter the your published document (without changing the master file or each others copies).

Typically, PDFescape publishing is for those looking to:

(1) Post a PDF form and collect responses via email

or

(2) Distribute a PDF file, but limit access to features in that file (or even the file itself)

Let's take a brief look at how to publish a PDF form in PDFescape:

(1) Log in to your PDFescape account. If you are an unregistered user, you will need to either complete the setup of your account or logout and then register for a new account.

(2) Navigate to the PDF publishing area of your account. There will be a "Publish" icon when in your main account area. If you don't have any "Publishing Credits", click the "Add" button in the upper right hand corner.

(3) Directly in your PDFescape account you can purchase PDFescape Publishing Credits. 1 Credit will allow a single PDF form or file to be hosted and distributed for one year. There are no per-user, per-click, or pdf-completion fees. If purchasing more than 1 credit, Red Software offers discount pricing. If you are publishing more than 50 files, please contact Red Software for additional pricing information.

(4) Once you have credits in your account, you're ready to publish a PDF form. Click "Publish New PDF Form" to get started.

(5) You will then be instructed to upload and publish your PDF form. This will deduct 1 Credit from your account and upload the form to our servers. Please note that once a form is published, it can't be changed, so be sure that the file you're uploading is the form you wish all users to see (complete with all desired form fields, links, modifications, etc.). We recommend opening your form in PDFescape first to confirm the file appears as desired. If you make a mistake, please contact support and we'll be happy to help you out.

(6) Once your file is published, you will be presented with a wide variety of options including where submitted copies of your form should be emailed to (if you wish users to submit forms to you). You can also limit access to certain features including the editing tools available, downloading of the document, printing, and even text selection. To distribute your document the "Published PDF URL" should be used. It can be used on your website, in emails, etc. and is in the format "http://www.pdfescape.com/published/?...".

For an example of a published PDF form, see http://www.pdfescape.com/published/?83

UPDATE: Red Software is no longer affiliated with PDFescape, but this feature is still available in our RAD PDF technology. Edit your PDF with our online implementation, free of charge!

PDFescape, the free PDF editor, now supports radio, list box, and drop down (combo box) form fields, in addition to the text field and check box field types already supported.



New files opened on PDFescape will automatically support these types of form fields.

PDFescape not only makes it easy to edit PDF files, but also allows its users to fill out PDF forms quickly and completely.

As always, this update to PDFescape is free of charge.

UPDATE: Red Software is no longer affiliated with PDFescape, but this feature is still available in our RAD PDF technology. Edit your PDF with our online implementation, free of charge!

As both a free PDF editor and an online PDF form filler, PDFescape is constantly being improved and updated. Fortunately, unlike other PDF readers that must be downloaded and installed, these updates are seamlessly presented to our loyal web users directly, without any updates for them to install!

Being a service in BETA, it is important that we continue to keep implementing PDF form standards into PDFescape, as such, we are pleased to announce that PDFescape now formats the display of select form fields.

or example, PDF form fields which format the number 5 into the currency representation $5.00 will now be properly displayed in both Adobe Reader & PDFescape (as well as when printed from PDFescape).



To try this feature, please open our sample file.

Along side the already implemented PDF JavaScript capabilities of PDFescape (such as form field calculations), PDF forms posted online to PDFescape are even more usable.

UPDATE: Red Software is no longer affiliated with PDFescape, but some of these features are still available in our RAD PDF technology. Edit your PDF with our online implementation, free of charge!

Today PDFescape has received a number of improvements to its free PDF editing software.

First, PDFescape now features support for PDF form fields which calculate values. This improvement not only allows users filling out PDF forms to have a more enriched experience when filling out forms, it allow will allow PDF form distributors to create and email out PDF forms which allow for fewer mistakes when filling a PDF form.

Here is a sample PDF form which demonstrates this new feature. At this time, PDFescape supports all of the standard PDF calculations including sum, average, product, min, and max.

Second, PDFescape now supports the opening of PDF files which are password protected. Password protected PDF files previously had to be unencrypted prior to being opened in PDFescape. PDFescape will now prompt users when a password is required and decrypt the PDF for them.

Because we care about your privacy as much as we care about our own, all passwords submitted when decrypting a file using PDFescape are securely erased once the PDF file has been opened.

Last, but not least, frequent users of PDFescape will notice that PDFescape is now faster and more responsive, especially with large files or files with many form fields. Thanks to some PDFescape engine overhauls, the graphical user interface of our PDF editor is quicker than ever.