News (old)

Due to a typo, BeCyPDFMetaEdit always rounded the automatically updated creation/modification dates for a document down to the next even day. The current build version fixes that.

After the minor update BeCyPDFAsm 1.23, the application allows to cache remote files in local temporary files prior to job processing. This caching can improve the performance for PDF compositions with large source files that are supplied via an intranet.
When caching is activated, the application automatically distinguishes local files from remote files based upon their path names. More precisely, the following path names will be considered as remote and are subjected to caching: UNC path names and path names with a network drive as their root.

Unfortunately, I have not noticed an improper rendering of the website in IE 7.0 until now. After a short descent into the "browser hell", at least FF 2.0, IE 6.0 and IE 7.0 should deliver correct screen display and printer output now.

Suggested by some friendly feedback, the current version of BeCyPDFAsm 1.22 fixes a bug concerning the loading of PDF compositions. For compositions with an empty footer, the loading caused the footer setting to change to page numbering. This error was restricted to the loader so existing composition files can be used without resaving them.

I have got one more update before other things require my full attention: BeCyPDFMetaEdit 2.35. As requested, an option to automatically set the creation date has been added. For consistency reasons, this caused an incompatible change concerning the command-line: The flag -m has been removed. The modification date is no longer updated without explicitly giving -Modified. In order to set the modification date to the current time one can now specify -Modified "auto". The last new feature to mention is the extended repair mode. Now, (partial) reconstructions of documents are possible even if huge parts of the source file are damaged/unreadable.

One never finishes learning: The creation of short path names can be disabled for NTFS volumes. This could cause BeCyPDFAsm to fail when passing path names containing spaces to mbtPdfAsm. The new minor update fixes this problem (thanks to the person who notified me of this). Additionally, the support for "Send to" allows for a better shell integration.

Looking at the graphical user interface of the updated BeCyPDFMetaEdit one will hardly notice any difference except for the fact that read-only documents can be opened now. The essential changes are all dedicated to the command-line. First, a flag to enable recursive processing of sub directories has been added. Second, a completely new function called summary mode has been integrated which allows to embed general information about a PDF document into a user-defined text file.

After some longer pause, BeCyPDFAsm 1.20 is the first interesting update getting released that is again inspired by its users. Now, all dialog settings can be saved into files for later reusage. Furthermore, a little assistent has been added to help reconstructing double-sided documents which have been separated into odd and even pages by a scanner.
Finally, I have to thank Massimo Crisantemo for his ongoing support to localize the application into Italian!

Unfortunately, I currently do not have time to realize bigger updates, so again there are only a few changes concerning BeCyPDFMetaEdit to announce. Besides some bugfixes, the new release allows to change the PDF version of a document which might be useful to suppress the warning message of older PDF viewers when opening a newer document. Furthermore, the application now supports Drag&Drop from the shell to open documents. Using the modifier keys from the keyboard, one can also controll the editing mode for the document to be opened.

A request that could be handled quickly: The newest minor update for BeCyDialog allows to enable the minimize box in the dialog title bar via the new general option --minimize. However, note that this option is ineffective if used in combination with --no-close.

A user informed me, that the font used in my dialog-based applications does not support ClearType. Therefore I have uploaded new release versions of the affected tools in order to solve the problem. This change is basically of importance for owners of LCD monitors that can expect a better readability.

Not even a week after the last minor update, I had to fix another problem: The new release version of BeCyPDFMetaEdit fixes a bug introduced with version 2.30. The seldom bug caused an improper saving of documents when using incremental update and was most properly noticeable by viewer preferences that could not be cleared.

Again a user was so kind to tell me about some little (beauty-)problems in BeCyPDFMetaEdit. The current minor update 2.32 supports a new command-line parameter to specify the desired editing mode when opening documents. This allows a document to be opened for complete rewriting even when opened via the shell. Furthermore, the application now always prompts for a password if a document is encrypted to ensure one can always enter the owner password and regain full access to the document.

The newest minor update for BeCyPDFMetaEdit fixes a bug concerning improper reading of certain special characters in strings and also supports old-school named destinations.

As a response to the suggestions of a user, a minor update is released today:
The BeCyPDFAsm now wraps the options to rotate pages and to specify an owner password.

Some ToDo's less... Now, the new version 2.30 of BeCyPDFMetaEdit cannot only perform incremental updates but also a complete rewrite of a PDF file. This allows the application to change passwords and permissions of an encrypted document and to offer a repair mode for damaged documents. Furthermore, the page transitions for a slide show presentation can be customized. Some enhancements to the GUI and several bugfixes are also included in this update.

Three years after I discontinued the English edition of my website due to missing demand on the one hand and my spare time on the other hand, things tell me to revise my decision. It all started one and a half years ago, when a friend of mine asked my to write a nice GUI frontend for this very helpful PDF tool mbtPdfAsm. Since Thierry Schmit, mbtPdfAsm's author, is a French, he was the first who really asked for an English BeCyHome and he was not the last. And now, I finally found some time to localize stuff.
Currently, there is only one of my tools available in English, but I hope to find the time to localize some of the others, too.