PDF Enhancer is one of those tools that can do a little bit of everything. While the landscape of PDF manipulation tools is a pretty crowded place, PDF Enhancer stands out. I ran several hundred PDF's through it and was pleasantly surprised at how well it performed on my 1.5GHz Aluminum PowerBook G4. These PDF's ranged in size from a 20KB to 60MB, spot colors, CMYK, RGB and all sorts of combinations in between. A few of the files were what I would call “PitStop killers”. That is, files that PitStop Server either crashed on or could not process in a reasonable amount of time (less than 2 hours each). Those files PDF Enhancer sucked up and spit right back out. Three of the interesting things that PDF Enhancer has is built in hot folder support, its ability to rename files on output, and merging of PDF's.
There are six windows to PDF Enhancer: PDF Enhancer, Queue Monitor, Target Manager, Layout Manager, Stamp Manager, and the Enhancer Editor.
The PDF Enhancer window lists all of the Enhancers available on the system. You can drag and drop a folder full of PDF's or a selection of PDF's. This is also where you would manage your Enhancers. There are a number of pre-built Enhancers. Within each Enhancer are the targets, the specifics of the workflow. Each enhancer can have a number of different targets leaving you a great amount of flexibility in customizing workflows for very specific needs.
In the Enhancer window you will see all of the Targets available, select the Targets to apply, and manipulate the folder structures for organizing incoming, error, and outgoing files. I find it intriguing that you can append a suffix to files coming in, files that generated errors and the final output.
The Target Editor is where all the fun really begins. There are an impressive number of options for each of the targets that brings to mind the “kitchen sink” approach. If you are processing or repurposing PDF's for any number of different intents, there is something in here for you. For the graphic arts segment, of notable significance for me is the color management features. While other programs rely on the host operating system for color management and generally only deal with one rendering intent, PDF Enhancer uses a more robust system. It separates out vector and raster images for processing. Beyond that even is the ability to take advantage of black point compensation, preserving ink/color purity and protecting special colors. This behavior is very much like a color server which no other program in this segment provides. Not to ignore those who use PDF's for presentations or other multimedia purposes there are a host of features here for you too. Changing the page layout, magnification, setting page transitions and timings are a couple of the features. If you need to resize pages, change page boxes or scale pages there are also features for that. Other features include stamping, metadata, security and rasterization. In the Stamp window there are a number of stamps that can be applied and saved in a library. Depending on your needs you can apply metadata to the PDF's and synchronize the XMP information with document information. You can add either Acrobat 3 or Acrobat 5 compatible security features automatically. The ability to rasterize a PDF could come in handy for a number of different environments. There are several controls available for this, including color space, resolution and text settings. You are given several options for how the PDF is rasterized which enable preserving the text of the document. If you work with PDF Enhancer Server or Advanced server you can export the Targets as .PEC files for use with those versions. Also, the .PEC files can be used with Graduals' CaslonFlow or Switch family of products when running PDF Enhancer Server or Advanced Server.
If you are in a print for pay, digital print environment or need simple impositions PDF Enhancer can help you too. You can apply a number of different layouts, step & repeat, n-up, and saddle stitch. Once you define a layout you can add it to its library. Take business cards for example. You can take in a standard business card in, convert it to CMYK for your digital copier and then step and repeat it 10 up on a sheet. PDF Enhancer can even add crop marks or a frame.
Stamp manager will allow you to create all sorts of watermarks and other digital stamps to add to files that PDF Enhancer processes.
Let's not forget about the hot folders. With PDF Enhancer you get three hot folders that can be activated. As if there aren't enough interesting things that PDF Enhancer can do it also allows for creating of droplets, system services and folder actions. I don't think you'll find such features in any other tool in its class. As I said, there are a number of tools in the market but none that I've seen have been as feature rich. Getting used to the interface may take a little bit effort. Specifically, the way the Enhancers are layered with the targets and setting up the folders. After a few minutes of fuddling around it became familiar and easy to work in. The more and more that I have used PDF Enhancer the more I have grown to love it. It really is a very friendly and feature rich program that is very flexible. While it won't replace tools like PitStop Server, and it is not intended to, it does make an excellent companion to it and your workflow in general. PDF Enhancer encompasses many useful features that just about anyone can find use for and realize value in.
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