About as good as Preview (but not free) — not even close to Acrobat Pro

New PDF Expert 2 features that don’t seem to work for me:
- the ability to edit annotations made in another app (e.g., Preview, Acrobat, etc.). When I did this in PDF Expert 1, it automatically applied a (red) border of the text box when I click on it — annoying. In PDF Expert 2, it applies a red border to the bottom of the annonation and then the app immediately crashes. (I’ve reported it).

Points in favor of PDF Expert 2
- Handoff between iOS and OS X. That actually improves one of my workflows. You definitely don’t get that with Preview or Acrobat Pro.
- Frequent updates and improvements (Preview and Adobe Acrobat are AWFUL about this).
- Updates that address my my previous complaints(!): For instance: (1) chaning highlighting color was made easier, (2) the ability to move sidebars was added, (3) the ability to edit the PDFs text was added, etc.

Stuff that I still can’t do in PDF Expert 2
- the ability to scroll through PDF while changing name of PDF, adding Finder tags, etc — i.e., when the “rename” prompt is covering the PDF.
- see nested bookmarks (or table of contents): nested items do not show up in bookmark sidebar (and they do in Preview, Acrobat, etc.); only the first level of contents/bookmarks show up.
- the ability to search for specific strings of letters (e.g., searching “aid” returns said, etc. Preview allows searches to search with quotes to search only for ‘aid’ — i.e., by typing “aid” into search box)
- the ability to replace a section of highlighting with highlighting of a different color by simply re-highlighting something in a different color. As it is, PDF Expert 2 *blend* the two colors instead of replacing one color with the new color. (This can easily be done in Preview and it’s crucial to my workflows).
- better features: OCR, compression, metadata and hidden data removal, etc.

Stuff I want from PDF Expert
- keyboard shortcuts for each highlighting color (e.g., ⌘⌅Y for yellow, ⌘⌅B for blue, etc.)
- less reliance on sidebars.
- an explanation of whether PDF Expert improves upon Preview’s more hidden (but still sort of famous) issues. E.g., Preview’s memory leaks, Preview’s proclivity to drastically increase the size of a PDF (e.g., 3mb PDF turns into a 12mb PDF when it is opened and then saved by Preview, etc.)
- [another thing that Readdle addressed with an update]

The Verdict(s)?
- Overall, Preview and PDF Expert are tied (even though each does a few things that the other doesn’t), *but* Preview is free and PDF Expert 2 is not. So Preview wins.
- Acrobat Pro offers LOADS more features than PDF Expert 2, so Acrobat Pro wins by long shot!

There are two things PDF Expert 2 could do to compete with the available alternatives:
1. Outperform Preview (not just match it) so as to be worth paying for the app when a free alternative like Preview is available
2. Offer pro-level features to compete with Acrobat Pro. (It’s started to do this, but it’s got a ways to go: e.g., OCR, compression, hidden data, etc.).
3. Drastically reduce the price of PDF Expert 2 (to something that seems negligibly different than “free”) so that it compares better to Preview.

If (1) and (2) were done, I would recommend PDF Expert 2 to EVERYONE — even if the price stayed the same.

(Full disclosure: I’d love to recommend something besides Acrobat Pro. And I’d love to have an affordable, better alternative to Apple’s Preview. I really would. I really hope PDF Expert 2 affords me the opportunity someday.)

Byrd Nick about PDF Expert – Edit, Sign PDFs, v2.0.1