Fabreasy PDFixer – Release notes

PDFixer is new, but its roots are not. Yellow Smile has been building pdf software under the Fabreasy name since 2012, and PDFixer brings parts of that work together in one program: placing signatures and text on existing pages, letterhead with continuation pages and cover pages, and turning a photo of a signature into a transparent one.

What changed in each version of Fabreasy PDFixer, newest first. Version numbers that are missing were internal builds that were never released.

1.0.3 – 19 September 2026

Changed

A PDF/A file stays PDF/A only if it still is after saving. Saving with a password turns it into a regular PDF, because PDF/A does not allow passwords. After an edit, PDFixer makes the document conform again; if that fails, it becomes a regular PDF. In both cases PDFixer tells you. Signing after “Save as PDF/A” keeps it PDF/A.
“Save with password” is now called “Secure save”, and with a certificate “Secure save, with my certificate”. The dialog also sets what the recipient may do, and the open password is optional.
Smaller files: text you add in a TrueType font now embeds only the characters you used instead of the whole font, typically about 20 kB instead of over 1 MB. Symbol fonts such as Wingdings are still embedded in full.
The demo letterhead now uses embedded Arial, so it looks the same in every pdf reader.
Save as PDF/A: ligatures such as “ti”, “ft” and “ff” now carry the right Unicode text, so they can be copied and searched.

Fixed

After a secure save without an open password, the message said the file could not be opened without a password. It now says that anyone can open it and only the restrictions are protected.
“Save as PDF/A” could produce PDF/A-2u the first time and PDF/A-2b after saving again for some forms.
A font that was selected in a document but never used to draw any text was still embedded in full in PDF/A, making an invoice grow from 48 to 267 kB. It is now 55 kB.
Letterhead set management: choosing another set while the list was scrolled down left a large grey area under the name.

1.0.2 – 14 September 2026

New

Save as PDF/A. Save a copy as an archival PDF/A file (PDF/A-2u, or PDF/A-2b when a font carries no Unicode information). The copy is only written if the conversion fully succeeds. Fonts that are not embedded are taken from your PC, or replaced by a metrically identical font for Arial, Times and Courier. If a font cannot be resolved, PDFixer tells you which one and saves nothing. Colours are anchored to an sRGB profile, and content that PDF/A forbids (scripts, actions, XFA forms) is removed. Results are checked with veraPDF.
If a document has attachments, such as the XML of an e-invoice, PDFixer asks whether to keep them (PDF/A-3, recommended) or remove them (PDF/A-2).
Very long pages, such as a web page printed as one continuous page, can also become PDF/A. The size on paper stays the same.
If a document cannot become PDF/A, the message explains why in your own language.

Good to know: PDF/A does not allow a password. A signature on the original is not carried over, so save as PDF/A first and sign afterwards.

Changed

An expired licence no longer closes PDFixer. You can still open and view documents; saving requires a licence.
Removing a white background now starts at half a page instead of 85%, so letterhead also shows through documents from report generators. The explanation next to the option now says exactly what it does.
Every saved file now carries a unique document ID, as the PDF standard recommends.

Fixed

In documents that draw each letter separately, copying or searching text could put the “@” of an e-mail address at the start of the line.

1.0.1 – 9 September 2026

Changed

Keyboard navigation works like Acrobat. Page Down and Space scroll one screen and continue onto the next page at the edge; Page Up and Shift+Space go back. Left and right arrows move a whole page, up and down scroll a few lines. Home and End go to the first and last page. When an object is selected, the arrow keys still move that object.
New shortcuts: Ctrl+1 for actual size, Ctrl+2 for fit width (next to Ctrl+0 for fit page), and Ctrl+G or Ctrl+Shift+N to go to a page number.
Calmer mouse wheel. Free-spinning wheels and touchpads no longer fly through the document. At the bottom of a page, only a new scroll movement turns the page, so you land at the top of the next page.

Fixed

If the licence server refuses a request, the message now shows the server’s reason instead of “no connection”.
The licence window no longer claims that the trial is shorter on a virtual machine.
Clicking away from a word you are editing now applies the change, like Enter. Only Escape cancels.
Deleting or moving a page is now part of undo. Before, undoing a later text edit could bring a deleted page back.
Undoing a text edit on a page that is not in view now jumps to that page and shows what was undone.
Long-term validation (LTV) now also works on documents saved with both a password and a certificate.

1.0.0 – 8 September 2026

The first stable release.

New

Open password-protected PDFs. PDFixer asks for the password. A document that opened with a password is saved with it again, and its permissions stay as they were, so saving never silently removes protection.
Secure save with AES-256 encryption. Choose exactly what the recipient may do: print, copy text, comment and sign, edit, fill in forms, assemble pages, and copy for accessibility. Restrictions use a second password that differs from the open password, so they cannot be lifted by anyone who can open the file. Note that permissions are a request to the PDF reader: Edge, Acrobat and Preview respect them, but only the open password truly locks a file.
Secure save with your certificate: a password and a digital signature in one step, in the right order.
Your own symbols. Next to the check mark and cross, keep up to eight symbols of your own: check marks, crosses, bullets, stars, arrows, and characters such as § © ® ™ € ±. They are stored as shapes, so they stay sharp at any size.
Place a symbol where you click. Choose a symbol, then click the spot on the page. Escape cancels.
Copy and paste placed objects with Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V.
Align and distribute. Drag a frame around placed objects to align them left or right, or to give them equal spacing from top to bottom.
The toolbar and the Save menu are now arranged in three groups: add to the page, apply to the whole document, and remove. Signing is the last item in the Save menu, because it is the last step.
A clearly visible, blinking cursor when you click on the page to type.

Changed

The portable version now runs where you unzip it; the “Quick setup” window is gone. For a permanent installation, use the Microsoft Store.
The trial status now reads “Trial: 14 days left”.
“Save with password”, “with my certificate” and “with password and certificate” suggest a new file name (such as “- signed”) instead of overwriting the original. Documents in a system folder are suggested in Documents instead.
Smart cards and USB tokens: the certificate picker remembers your last certificate, refreshes when a token is inserted, tells you when the manufacturer’s software is missing, and greys out certificates whose token is not inserted.
PrivacyMode now also hashes the Windows user name sent during the licence check. The new optional setting PrivacySalt adds an organisation secret to that hash. Set both before rollout: changing them after activation changes the identity of the installation.
The administrator setting BuyButton=0 now also hides the buy button, price and offer in the new interface. Language can now be set in HKLM as well as HKCU.
Smooth scrolling: redrawing a page is about forty times faster.
Selected symbols show only a frame. Resize handles are hidden when an object is too small to show them.
Arrow keys move objects by 1 point on paper (10 with Shift), whatever the zoom level.
The text box grows with your text instead of running to the page edge.

Fixed

Saving a signed document without changes no longer removes the signature. With changes, you choose between overwriting, saving as a new file, or cancelling. Save As warns in advance that the copy will not contain the signature.
You can now sign a document that is already signed. PDFixer explains that the existing signature is replaced.
A document saved with a password and a certificate is recognised as signed when you open it again.
Signing a document that was opened with a password now just works.
Secure save got stuck as soon as you restricted a permission.
Text on screen was drawn slightly narrower than in the saved file.
A symbol came out larger on paper than on screen.
Placed objects appeared twice after saving.
The English interface prefilled a form field with the Dutch word “Datum”.

0.9.8 – 1 September 2026

New

Type where you click. One click on an empty spot on the page and you can type straight away. Enter places the text, Escape discards it, clicking away confirms. The click marks the baseline, like a pen on a form line.
Formatting per piece of text. Make one word bold or change its size or colour within a sentence. Double-click selects a word, triple-click a line.
The formatting bar works live, and has a font button.
Insert today’s date with a button or Ctrl+; while typing. The format follows your Windows region settings; right-click to choose short, long or ISO.
Double-click text you placed to edit it again. Empty it to remove it.
Save and Save As from the sample file suggest your Documents folder.

Changed

Selecting placed text no longer shows a floating formatting bar; it appears when you double-click to edit.
Symbols start at checkbox size (about 8 mm).
The − and + buttons repeat when held down, with one undo step per press.

Fixed

A custom symbol came out larger on paper than on screen.
The symbol window opened as many times as symbols had been chosen.
Placed objects appeared twice after saving.
The signature clean-up preview now updates while you drag the slider.
Signature and stamp previews in the new interface were jagged.
The text field kept the previous text after placing it.
Text shrank a little with every placement, and new text started at the wrong size on scaled displays.
Larger text was cut off in the edit box.
A small upright character after large italic text overlapped the last letter.
Words of different sizes are now aligned on a shared baseline.
The date button reset the formatting of the whole text.
Typed text jumped down when pressing Enter.
The tip bar under the page cut off its second line in longer languages.

0.9.7 – 25 August 2026

New

Edit the text of a PDF. Double-click a word to change it, keeping the original font, including embedded fonts. If a font lacks the characters you type, PDFixer uses the same font from your PC first (Calibri stays Calibri) and only then a standard font. The rest of the line moves along when a word gets longer or shorter; table columns stay in place.
Change bold, italic, size and colour of an edited word.
Delete a whole paragraph (right-click) or everything inside a selection (Ctrl+drag).
Object layer: right-click page content to see which images, text blocks and shapes lie under the mouse, and delete, move or replace them.
Undo for editing is eight steps deep.
A warning before you edit a digitally signed document.
Sign with your own certificate, per document, via “Save with my certificate”. One list shows smart cards, USB tokens and certificates from the Windows certificate store; qualified (eIDAS) certificates are listed first. Signatures are PAdES with a timestamp and, where the network allows, long-term validation data.
Visible signature: a signature image from your library can become the appearance of the signature field. Recipients click it to see who signed and whether the document has changed since.
Cover pages from a letterhead set are visible before saving, so the page count and numbering match the result.

Changed

Signing a document with your own certificate no longer requires an extra licence.
A white background that hides letterhead is removed automatically and reported afterwards, instead of asking in the middle of the process. The option is set per letterhead set; administrators can enforce it with LetterheadWhiteFix (0 = off).
For scanned pages, “multiply” is now offered first: white becomes transparent so the letterhead shows without removing anything from the scan.
“Save as PDF 2.0 (Brotli compression)” is available as an option.
With a licence, the settings button reads “Manage licence”.

Fixed

An edited word could shrink to 96 points.
The certificate picker showed a Polish profile name for Certum cards.
A visible signature was not shown in PDFixer itself, only in other readers.
Letterhead: the white background was not removed in the new interface.
A valid licence briefly showed “Trial expired” at startup.

0.9.6 – 19 August 2026

New

64-bit, on a new PDF engine. PDFixer now uses its own PDF core with PDFium for display. It works the same, but large documents can use more memory, and the features below are built on it.
Search (Ctrl+F or the magnifier): live highlights, a counter, and next/previous across pages.
Text recognition (OCR) for scans adds an invisible text layer, so you can search, select and copy. Language data for Dutch, English, German and French is included.
Signature status: a bar above the page shows whether the document is signed and unchanged, with a details window.
PDF 2.0 with Brotli compression: such files open normally; saving in this format is available as a beta option.
Reset, export and import settings. Export creates one zip file with your settings, letterhead sets and their PDFs; import restores it on another PC. Licence and passwords are never included.
For IT administrators: the registry value ProvisionedSettings points to such a zip and imports it when it is newer, or at every start with ProvisionedSettingsAlways=1. For scripts: PDFixer.exe /import="\\server\path\settings.zip".
Third-party licences are listed under Settings.
The portable zip is tidy: PDFixer.exe at the top, everything else in lib. It leaves no traces on the PC.

Changed

Images, signatures, stamps and symbols keep their proportions when resized; hold Shift to distort.

Fixed

The sample file now has a file name in your language.

0.9.5 – 10 August 2026

New

New interface by default: tools on the left, the document in the middle, thumbnails on the right, and panels that appear when you need them. The classic layout is one click away on the start screen.
Tool panels can be open at the same time; older ones fold up when space runs out.
Print with Ctrl+P, with a page preview and access to the printer’s own preferences. What you see on screen is what gets printed.
Watermark: DRAFT, CONFIDENTIAL, COPY or your own text, diagonal or horizontal, with adjustable transparency.
Rotate images, and photos from a phone are automatically upright.
The twelve most recent files under the file button.
“Create transparent signature” in the top bar.
Tooltips on all icon buttons.
Saved texts are shared between the new and classic interface.
Zoom with plus, minus and 0.
Send feedback and rate PDFixer from the settings.

Changed

New start screen with the drop zone, recent files, and three ways to try PDFixer safely.
The program is now called “Fabreasy PDFixer”.
The trial watermark shows the web address and scales with the page.
Licence status in plain language, such as “12 days left”.

Fixed

On laptops with display scaling, the window could start taller than the screen.
The demo letterhead set now follows a change of interface language.
A rotated stamp came back small and upright on the next page.
Printing shrank every page to about 76%; it now fills the printable area.
Tool names disappeared on maximised windows at 150% scaling.
Changing the language updated only part of the interface.
Closing with unsaved work did not ask to save.
Rotating a page reset to 90° instead of adding up.
Placed objects did not rotate along with the page, and did not move along when pages were reordered, deleted or inserted.
Images inserted on landscape pages were stretched.
The watermark disappeared behind photos and stamps.
All form fields were named “Field”, so typing in one filled the others.
Scrolling moved the scroll bar but not the page.
Icons appeared as empty boxes on some PCs.

0.9.3 – 30 July 2026

New

Your licence key survives reinstalling PDFixer from the Microsoft Store.

Changed

Letterhead is now a standard feature, no longer a paid extra.
The start screen focuses on one goal: getting a PDF open, with your own file or the practice file.
The eyedropper for “Hide text” stays active and shows the colour under the cursor live.
The thumbnail column uses the full screen height.
Language, licence and settings are grouped at the top right.

Fixed

An empty grey bar covered the bottom thumbnails while inserting pages.
Labels overlapped the borders in the page numbering panel.

0.9.2 – 25 July 2026

New

Letterhead panel. Choose a letterhead set, see page 1 with letterhead live, and see clearly whether letterhead is on or off. Letterhead is added under the page content when you save, and cover pages as real pages; saving twice never adds it twice.
Manage sets: a set is a document with four slots: cover, page 1, page 2 onwards and back cover. Files are checked on import (multiple pages, too large, protected) and copied into the library, so sets keep working when originals move. Sets are shared with the other Fabreasy tools.
Administrators can hide the panel with the registry value LetterheadPanel.

0.9.1 – 24 July 2026

New

Signature practice on the start screen: turn a sample photo into a transparent signature and place it, step by step.
Page Down and Page Up move between pages.

Changed

An expired trial no longer blocks startup. You can work as usual; the licence window appears when you save.

Fixed

On low screens (such as a 1080p laptop at 150%), tools at the bottom fell off the screen; the column now scrolls when needed.
Letters with descenders (g, j) were cut off on high-DPI screens.
The page view now uses the full available height.

0.9.0 – 22 July 2026

Changed

More reliable licensing:
- Works offline for 30 days, with a gentle reminder to connect from day 20.
- A paid licence remains valid until its end date, even without contact with the server.
- Hardware changes such as a new SSD no longer invalidate the activation.
- “Deactivate” frees the seat immediately, and seats are released automatically after long inactivity.
- Virtual machines no longer get a shorter trial, and the clock check that failed behind strict firewalls is gone.
The licence check includes the PDFixer version number.

0.8.9 – 19 July 2026

New

Stamps: eight classic office stamps (APPROVED, REJECTED, DRAFT, PAID, CONFIDENTIAL, COPY, RECEIVED, URGENT) in all 14 languages, plus your own stamps with text and colour.
Each stamp remembers where you last placed it.
Rename a signature with the pencil button or F2.

Changed

Thumbnails update live with every change.
Sharper page display (200 dpi).
A more compact left panel, so everything fits on smaller screens.

0.8.8 – 17 July 2026

New

Text colour for inserted text, and a colour per saved text.
Take a photo with your webcam in the signature tool, with a fallback to the Windows Camera app.
A new signature goes straight into your library.
A mirror button fixes mirrored webcam photos.
Eyedropper for the colour of “Hide text”, for coloured backgrounds.
PDFixer asks once per new version whether to update now.

Changed

“Open in viewer” no longer fixes placed objects in place; you can keep editing afterwards.
Clearer steps and wording in the signature tool.
Line thickness option (Normal, Thicker, Extra thick) when cleaning up a signature.
Font, size and colour buttons apply to the selected text object.
Undo and redo keep working across pages and include arrow-key moves.
The close dialog offers Save, Don’t Save and Cancel.
Sharper signature preview.

0.8.7 – 15 July 2026

New

Start screen: drop a PDF or click to choose one, with a short guide on first use.
Drag and drop a PDF anywhere on the window.
The five most recent files on the start screen.
A practice PDF in your language (all 14 languages).
Multiple signatures and multiple saved texts, each with its own font.
Colour or black for check marks and crosses.

Changed

An opaque signature (a photo of paper) prompts an offer to make it transparent.
The sample sentence in the text box is in your language.
Actions that need a document are greyed out until a PDF is open.
A wait cursor while loading.
Remaining Dutch dialog texts are translated into all 14 languages.

Removed

“Scan page”, “Replace image” and “Replace text block”. Use “Hide text” and “Insert text” instead. Administrators can restore them with ScanTools=1.

0.8.5 – 14 July 2026

New

The signature tool guides you step by step: photo, crop, clean up, save.
Live colour preview on the signature.
Horizontal scrolling with Shift+wheel or a tilt wheel.

Fixed

Rotating a photo cropped it or added white edges; rotation is now lossless.
Cleaning up now makes a signature darker and sharper.
Button texts did not fit in 12 of the 14 languages.
The layout jumped at startup.

0.8.4 – 9 July 2026

Fixed

“Open in viewer” could open an empty Explorer window in the Store version.
Placed objects and text shifted slightly when saving.
Transparent signatures were placed stretched.
The chosen font did not end up in the PDF; bold and italic are now real font styles.

Changed

“View in PDF viewer” is now called “Open in viewer”.

0.8.3 – 8 July 2026

Fixed

“View in PDF viewer” failed in the Store version.
Placed text looked larger in the editor than in the saved PDF.

0.7.3 – 0.8.2 – June 2026

Available in the Microsoft Store, with automatic updates.
Automatic updates for the portable version.
Settings for IT administrators, set per user (HKCU) or enforced per machine (HKLM): AutoUpdate, BuyButton, Telemetry, ProvisionedKey and PrivacyMode.
Anonymous usage statistics to improve PDFixer: counters only, no personal data, file names or document content. Turn them off with Telemetry=0.
Saving first writes to a temporary file, so a failed save never damages the existing file.
On small or scaled screens, the whole interface scales down evenly.
PDFixer follows the Windows language unless you choose another.
New program icon.

0.1 – 0.6.4 – June 2026

First release: open, edit and save PDFs as a single program.
14 languages: English, Dutch, German, French, Spanish, Swedish, Polish, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Japanese, Simplified Chinese, Arabic and Turkish, detected from Windows.
Tool to turn a photo into a transparent signature.
Licence activation, including automatic activation for business rollout.
PrivacyMode: the machine name is sent only as a hash; support for Remote Desktop environments.
PDFixer verifies its own digital signature at startup.
Update check with a download button.

Before PDFixer – 2012 to 2026

PDFixer did not start from scratch. Since 2012, Yellow Smile in Delft has built Fabreasy PDF Creator and its tools for businesses that send pdf documents in their own corporate style. PDFixer took three parts from that work:

adding signatures, text, images and pages to an existing pdf: the first version of PDFixer was built on this Fabreasy tool;
the tool that turns a photo of a signature into a transparent image (since 0.5.0);
letterhead sets with a first page, continuation pages and cover pages, interchangeable with the other Fabreasy tools (since 0.9.2).

Since then, PDFixer has grown into a program of its own, and since version 0.9.6 it runs on its own 64-bit pdf engine.