ReadySetPDF v3.5

ReadySetPDF 3.5

See website for smaller revision updates - current: 3.53

Professional prepress for Windows. Version 3.5

What’s new in 3.5

Variable Data (Mail Merge / Stamp)

The VDP tab is a visual layout editor, not a coordinate form.

• Spreadsheet headers from CSV or Excel become sidebar tags (<<Column>>).
• Template preview shows the same page as the Real-Time Monitor. Use ◀ Page / Page ▶ or the mouse wheel; tags on page 2 stay on page 2 of every copy.
• Place fields by selecting a tag and clicking the template. Drag to move; right-click, Delete, or X to remove. Fields may hang past the trim so you can park a block in the bleed.
• Click Preview for a low-resolution merged-data window before you add the step to the stack.
• Output page count is template pages × rows that actually contain merge data. Blank spreadsheet rows are skipped. A 2-page postcard and 10 filled rows produce 20 pages (1, 2, 1, 2, …).

Address Block

City / State / ZIP no longer stack as three separate lines.

• Address Block… opens a setup window. Left labels are Field 1–4; the dropdowns are the spreadsheet column names (no duplicated labels).
• City, State, and ZIP sit on one line, formatted City, ST ZIP.
• The whole block is one object on the template. Double-click it to edit the column map.
• Headers such as Name, Address, City, State, and ZIP are guessed when the window opens; you can change any dropdown.

Rotate

• Rotation swaps the page box (90° / 270°). Pages are no longer scaled or cropped into the original width × height.
• Target All, Odd / Front, Even / Back, or a page list.

Grid and live preview

• On the Grid, Cutter, and Rotate tabs, the Real-Time Monitor updates while you edit, before you add the step to the stack.
• Column and row counts accept a comma or a period as the decimal separator.

Cutter / finishing marks

• Keep L-marks in all four corners, or add Round Dots (all corners), Registration Cross, or Registration L (one chosen corner).
• Target All, Odd / Front, or Even / Back for duplex collating.

Custom page sizes and locale

• Enter width × height as portrait (short × long). Landscape is the per-tool checkbox.
• Decimals may use , or . (8,5 and 8.5 both work). Do not type thousand separators.
• Edit, Up, and Down reorder or change saved sizes without deleting them.

OCR

• Export CSV and Export TXT are on the OCR tab (you no longer have to save a PDF recipe first).
• Oversized scan rasters are downsampled before Tesseract so large pages no longer fail with a leptonica size error.

Preview rulers

• Rulers follow the PDF page box (true trim size). They are not scaled from image DPI.

Tabs and UI

• Hover any tab for a short explanation of that tool.
• Footer and window title show Rev 3.5.

3.0 (update from 2.3)

v3.0 - The Compression & Export Upgrade

File Size Optimization Engine: Radically overhauled the PDF export engine to prevent file bloat caused by nested XObjects.

Aggressive Garbage Collection: Added garbage=4 and clean=True parameters to automatically purge duplicate resource dictionaries and unreferenced objects during export.

New Export UI Controls: Added a dedicated "File Size & Compression" section to the Export Dialog with two new toggles:

High-Yield Deflation Mode: Compresses uncompressed font and stream dictionaries.

Deep Image Stream Compression: Re-encodes raster images into optimized JPEG/Deflate passes.

Dual-Navigation Real-Time Monitor: Upgraded the preview window controls to allow paging through individual files (⏪ File / File ⏩), in addition to paging through the pages within a selected file.

Preview Merged Toggle: Added a "Preview Merged" checkbox to easily switch between viewing individual files or visualizing the entire stacked, merged document.

Global Suffix Exporting: Upgraded the Export Dialog's "individual PDFs" option to include a text entry box. The application now seamlessly processes and saves multiple files while preserving their original names and appending a custom suffix (defaulting to _readysetpdf).

Ruler Toggle: Introduced a "📏 Show Rulers" checkbox directly in the Real-Time Monitor control row, allowing the dynamic CAD measurements to be toggled on or off instantly for an unobstructed view of the proof.

Auto-Rotate Fix: Removed a rogue bounding-box reset command (page.set_rotation(0)) from the Resize pipeline. Landscape documents (such as maps) will no longer incorrectly snap to portrait orientations during resizing or imposition.

Grid Autoscaling: Exposed the previously hidden Autoscale and Maintain Aspect Ratio variables directly on the Grid tab UI. The grid engine now automatically shrinks or expands graphics to perfectly fit within the mathematical bounds of the generated columns and rows.

Bounding-Box Rotation: Rebuilt the Rotation matrix. Rather than blindly rotating the entire sheet canvas, the engine now rotates the actual graphic layer and proportionally scales it to fit safely inside the document's original bounding box.

Smart Tooltips: Integrated a custom tooltip class to provide floating hover instructions across the application, specifically targeting complex nomenclature fields like the Page Selector under the Rotate and Cutter tabs.

About & EULA Menu: Added a dedicated "ℹ️ About" button to the main header.

Liability Protection: Integrated a standard "AS-IS" Beta disclaimer to protect against liability for data loss or document corruption.

Open Source Attributions: Added a tab fulfilling the GNU AGPL v3.0 license requirements for PyMuPDF (fitz), alongside attributions for Tesseract, Pillow, and other integrated libraries.

CAD-Style Rulers: Built a dedicated drawing engine that overlays dynamic width and height measurement lines directly onto the live preview canvas.

Dynamic Unit Conversion: Rigged the ruler strings to strictly follow the global math engine, ensuring they accurately format and display the chosen unit suffix (in, mm, or pt).

Instant Redraws: Tied the Global Settings unit radio buttons directly to the canvas, so switching between measurement types instantly re-renders the preview window and updates the ruler numbers.

Canvas Padding: Increased the inner padding of the preview container from 40 to 100 pixels to comfortably accommodate the new dimension lines.

2.3

[2.3] - 2026-07-11 July 11, 2026

🚀 New Features & Enhancements

Background Processing (Multithreading): The Automation and Hot Folder tools now run on a dedicated background thread. You can now execute massive batch processes and OCR scans without freezing or locking up the main user interface. A new "Real-Time Dashboard" in the header tracks all background tasks.

Global Settings Menu: Added a dedicated ⚙️ Global Settings button to the main header, centralizing application preferences and color themes.

Universal Measurement Units: You no longer need to select units on every individual tab. You can now set your preferred unit (Inches, Millimeters, or Points) in the Global Settings, and the entire application will instantly adapt.

Custom Page Size Presets: Users can now create, name, and save unlimited custom sheet sizes (e.g., SRA3 320x450mm). These custom sizes automatically inject themselves into the standard preset dropdowns across the Resize, Monkey, Grid, and Booklet tabs.

Persistent Preferences: Application settings, themes, and custom page sizes now save securely to your local Windows AppData folder. Your preferences will persist permanently, even if you close the app, move the .exe file, or update to a newer version of the software.

🐛 Bug Fixes & Engine Upgrades

Universal Math Engine (Metric Fix): Completely overhauled the PyMuPDF geometry logic. Stripped out all localized tab math and replaced it with a centralized to_points() engine. This permanently resolves the severe metric scaling bug where Millimeter conversions were resulting in astronomical page dimensions (e.g., 5050mm).

VDP Visual Targeting Fix: Patched a critical scaling bug in the VDP Mail Merge tab where the green visual targeting box would shrink to an unusable 1/72nd of its size when processing non-inch inputs.

Standard Preset Conversion: Standard US sizes (Letter, Legal, Tabloid) now actively listen to the Global Unit setting and will safely convert and populate their exact equivalents in millimeters or points when clicked.

2.21

[2.21] - 2026-07-09
New Features & Pro Tools

OCR Text Extraction (Pro Tier): Integrated the Tesseract AI engine to unlock text from flattened client scans and rasterized PDFs.

Multiple Extraction Modes: Operators can now extract scanned text directly to a plain .txt file, a structured .csv (perfect for feeding lists directly into the VDP Mail Merge tool), or generate an archival-grade "Searchable PDF" that overlays an invisible, highlightable text layer perfectly over the original pixel artwork.

Offline AI Processing: The Tesseract engine is fully baked into the executable. All document scanning and text recognition happens 100% locally on your machine, ensuring zero cloud API calls and maximum security for sensitive client data.

2.20

See the CHANGELOG.md for a complete list of updates, including the latest v2.19 features.See the CHANGELOG.md for a complete list of updates, including the latest v2.20 features.