Bluebeam has just released version 6.2 of their popular PDF annotating tool, Bluebeam PDF Revu. This new version brings some enhanced Tablet PC features as requested by Tablet PC users.

Download the update here. This update is free for version 6.0 customers. We are planning an InkShow on this new version within the first week or two of May.

Peter Noyes, one of the developers that works on Bluebeam PDF Revu, wrote up this nice description of the new Tablet PC features in version 6.2:

In addition to many of the new features for 6.0 and 6.2 there are two specific Tablet PC features. The first is pressure sensitivity for the Pen tool. The pressure sensitivity is on by default, but can be turned off in Edit->Preferences under Tablet. The second Tablet PC specific feature is copy/paste compatibility with other Ink aware applications. However, in order to have this functionality work under Windows XP Tablet Edition a few updates may need to be installed. First SP1 for the .NET Framework 2.0 needs to be installed, and secondly Microsoft Update (KB900722) may need to be installed. On Vista it should work fine without needing any updates. The copy/paste interoperability can also be turned off under Edit->Preferences for users who would prefer to copy the recognized text instead.

Additionally there have been a few new features that are not specific to Tablet PCs per say but may still be of interest to Tablet PC users. The first is the Typewriter tool, which now allows text placement without having to first define a bounding box, you can just click anywhere and start typing, and our TIP is compatible with this feature. The typewriter tool is ideal for filling out forms. The second feature is a Viewer profile. Revu has supported profiles for several versions, but for 6.0 we moved the profile button (the button of the person with the bow-tie) to the Navigation bar. The user can now choose a Viewer profile which hides most of the user interface giving the user something very close to a full screen mode. If the user wants to ink while in this mode they could open the panel with the toolchest (should be the left panel) and have it show only 1 row of buttons to still have a large amount of screen real-estate available to the drawing while having access to pen tools.