Pages in order
Every page in a grid: drag to reorder, turn, delete, reverse. Add more PDFs or pictures anywhere in the run, and split the result into files of any size.
[ pixellabs presents ]
pagesmith
PDFs on your Mac, without uploading them anywhere.
PageSmith puts pages in order, merges and splits files, blacks out what mustn’t be seen so it’s really gone, makes files smaller, makes scans searchable, and strips what a file says about you. The basics are free. A licence, £4.99 once, adds the rest.
download · MacFree to use. macOS 14 or later, Apple silicon or Intel. See installing, below.
01
Drop
PDFs, scans and photos onto the window. Several at once are merged, in the order you drop them.
02
Arrange
Drag pages into order, turn them, delete them, black out what shouldn't be seen. Every change can be undone.
03
Save
One file or several, smaller, locked, numbered or stamped. The files you opened are never changed.
[ what it does ]
Black out for real
Draw boxes by hand, or find every place a word or number appears. Blacked-out pages are saved as a picture of the page, so nothing under the boxes survives, then read back so they can still be searched.
Smaller files
Pictures inside are re-encoded and brought down to a sensible sharpness, the way Preview's Reduce File Size works but gentler. Text stays text: sharp and selectable.
Scans you can search
The words on scanned pages and photos of pages are read on your Mac and laid invisibly over them, so you can search, select and copy from them.
Numbers, stamps and pictures
Page numbers, CONFIDENTIAL or DRAFT across every page, and any page saved as a PNG or JPEG, for screens or for printing.
Nothing leaves your Mac
No uploads, no account. The title, author and other details a PDF carries are left out when you save, and you can lock the file with a password.
[ free, or licensed ]
The basics free. Everything for £4.99, once.
One licence is you, on up to 3 of your Macs, for every PageSmith 1.x. No subscription, no account. The price includes any VAT or sales tax due where you live: Stripe sells it on PixelLabs’ behalf and takes care of that, so the price you see is the price you pay.
Free£0
- open PDFs, scans and photos
- reorder, turn, delete and merge pages
- split into files of any size
- leave out the details a file carries
Your key is on the page the moment payment completes, and in an email. Paste it into PageSmith → Licence…. It works offline and is yours to keep.
[ what it can't do ]
Blacked-out pages become pictures
That's what makes the blacking out certain. Their text is read back so they can be searched, but it's no longer the original text, and very small print may not read back perfectly.
Words in pictures can't be found
Find and black out searches the text a PDF holds. Words that are part of a scan or photo have to be boxed by hand.
Smaller is about pictures
Scans and photos shrink a lot. A PDF that's all text is already small, and won't get much smaller.
It doesn't edit the words
PageSmith works on pages, not on the text inside them. To fill in a form or sign, Preview does that well.
A lost password is lost
A file locked with a password can't be opened without it, and nobody, PageSmith included, can get it back.
[ in the app ]
[ installing ]
The first time only, macOS needs telling that PageSmith is allowed.
01
Drag it to Applications
Open PageSmith.dmg and drag PageSmith onto the Applications folder beside it.
02
Open it once, and say Done
Double-click PageSmith in Applications. macOS says it can't check it for malicious software, because it isn't signed with a paid Apple certificate. Choose Done, not Move to Bin.
03
Allow it in System Settings
System Settings → Privacy & Security, scroll down to Security, and click Open Anyway beside PageSmith. Confirm with Touch ID or your password, then Open.
Or, if you're happy in the Terminal, this does steps 2 and 3 in one go:
xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/PageSmith.app
[ questions ]
What's free, and what's the licence for?
Free, for good: open PDFs and pictures, reorder, turn, delete, merge, split and save, leaving out the details a file carries. The licence, £4.99 once, adds blacking out, smaller files, passwords, searchable scans, page numbers and stamps, and saving pages as pictures.
Is anything uploaded?
No. Everything, the text reading included, happens on your Mac. The only time PageSmith goes online is to check for its own updates, once a day, and only if you say it may.
How many Macs does a licence cover?
Up to three of yours. It's one person, on up to 3 Macs they use, for every PageSmith 1.x. The same key goes into each, and nothing counts them: it's on trust.
Is blacking out really safe?
A blacked-out page is saved as a picture of the page with the boxes burnt in, so the words under them aren't in the file at all, not hidden under a black rectangle the way some tools leave them. Check the result in Preview: searching for what you blacked out finds nothing.
Does it change my original PDF?
Never, unless you choose to save over it. PageSmith reads the files you open and writes what you save as new files.
I've lost my key.
It's in the email you were sent, and on the page after you paid. If both have gone, email support@pixel-labs.dev from the address you paid with.