A number of users have contacted us recently about the size of PDF files Mental Note is generating. They were just too large. Mental Note 3.12 contains improvements to the generated PDF document sizes. You should now see a noticeable difference in the file size when you export a note as PDF.

A new configuration option has also been added to allow finer grain control over the PDF size. This new option can be found on the Mental Note settings screen, amongst the Export options, and is called “PDF Size”. The main reason for the previously very large PDF file sizes was photos in the PDF. The more photographs in the PDF, the larger the PDF file size. Now with version 3.12, we have enhanced how PDFs are being generated, with particular attention to photographs. Together with the “Image Size” setting (also in Export options), you can control the size and quality of your exported PDFs. The smallest PDF file size will be achieved by setting PDF Size to Small and Image Size to Small. Please confirm the quality of the generated PDF is adequate for your purposes. By default, we have set the PDF Size to Medium to provide what we believe to be a good quality PDF, (and a smaller file size than before).

As usual this release also contains a number of bug fixes. Please continue to share with us any comments or concerns you have about the application. We investigate all reports and respond to all questions!

This release also contains a new optional feature to automatically draw straight sketch lines. Over the years we have heard from some users that the ability to draw a perfectly straight line would be a useful feature. We finally added this feature, but realize it may not be for all users, so it can be optionally added if you require this functionality. Find this feature at the bottom of the settings screen, in the Sketch options; the option is called “Straight lines”.