Ability to add highlighting and notes on PDF’s inside of notes

[scottr99 5]

I’m currently using Evernote for working on my PhD. I love being able to store all of the papers and articles I have to read and write about in notes. But adding highlighting to the PDF’s is clunky to say the least. I wish there was a way to add highlighting and notes to PDF’s in a cleaner way right inside of a note.

Is this possible?

[scottr99 5]

Perhaps a solution would be to be able to convert a PDF to text with the push of a button?

Then I could just change the text I want highlited to a color (red or yellow) and bold face to make it stand out.

It’s a workaround for sure but it would be an effective one nonetheless.

[PinkElephant 8,802]

On a Mac it is very simple: You open the pdf, it will start the Preview app and show in it, you edit using the much better tools the app has. You can save it in between - all changes will be saved directly to the note. When done, close the window, and everything is saved in EN. Perfect workflow.

Not sure about Windows.

Simplifying a pdf is not a simple issue. A pdf contains several layers, usually at least a picture layer and a text layer. But there can be more, pdfs for printing for example have additional information for the print shop.

If there is a text layer, you can select and copy it to the note. Then do your edits there.

[agsteele 3,059]

When I was working on my doctoral studies I highlighted PDFs with Adobe Acrobat then save the changes to the PDF back into its note.

[scottr99 5]

7 minutes ago, agsteele said:

When I was working on my doctoral studies I highlighted PDFs with Adobe Acrobat then save the changes to the PDF back into its note.

 

8 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

On a Mac it is very simple: You open the pdf, it will start the Preview app and show in it, you edit using the much better tools the app has. You can save it in between - all changes will be saved directly to the note. When done, close the window, and everything is saved in EN. Perfect workflow.

Not sure about Windows.

Simplifying a pdf is not a simple issue. A pdf contains several layers, usually at least a picture layer and a text layer. But there can be more, pdfs for printing for example have additional information for the print shop.

If there is a text layer, you can select and copy it to the note. Then do your edits there.

I’m on a Mac and this approach doesn’t work for me. The pages come back inverted. I’m doing exactly how you describe.

[scottr99 5]

16 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

On a Mac it is very simple: You open the pdf, it will start the Preview app and show in it, you edit using the much better tools the app has. You can save it in between - all changes will be saved directly to the note. When done, close the window, and everything is saved in EN. Perfect workflow.

Not sure about Windows.

Simplifying a pdf is not a simple issue. A pdf contains several layers, usually at least a picture layer and a text layer. But there can be more, pdfs for printing for example have additional information for the print shop.

If there is a text layer, you can select and copy it to the note. Then do your edits there.

I think your last sentence is my best option, thank you.

[Boot17 1,539]

11 minutes ago, scottr99 said:

I’m on a Mac and this approach doesn’t work for me. The pages come back inverted. I’m doing exactly how you describe.

I just wanted to say that the way @PinkElephant describes for annotating PDFs on Mac is how I do it too and it works well for me. Something about your MacOS setup (not Evernote) might be the culprit there.

[scottr99 5]

8 minutes ago, Boot17 said:

I just wanted to say that the way @PinkElephant describes for annotating PDFs on Mac is how I do it too and it works well for me. Something about your MacOS setup (not Evernote) might be the culprit there.

Thank you for your comment.

[scottr99 5]

Thank you PinkElephant!

[PinkElephant 8,802]

I am not aware there is a setting to enable Preview to perform this task.

Make sure Preview is selected as standard app for PDFs in MacOS. I have no inversion - inverting is an option in editing, but it means you want to invert. It shouldn't happen while annotating.

[scottr99 5]

Here's a screenshot of what I am getting back after highlighting.

[scottr99 5]

It's as if it's adding at the beginning of the saved document a little snip of every highlight, only inverted. Is there a way to turn this off, or prevent it from happening?

[PinkElephant 8,802]

This is using the annotation tool in EN itself, not Preview.

You can toggle the list of all edits made using this checkbox:

However even if I toggle it on, it doesn't show inverted for me. But you see in the Preview, the green marker is not at the correct position:

That's why I use Preview - it produces much neater results. To start Preview from a note on the Mac, select the PDF and use Open.

 

 

[agsteele 3,059]

This is not a function that I'm seeing. You don't say which PDF viewer you are using to make the annotations. I do have a vague recollection of seeing this sort of issue with Adobe Acrobat some year ago.  I resolved it by uninstalling and reinstalling Acrobat.  But in my case it was unrelated to Evernote.

[scottr99 5]

My issue is fixed by unchecking Include Annotation Summary in the upper right corner!

Thank you VERY much!  :oD

[bmcl26 575]

On 5/2/2023 at 2:19 PM, agsteele said:

When I was working on my doctoral studies I highlighted PDFs with Adobe Acrobat then save the changes to the PDF back into its note.

I have Adobe Acrobat installed in my Windows 11 PC that is what I use as well.