(Archived) HOWTO: Highlight and annotate PDFs

[Boatguy 49]

Total Newbie question.

I want to use Evernote to store technical articles which I review, highlight, annotate, and then share. I can of course store them in Evernote, and add comments before and after. I cannot figure out how to highlight sections of the PDF, or to add comments to the PDF.

Is this possible?

Thanks!

[GrumpyMonkey 4,320]

hi! welcome to the forums.

yes. what you want is possible.

evernote is a program to store stuff (unlike dropbox, this is "forever," and storage space grows larger over time depending on how much you put in.

besides text notes, has no native editing capability. opening an attachment to a note in preview, adobe, word, or some other program will enable you to make changes to them. these will be saved and uploaded.

[Boatguy 49]

besides text notes, has no native editing capability. opening an attachment to a note in preview, adobe, word, or some other program will enable you to make changes to them. these will be saved and uploaded.

Thanks, that got the solution started. I was able to open into Acrobat Pro from EN and highlight a portion of the document, then save it back. That went fine. However, when I view it on my iPad or iPhone, the highlighting is not displayed. I tried syncing a few times, moving it to another folder, etc. Still no luck. Any ideas?

[GrumpyMonkey 4,320]

besides text notes, has no native editing capability. opening an attachment to a note in preview, adobe, word, or some other program will enable you to make changes to them. these will be saved and uploaded.

Thanks, that got the solution started. I was able to open into Acrobat Pro from EN and highlight a portion of the document, then save it back. That went fine. However, when I view it on my iPad or iPhone, the highlighting is not displayed. I tried syncing a few times, moving it to another folder, etc. Still no luck. Any ideas?

Interesting. I've never tried doing that. You might want to try making sure you have synced on your computer, then clear your cache on the iPad (in your Evernote settings), and try to download it. If you still have issues, then I'd say a support ticket is in order.

[Boatguy 49]

I tried it with a new document which had highlighting already. I put the document in Evernote and it displays fine on my Mac, and on the web site. But on the iPad and iPhone, no highlighting. I'll submit a support ticket.

[GrumpyMonkey 4,320]

I tried it with a new document which had highlighting already. I put the document in Evernote and it displays fine on my Mac, and on the web site. But on the iPad and iPhone, no highlighting. I'll submit a support ticket.

I see. Have you tried to open it in iBooks, iAnnotate, GoodReader, or any of those? I wonder if the lack of highlighting/annotations is a problem with the native PDF viewer which Evernote uses to display PDFs. In that case, it may be an Apple issue.

[Boatguy 49]

It does not display correctly in iBooks so it is most likely an Apple problem. Haven't tried other third party PDF readers yet.