I admit the title to this topic is a little tongue and cheek, since I have been using the PDF Expert iOS app for a good long time. I really appreciate its usefulness for my needs. However, it cannot sync my PDFs to Evernote, and I find it too cumbersome for me to use two separate programs/sync services for one PDF. So, to see Skitch come with the ability to annotate PDFs AND take care of the Evernote syncing for me, I was thrilled. Unfortunately, it has not lived up to the level of PDF Expert as of yet, but it sure seems to have the potential to.
A little background on my situation: I live in the academic environment, and so I find myself having to interact with PDF copies of various scholarly journal articles, theses, dissertations, etc. Such sources require a "power user" type program, as I am constantly making notes to myself and highlighting significant information for research purposes. In a lot of ways, PDFs are my books, and I think maybe that is why PDF Expert has been so captivating; it has been able to take the PDF concept and turn it into book form. If Skitch could tap into that same magic, I'd be willing to pay double for my Evernote Premium account (but don't get any ideas! ).
Here are a few areas where I think Skitch could improve on PDF annotation. My apologies if these have already been said elsewhere in the forums:
1. Selecting text. This is REALLY important for me because it makes the highlighting process a snap. Literally, I tap and hold, the text is selected, and I can move my finger directly to the last word of the sentence or paragraph without having to drag across every single line. Not to mention, it makes for much fewer mistakes. It also allows me to copy and paste text should I ever need to. Currently, I am not using the highlighting feature at all because this feature is missing. I am too perfectionist to want to do it in the current form, because the highlighting just looks really crooked. Using lines/underlining is an ok workaround, but even with that I must drag my finger (or stilus) accross the tablet for every line, and that gets really tiring on my hands after a while. I could do without any of the other suggestions below if I just had this one.
2. More intuitive selection of tools. Kind of related to the above, it is quite difficult to get used to the maneuvering that has to be done to work about the app's tools. I can never remember to go back to the top tool (the four arrows?) to move the PDF down after using another in the arsenal. If maybe you could maneuver them into the text selection, this would be a huge improvement. Select the text, and then, as with the copy and paste commands in other programs, there are "highlight," "underline," etc. at the top. Maybe you could leave the more advanced stuff for the sidebar, like the shapes, arrow and text box. These basic ones though are actually more of a hassle in their present form.
3. Better text box. The text box in its present form is abysmal, in my humble opinion. There are situations where I find myself having to write a substantial amount of text on a given PDF, and presently I'm having to type it out as best I can and then drag and resize and hope that all of it will fit on the page. All because the text does not wrap. One workaround I have found is to hit "return"/"enter" once the text gets to the end of the page, but a needless hassle. We ditched the typewriter a long time ago.
4. Ability to edit note details either in Evernote or Skitch. Setting the author is extremely important for my PDFs. Presently, I'm seeing no way to do that, however. The tags are good, at least. But they're not enough.
5. That "cancel" button has got to go. There have been a few times where I will get quite far into a PDF, do something by mistake, and accidentally hit the cancel button instead of undo, completely eliminating all my work. The button really needs to be eliminated, moved, or at least given some sort of feature to prevent something like that from happening (dare I say an "are you sure" dialogue box?). I think I've seen other programs that have a drop down menu upon hitting the button that will have a red "discard"/"delete" button and maybe a "cancel" (as in cancel the cancel!). I don't know. Something at least to make discarding my work not so easy.
6. Return to PDF at the place I left off. I was surprised at how much I missed this feature. Some PDFs I read can be 100s of pages, so having to find my place again is a chore. One workaround I've been using is scrolling down to the last page I have annotated, but even that requires a bit of scrolling for the really big PDFs.
Other, "wish list features" (not necessary, but sure would be nice!):
Ability to annotate the source PDF without having to create a new, seperate "skitch" version.
Ability to save the annotated PDF in whatever location I want (though the ability to annotate the source PDF would really take care of this).
Ability to save annotations in the PDF without closing.
PDF editing on other devices, desktop versions especially.
Idea
Kent Maitland 1
I admit the title to this topic is a little tongue and cheek, since I have been using the PDF Expert iOS app for a good long time. I really appreciate its usefulness for my needs. However, it cannot sync my PDFs to Evernote, and I find it too cumbersome for me to use two separate programs/sync services for one PDF. So, to see Skitch come with the ability to annotate PDFs AND take care of the Evernote syncing for me, I was thrilled. Unfortunately, it has not lived up to the level of PDF Expert as of yet, but it sure seems to have the potential to.
A little background on my situation: I live in the academic environment, and so I find myself having to interact with PDF copies of various scholarly journal articles, theses, dissertations, etc. Such sources require a "power user" type program, as I am constantly making notes to myself and highlighting significant information for research purposes. In a lot of ways, PDFs are my books, and I think maybe that is why PDF Expert has been so captivating; it has been able to take the PDF concept and turn it into book form. If Skitch could tap into that same magic, I'd be willing to pay double for my Evernote Premium account (but don't get any ideas! ).
Here are a few areas where I think Skitch could improve on PDF annotation. My apologies if these have already been said elsewhere in the forums:
1. Selecting text. This is REALLY important for me because it makes the highlighting process a snap. Literally, I tap and hold, the text is selected, and I can move my finger directly to the last word of the sentence or paragraph without having to drag across every single line. Not to mention, it makes for much fewer mistakes. It also allows me to copy and paste text should I ever need to. Currently, I am not using the highlighting feature at all because this feature is missing. I am too perfectionist to want to do it in the current form, because the highlighting just looks really crooked. Using lines/underlining is an ok workaround, but even with that I must drag my finger (or stilus) accross the tablet for every line, and that gets really tiring on my hands after a while. I could do without any of the other suggestions below if I just had this one.
2. More intuitive selection of tools. Kind of related to the above, it is quite difficult to get used to the maneuvering that has to be done to work about the app's tools. I can never remember to go back to the top tool (the four arrows?) to move the PDF down after using another in the arsenal. If maybe you could maneuver them into the text selection, this would be a huge improvement. Select the text, and then, as with the copy and paste commands in other programs, there are "highlight," "underline," etc. at the top. Maybe you could leave the more advanced stuff for the sidebar, like the shapes, arrow and text box. These basic ones though are actually more of a hassle in their present form.
3. Better text box. The text box in its present form is abysmal, in my humble opinion. There are situations where I find myself having to write a substantial amount of text on a given PDF, and presently I'm having to type it out as best I can and then drag and resize and hope that all of it will fit on the page. All because the text does not wrap. One workaround I have found is to hit "return"/"enter" once the text gets to the end of the page, but a needless hassle. We ditched the typewriter a long time ago.
4. Ability to edit note details either in Evernote or Skitch. Setting the author is extremely important for my PDFs. Presently, I'm seeing no way to do that, however. The tags are good, at least. But they're not enough.
5. That "cancel" button has got to go. There have been a few times where I will get quite far into a PDF, do something by mistake, and accidentally hit the cancel button instead of undo, completely eliminating all my work. The button really needs to be eliminated, moved, or at least given some sort of feature to prevent something like that from happening (dare I say an "are you sure" dialogue box?). I think I've seen other programs that have a drop down menu upon hitting the button that will have a red "discard"/"delete" button and maybe a "cancel" (as in cancel the cancel!). I don't know. Something at least to make discarding my work not so easy.
6. Return to PDF at the place I left off. I was surprised at how much I missed this feature. Some PDFs I read can be 100s of pages, so having to find my place again is a chore. One workaround I've been using is scrolling down to the last page I have annotated, but even that requires a bit of scrolling for the really big PDFs.
Other, "wish list features" (not necessary, but sure would be nice!):
Ability to annotate the source PDF without having to create a new, seperate "skitch" version.
Ability to save the annotated PDF in whatever location I want (though the ability to annotate the source PDF would really take care of this).
Ability to save annotations in the PDF without closing.
PDF editing on other devices, desktop versions especially.
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