(Archived) HOWTO: Annotate PDFs

[sterlingrose1 0]

Hello all,

This seems like such a simple question, it probably has an obvious answer but it's eluding me so I thank you for any suggestions.

I store detailed knitting patterns as pdf files in Evernote. Right now I print them when I start knitting so I can make handwritten notes as I work on my project. When I'm done with the project, I scan the marked up pattern and put it back into Evernote.

I'd love to be able to skip the printing and scanning and instead make my notes right on the Evernote screen.

Is there a way?

Thanks,

Jayne

[jbenson2 2,147]

Yes, you can type the information above the PDF on the same note.

If you want to edit or write on the actual PDF, you will need a PDF software program that permits editing.

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

Use Preview.

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

If you want to edit or write on the actual PDF, you will need a PDF software program that permits editing.

To clarify, the PDF app needs to be able to annotate, which is different from editing the actual PDF. Many viewers allow you to make basic annotations that are stored in a different layer than the original PDF. Many viewers (including Acrobat reader) allow annotating.

[lucaberta 0]

PDFpen, a partner product which can be found in the Trunk, gives you plenty more useful functions to edit and annotate PDF files:

http://www.evernote.com/about/trunk/items/pdfpen

http://blog.evernote.com/2010/07/29/pdfpen/

Ciao, Luca

[quackmd 7]

Use Preview.

wow thanks for this idea! it works! I wish skitch or pdfpen pro can do this "save to exact EN note" feature.

Is this the only app that can do this? or anyway i can configure skitch to this feature too?

[vatark 2]

Use Preview.

wow thanks for this idea! it works! I wish skitch or pdfpen pro can do this "save to exact EN note" feature.

Is this the only app that can do this? or anyway i can configure skitch to this feature too?

Do you mean that it saves an updated version of the PDF? If so PDFPen (both flavours) also saves an updated version of the file. I use that quite often to remove blank pages from notes scanned into Evernote.

Skitch seems to save to another location - I've just tried annotating a PDF using Skitch. The Evernote copy of the PDF remained unchanged.

[peterfmartin 221]

If you have any file in Evernote, open it from Evernote, make changes in the other program, and hit Save, the saved file should only exist in Evernote, replacing the previous version of the same file. Or so I believe. Is that what you're doing with PDFPen and Skitch? Are you using those programs to open files already in Evernote, and then just hitting Save (not Save As)?

[vatark 2]

@peterfmartin That's what I've been doing. Skitch however seems to handle the save in a different way, and keeps the annotated version in its own place rather than saving it in Evernote.

I've just had a look at Skitch's save. The standard save says "Save to history" rather than just Save, so it is behaving differently from other apps.

[peterfmartin 221]

You're right; I'm sorry. When I open a multi-page PDF in Skitch, only the first page opens—and as a .jpg. Does the same happen to you?

[vatark 2]

I get the same - just the first page. Mine showed up as PDF. I suspect that that was because I'd set up my previous Skitch document as PDF to be dragged into Evernote.