Jump to content

filling out PDF "forms"


Recommended Posts

At work I seem to be forever in a situation when I have to fill out lots of works forms which are basically PDF's. I have to fill them in at client meetings, after events, if there has been an accident etc.

 

I like to do this in meetings by writing on my Ipad as that is quicker than my typing.

 

Here's where it gets tricky

 

Penultimate will not let me write on these PDFs. I did manage to make a stationery that looks similar to one of the forms but it was a long process and to be honest it looked naff, feint and blurred once synched and printed. Plus as soon as I had created six of these stationeries the boss changed the format of the original PDFs and I had to do it again.

 

Skitch allows me to "mark-up" my PDFs but the text is like a "My first ABC" book text.

 

I now use Goodnotes as I can handwrite, type or indeed add a picture (useful on accident forms) to the PDF. I store the masters in Google drive and then e-mail the completed document into Evernote.

 

Goodnotes is fine but the e-mail to Evernote is hardly seamless integration.

 

Am I the only one who has this situation and if there are others out there in the same boat what solution do you use?

 

 

post-207965-0-79155400-1403457993_thumb.

Link to comment

I use PDF Expert on my iPad but the workflow is the same because of how iOS limits cross-application communication.

Not much of a way to get around it until iOS 8 is released and developers take advantages of the cross-app communication features it brings with it that prevents these kind of Janky workflows.

Link to comment

Brixton, is the rest of Form similar what I see in that photo?  If so, that is easy to create directly in an Evernote Note.  If it is more complicated, it can be done in Word, then copy/pasted into a Note. Dropping an image in it would be easy as well.  If you would like some assistance, send me a private message and I can help you out.

Link to comment

Thanks for the replies. Scottlougheed and sentinel

Yes I can (and have) created these type of documents in Evernote.

doing them in word then copying and pasting is the way with multi-cell rows in tables as Evernote does that auto resize thing

 

All well and good except as I originally said I want to hand write

cannot hand write into evernote direct

Link to comment

I apologize for forgetting that main point!

 

I think you have just about the best solution for that situation.  I cannot think of a better way to do it.  I may be wrong with this, but I don't think Evernote will have any handwriting capabilities any time soon.  So, unless you can find a better handwriting app than Goodnotes, I think you have the best solution.

Link to comment

I think we should see some significant improvements in this in the fall/winter with the release of iOS 8. The power will be given to developers to allow applications to essentially permit certain elements of their feature set, or certain files in their sandbox to be accessed by other applications. This will mean that, as a hypothetical example, GoodNotes or PDFExpert could give another application like Evernote access to their hand-writing or pdf annotating tools. This means you wouldn't have to copy the file out of evernote into GoodNotes or PDF Expert in order to annotate it, then copy it back. You could do the GoodNote edit RIGHT IN EVERNOTE. 

 

Of course, that's just a hypothetical example, it is up to the developers of say, GoodNote or PDF Expert to make these features available (and some features aren't allowed to be extended like that). 

 

Anyway, details here:

http://arstechnica.com/apple/2014/06/explaining-ios-8s-extensions-opening-the-platform-while-keeping-it-secure/

 

So it's a bit clunky right now because Evernote doesn't offer great handwriting and iOS 7 significantly limits how files can be accessed between apps (that is, they can't be accessed at all), so you end up having to copy here, copy there, and copy back. Ugh. File freedom will come in the form of an OS update :).

Link to comment
  • 1 year later...

Hi Everyone

 

My name is Matt Doyle I am the founder of Launchcloud.com

 

We help companies digitise paper work and gain insights from the captured data.

 

We working closely with Evernote on an integration.

 

This could mean powerful forms in Evernote. 

 

Can you let me know what your wish list would be to having forms in your Evernote?

 

If anyone would like to be part of the trial please let me know.

 

Thank you

 

Matt 

Link to comment

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...