In a continued effort towards a paper free existence I’ve stumbled upon a process for annotating PDF files. Adobe Reader app for iPad allows you to easily scribe over an existing PDF highlighting sections of importance so you may never need to print one out again.
Get your PDF on
The first step in the process is to get PDF files onto your iPad. Documents app from Readdle allows you to tap into your favourite cloud storage or WedDav server. I use SkyDrive and WebDav for getting the file onto the iPad but Dropbox, Google Drive and a myriad of others are supported.
Open in Adobe Reader
Once you have a PDF open in Documents you need to use the Open In option. This is found in the top right hand corner. Select Adobe Reader and you are in business.
Do your scribbling
Comment up you PDF with a stylus of your choosing. I love the Adonit Jot Pro as it feels and acts like a pen in use. With its transparent nib you can see where your mark is being made and so is good for writing. If you really want to “write” notes then a good stylus is essential as you will find that trying to write with a finger feels wrong.
Out of the box Adobe Reader sets the width of your mark quite wide. This is great for circling around stuff but not so great for writing. Change the number of pixels to suit. 1 pixel is great for neatish writing.
Open in Evernote
Once you’ve made your mark you need to get your file back to some form of storage. You could go back into Documents to then save the file back alongside the original. I however prefer to save direct into Evernote as this is where all of my digital notes live.
Now that it is happily filed I can move onto the next one.
It’s all free
All of these apps are free to download and start using. Sure you can upgrade to a Premium subscription of Evernote but you only need to do this if you become a heavy lifter.
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