Issues with PDF Annotating

[msavic6]

Hello,

I recently purchased a SP3 i3 model for use in university as a note taking device and I was frankly disappointed with how it performed today.

I downloaded a nine page notes package and opened it with the default reader app, I proceded to fill in the blanks and annotate the PDF and for the first 3 or so pages, everything was golden and then it all went downhill.

Scrolling/zooming/moving between pages resulted in extreme lag but worst of all was that the pen would lag as well and would basically skip over half of my writing and end up writing illegible scribbles. I expected the Pro 3 to be more than capable of handling a nine page notes package. It even became extremely slow to erase anything I wrote, the delay and lag was extreme.

After the annotating issue, I opened up One Note Desktop and the writing experience was great although I wasn't annotating but was simply writing on a blank sheet. It worked fairly well for me.

I have only had the Pro 3 for 3 days so I am not exactly an expert with the device so maybe I am doing something wrong.

Any ideas what I can do to overcome these issues?

 

[~X.T.~]

Get Drawboard PDF.

It's a paid app, but well worth the money as its one of the best out there, it's become my default PDF viewer/annotator.
Final year engineering undergrad here and I'm using it for my lectures too, love it so much that I even converted my non-PDF notes to PDF just so I can use it with this!

Some minor caveats here and there still, but otherwise an extremely worthwhile purchase that you won't regret.

 

[ctitanic]

You can also print to OneNote and then annotate.

 

[malberttoo]

Hello,

I recently purchased a SP3 i3 model for use in university as a note taking device and I was frankly disappointed with how it performed today.

I downloaded a nine page notes package and opened it with the default reader app, I proceded to fill in the blanks and annotate the PDF and for the first 3 or so pages, everything was golden and then it all went downhill.

Scrolling/zooming/moving between pages resulted in extreme lag but worst of all was that the pen would lag as well and would basically skip over half of my writing and end up writing illegible scribbles. I expected the Pro 3 to be more than capable of handling a nine page notes package. It even became extremely slow to erase anything I wrote, the delay and lag was extreme.

After the annotating issue, I opened up One Note Desktop and the writing experience was great although I wasn't annotating but was simply writing on a blank sheet. It worked fairly well for me.

I have only had the Pro 3 for 3 days so I am not exactly an expert with the device so maybe I am doing something wrong.

Any ideas what I can do to overcome these issues?

Welcome.

+1 for Drawboard PDF.

 

[msavic6]

I would like to have all my notes in OneNote so I can sync with OneDrive, it seems easier to remain organized with everything syncing up to the cloud.


How does annotating in OneNote compare to annotating in Drawboard? Is there significant differences in usability/performance?

 

[jnjroach]

DrawboardPDF vs. OneNote boils down to if you need to maintain the PDF file format, OneNote is the best inking experience and the best for note taking app on the market....

I use both depending on what I need, if I need to share I use DrawboardPDF if not OneNote...

 

[leeshor]

You could always print OneNote to a PDF file too.

 

[~X.T.~]

I love them both and use a combination depending on my needs:
OneNote for creating new notes, drawings etc.
Drawboard for annotating existing lecturer-provided notes. I upload and edit them from OneDrive so things are still synced up across devices.

OneNote undoubtedly has the best inking features though.
Drawboard has no pressure sensitive inking yet (or at least I can't seem to login online and get mine to work) and the annotations take a while to save. But it seems they are working on getting Drawboard more integrated with the cloud.

 

[msavic6]

You can also print to OneNote and then annotate.

How do you do deal with the formatting? It ends up looking really weird when I input a PDF into OneNote, any page size besides Auto and it looks really squished/overlapped.

 

[Wiidesire]

Can confirm. I have the i3 model and I use Drawboard PDF for my school books (up to 300 pages PDF) . If you buy it, it even has ink pressure sensitivity. Highly recommend it. No lag for me.

 

[Tsurugaya]

Is there some way you can create balloon text (hidden notes) in OneNote. I like to do that in order to help students get through difficult material more easily.

 

[savaytse66]

Can confirm. I have the i3 model and I use Drawboard PDF for my school books (up to 300 pages PDF) . If you buy it, it even has ink pressure sensitivity. Highly recommend it. No lag for me.

I bought Drawboard PDF, and I consistently get lag on my i7, so I don't know what I'm doing wrong. I also get some wonky save behavior when working on a document directly from our domain network. While it works great most of the time, I still get serious hangups and lag from time to time, and also an occasional force-close. I just uninstalled and reinstalled the apps yesterday to see if that helps, but I have not had a chance to try it out since then.