Need PDF Annotating and Reading Advice

[doups3]

I read a lot of 30-40 page PDFs (research papers). I usually print them out, but I purchased the Surface Pro because I like the idea of marking them up electronically in OneNote. Marking up PDFs in OneNote is a dream: I have all the space I could ever want for notes, the surface pen works great, and life is good. There is just one drawback: I can't stand reading PDFs in OneNote. There is just too much background stuff going on that makes for an unpleasant reading experience. When you're reading research, you honestly don't want to see anything but the research.

The PDF Reader that comes with the Surface is a lot better for reading. The Surface Reader portrays the PDF and blacks out the sides making it seem like you're reading normal paper. You can mark up the PDF with the Reader too, but you don't have the extra space on the sides to take notes. I take a lot of notes so this is a deal breaker for me.

I need something that merges the readability of the PDF reader with the note-taking ability of OneNote. If there was just some way to extend the white space on the PDF reader so I could take notes, that would be amazing.

Any ideas?

 

[jnjroach]

Have you ran OneNote 2013 in Full Screen? Not distractions just what you are working on at the moment...but if you insist on a PDF Inking App, you can buy PDF Annotator.

 

[doups3]

Yeah I've tried full screen and it is quite a bit better. I still haven't found a way to get rid of the start bar at the bottom of the screen.

The reader has a few other advantages that I'd love to see replicated in OneNote. For example, you can flip with your fingers from page to page in the reader. You can also zoom out on the reader and have it show multiple pages at once. This is great for spatial memory purposes. I might try PDF annotator, but I'm guessing that it won't give me the space to write notes like One Note does.

 

[jnjroach]

The Nook App now supports PDF and opens like any other e-Reader but no editing...PDF Annotator has a Full Screen view as well.

 

[riggi]

I use PDF Annotator. What I like about full screen mode, is that you still get the tool bar on the side that automatically appears when you hover the pen. The toolbar is customisable too, so I have all of my most commonly used pens and shapes in various colours within easy reach.

 

[doups3]

I use PDF Annotator. What I like about full screen mode, is that you still get the tool bar on the side that automatically appears when you hover the pen. The toolbar is customisable too, so I have all of my most commonly used pens and shapes in various colours within easy reach.

Hey Riggi,

Does PDF Annotator have extra space somewhere to take notes? Where do you take your notes when reading the PDFs?

 

[jnjroach]

PDF Annotator (I've used it since 1.0) allows for you to ink in the margins or insert text boxes and type, you can highlight and from 3.0 and later you can insert blank pages which was very helpful when I was teaching full time as I could put extra materials for my lecture or demos...

 

[riggi]

As jnroach said, you can write/type anywhere on the pdf.
I also often have a blank pdf file open in another tab in PDF Annotator and you can CTRL-TAB between them.

I use PDFs of course books in the classroom and write/type on them.
But, it's also useful to have a blank PDF open and I can quickly switch to it and use it as an electronic whiteboard. Draw, type sentences etc.

 

[MickeyLittle]

I have all my simple PDF needs met by the Adobe Reader XI except for 1. I cannot figure out how to add bookmarks. I know it supports them since there is a bookmark tab that takes me to pages that I have bookmarked in other apps. But how do I set new bookmarks in this app? Please!