Best PDF editor

[nabilalk]

I'm starting medical school in the fall and would like to be able to use the iPad in place of a Tablet PC to view and edit large 500+ page PDF documents. I need to be able to highlight, annotate with text boxes, and free draw figures on the PDFs. I also need to be able to save and export them for viewing on a PC or Mac.

If any iPad users on here have experience with some apps that will work for this purpose, please let me know. I am drawn to the iPad for the battery life and simplicity. Other than PDF editing, all I need is internet access and I'm set.

Thanks all.

 

[NumbLock]

Funny that you ask. Very shortly, the default iBooks app can do those things. Just be a little patient.

 

[nabilalk]

Funny that you ask. Very shortly, the default iBooks app can do those things. Just be a little patient.

I saw the keynote, and Jobs said that the new iBooks with OS4 can read PDFs. Yes you can highlight with iBooks, but the process is painful at present. It didnt look from his demo that this annoyance of having to pick a text selection with two fingers, shorten it or extend it to the desired text and then click highlight will change. I want to use a stylus and be able to draw or highlight on the tablet directly, without having to stop and use the pinch method that iBooks uses now. I guess we will see how iBooks changes on June 24th when OS4 is debuted.

 

[NumbLock]

I don't know any app that can do that...yet. But I would buy it too!

 

[sch]

Right now, I have iAnnotate PDF which, although I admit I've yet to use as such, does purport itself to be a PDF editor. It has pretty good reviews.

Cheers,

 

[nabilalk]

I don't know any app that can do that...yet. But I would buy it too!

Actually, there are a few. Problem is, in some of the reviews, the size of the PDF and the export issue seems to be present with all the available options.

 

[nabilalk]

Right now, I have iAnnotate PDF which, although I admit I've yet to use as such, does purport itself to be a PDF editor. It has pretty good reviews.

Cheers,

Have you tried iAnnotate with a larger PDF of 100+ pages? Also, how does iAnnotate export the PDFs?

According to iAnnotate's FAQ, the program should be able to handle large PDFs

Q: My PDF document isn't loading or displaying properly.

A: iAnnotate uses Apple's Quartz technology to render PDF content -- so just about any PDF document should load correctly in iAnnotate. Also, iAnnotate is optimized to be able to handle large documents (at least 1000's of pages), so we expect just about anything to work! However, we've had some reports of documents that don't seem to load properly. If this has happened to you, please contact us and let us know so we can diagnose and resolve the problem.

 

[sch]

I just pulled in a 9MB, 265-page engineering book I wrote (lots of diagrams and tables as well as text) and it processed it for a few moments and was then ready. The annotation is well done and easy to use.

Cheers,

 

[nabilalk]

I just pulled in a 9MB, 265-page engineering book I wrote (lots of diagrams and tables as well as text) and it processed it for a few moments and was then ready. The annotation is well done and easy to use.

Cheers,

Excellent! Thank you for your report. I have been reading that the only way to currently export is over Wifi or an ad-hoc Wifi network between your iPad and your PC or Mac. I would prefer not to have to use iTunes to import, and at present it doesn't even look like that is available. What method do you use to export PDfs that you have annotated/edited in iAnnotate?

Also, the developer claims to have easy-to-use and fast indexing for search purposes. Are you able to search your engineering textbook after the processing, or does it have to take extra time to index?

 

[sch]

OK, import, I'm just using iTunes. For sharing, you can email the PDF with or without annotation.

Searching is easy and fast and doesn't appear to need to create a separate index... maybe it does this when it inhales the PDF.

It's a very thorough program with quite a bit below the surface. For example, you can customize the UI toolbars etc. Quite well done.

Ciao,

 

[nabilalk]

OK, import, I'm just using iTunes. For sharing, you can email the PDF with or without annotation.

Searching is easy and fast and doesn't appear to need to create a separate index... maybe it does this when it inhales the PDF.

It's a very thorough program with quite a bit below the surface. For example, you can customize the UI toolbars etc. Quite well done.

Ciao,

Thx for the info about the search index. I have read reviews with people complaining in the latest version that upon emailing their edited PDFs, they lost the annotations. I guess you have not had this experience? Also, you mentioned that you import via iTunes. Would you mind giving me an idea of what that process entails? The reason I ask is because the developer has not updated that info on the User Manual on the iAnnotate website. Thanks.

 

[sch]

I'm really not a power user of this and I've only just played around with it a bit, so I can't give you a lot of details.

As with other apps that can use external files, they show up on the iTunes Apps page when you sync. You simply drag the files you want onto the appropriate program.

Cheers,

 

[lilman]

I have read reviews with people complaining in the latest version that upon emailing their edited PDFs, they lost the annotations. I guess you have not had this experience?

I have iAnnotate and at first had problems with seeing the annotations on emailed pdfs. Later I found out my problem was that I was using Adobe Reader v8.x (which they say is supported, but it wasn't working for me). When I updated to Adobe Reader v9 I could read emailed annotations no problem.

Another important thing to note is that most of the pdf apps on the iPad (like Goodreader) do not support annotations, so if you try opening a marked pdf from iAnnotate in almost any other pdf reader on the iPad you won't see the annotations.

Also, you mentioned that you import via iTunes. Would you mind giving me an idea of what that process entails? The reason I ask is because the developer has not updated that info on the User Manual on the iAnnotate website. Thanks.

I haven't used the iTunes feature since I import into and export out of iAnnotate wirelessly, but it should work like any other iTunes app file share. Just connect your iPad to your computer with the sync cable, select the iPad in iTunes, click the Apps tab, scroll down to the app file share, and drag/drop pdfs into and off of iAnnotate's file share. I find it easier just to use the wifi features (either download the pdf from the web using the in app browser or transfer the pdf from another app such as email).

iAnnotate works well, but you may want to hold off to see if the new version of iBooks has the same features.

 

[nabilalk]

I have read reviews with people complaining in the latest version that upon emailing their edited PDFs, they lost the annotations. I guess you have not had this experience?

I have iAnnotate and at first had problems with seeing the annotations on emailed pdfs. Later I found out my problem was that I was using Adobe Reader v8.x (which they say is supported, but it wasn't working for me). When I updated to Adobe Reader v9 I could read emailed annotations no problem.

Another important thing to note is that most of the pdf apps on the iPad (like Goodreader) do not support annotations, so if you try opening a marked pdf from iAnnotate in almost any other pdf reader on the iPad you won't see the annotations.

Also, you mentioned that you import via iTunes. Would you mind giving me an idea of what that process entails? The reason I ask is because the developer has not updated that info on the User Manual on the iAnnotate website. Thanks.

I haven't used the iTunes feature since I import into and export out of iAnnotate wirelessly, but it should work like any other iTunes app file share. Just connect your iPad to your computer with the sync cable, select the iPad in iTunes, click the Apps tab, scroll down to the app file share, and drag/drop pdfs into and off of iAnnotate's file share. I find it easier just to use the wifi features (either download the pdf from the web using the in app browser or transfer the pdf from another app such as email).

iAnnotate works well, but you may want to hold off to see if the new version of iBooks has the same features.

@lilman:Thanks for your thoughts. From the keynote announcing OS4 and the new Books app, I did not see anything like what is available with iAnnotate. However, we will all know after June 24th. It is good to know that your issue was related to using an older version of Acrobat Reader.

 

[iRookie]

This post was very helpful, but I'm wondering if there's an update? I want to download, edit and/or annotate PDFs and then send them up to a web-based storage cloud. Is iAnnotate still the best way to do this? Have other apps come out recently or been updated recently that are better? And by the way, is there also an app that allows either annotating Word documents or supports the track changes function in Word?

Now that I have an iPad that is so mobile, I'm trying to become paperless by taking notes in meetings and editing or annotating documents using my iPad rather than printing them out and marking them up. But I may be asking too much.

Many thanks!