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Does anyone use iAnnotate?

mikethebigo

mikethebigo

macrumors 68020
Original poster
May 25, 2009
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I'm considering giving the iPad one last go as a useful enough device to keep instead of returning it and just sticking with my MBP. I work with a lot of PDF files for school that I usually have to print out to write and draw on. Does anyone know if the annotation works well in iAnnotate? Is it simple and intuitive, and as fast as it would be if I were just using pen and paper?

Thanks for any info.
 
I recently purchased it and truly enjoy it so far for taking notes. It is feature packed but needs an update to fix some dumb shizite.

Highlighting, underlining, annotating, and even voice recording make it perfect for the classroom. I'm assume it'll do everything you need it to.

Be patient with it though, the learning curve isn't too bad, and they have an excellent teacher built in.

Get it, test it, keep your iPad!

Not sure if you know or not, the dev has a decent video on YouTube. Check it out before you drop the $6.99
 
There was just an update to iAnnotate...

It syncs PDFs with iTunes now.

Also, all the annotations I did in iAnnotate showed up in Preview and Adobe Acrobat Pro on my Mac.
 
This is one of the most used app in my iPad. I read a lot of medical journals and love uploading the pdf files in my iPad, read and annotate the article and I can always upload it back to my Mac. Well worth the price!
 
iAnnotate is cool, but when GoodReader supports highlighting and note taking, I might use it less.
 
I've been using iAnnotate and like it quite a bit :) They changed it yesterday so hopefully I will still like it! :)
 
Does it let you insert text annotations onto the PDF, like the Add Text annotation in Preview?

A lot of my professors post old exams to study from before our tests, and I always use Preview to fill in the blanks and answer short answer questions with Add Text.
 
markosb said:
iAnnotate is cool, but when GoodReader supports highlighting and note taking, I might use it less.
Click to expand...

That's why I'm holding off as well and email confirmation from GoodReader is this function is tops on their list and coming soon!

I love how within GoodReader can access my Dropbox, MobileMe, Gmail, POP mail, FTP, NAS etc. for my files. The only thing missing is annotation function. I was extremely happy with their latest update to enable files to open with 3rd party apps. I was thinking of buying iAnnotate at $6.99 and for me to go within GoodReader to open PDF's via 3rd party support to iAnnotate. But then I didn't like how iAnnotate handles exporting of files...too cumbersome for my workflow and I believe it doesn't allow one to save locally on iPad (pls correct me if I'm wrong). Occasionally I get +80 page (+10MB) pdf's to review and would be impossible for me to annotate in one sitting if saving locally is prohibited. But iAnnotate does look good but now that the app is $9.99, I'll just wait patiently for annotation feature in GoodReader.
 
IAnnotate

I use iAnnotate nearly every day and love it. I mainly use it for reading and taking notes on journal articles. Recently, I completed a 14 chapter textbook review using iAnnotate and Pages and it worked like a charm. It was certainly a lot better than lugging around printed pages and I was able to bookmark, make comments, etc. as I was reading.

Highly recommend this app.
 
Limitation: iAnnotate Doesn't Support Interactive Form PDFs? (xml)

I don't think it's just me here, but my Adobe Acrobat PDF forms which have information entered is gone when I open them in iAnnotate.

Adobe Acrobat PDF forms, which use XML forms for entered interactive data (including text fields, check boxes, radio boxes, etc.) appear to store the data in the PDF form that only Adobe Acrobat & Adobe Reader may read.

For me this ruins the whole point of using my iPad to have customers sign their signature on my already filled out forms from my computer.

It is slow and cumbersome to enter all of the textual information on a 3 page Application PDF, so I fill it out on my computer, and dropbox it to open on my iPad so the customer can simply sign the Application with iAnnotate & my Pogo stick stylus, and I can print it or email it, whatever.

However, only Adobe Acrobat & Apple Preview are able to "see" the entered information. I think the only way for me to accomplish customers signing these forms is to EXPORT the PDF as a image (TIFF,JPG,etc..., and re-convert to PDF again, open in iAnnotate and resave. This SUCKS! Why hasn't Adobe come out with an iOS version of Acrobat Pro yet!?!?!?
 
chaseholden said:
I don't think it's just me here, but my Adobe Acrobat PDF forms which have information entered is gone when I open them in iAnnotate.

Adobe Acrobat PDF forms, which use XML forms for entered interactive data (including text fields, check boxes, radio boxes, etc.) appear to store the data in the PDF form that only Adobe Acrobat & Adobe Reader may read.

For me this ruins the whole point of using my iPad to have customers sign their signature on my already filled out forms from my computer.

It is slow and cumbersome to enter all of the textual information on a 3 page Application PDF, so I fill it out on my computer, and dropbox it to open on my iPad so the customer can simply sign the Application with iAnnotate & my Pogo stick stylus, and I can print it or email it, whatever.

However, only Adobe Acrobat & Apple Preview are able to "see" the entered information. I think the only way for me to accomplish customers signing these forms is to EXPORT the PDF as a image (TIFF,JPG,etc..., and re-convert to PDF again, open in iAnnotate and resave. This SUCKS! Why hasn't Adobe come out with an iOS version of Acrobat Pro yet!?!?!?
Click to expand...

True, but imo it's the best one out there. I mainly use it to study some literature and I highlight and underline the important parts.
I have tried doing the same with GoodReader, but so far it's not as good as iAnnotate. Also, a key feature I like is being able to load and switch with up to 6 documents on the fly.

I emailed the developer a while ago, and he mentioned they keep improving their product with new features all the time. I would like to see improved Dropbox support (It's currently good but could be better), and better free handwritten annotations and form filler.
 
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