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I use iAnnotate PDF a lot and I love it, although I must admit that since I found it I haven't tried any other so maybe there are others that work better by know, but for me iAnnotate PDF is perfect
 
PDF Expert
The Readdle apps don't support writing with the Pencil, though I can hilight/select text with it.

I've been using GoodNotes for PDFs recently since it supports both writing on PDFs as well as highlights/strikethru, etc.

As soon as PDF Expert & Documents are updated, they'll be killer.

Edit: apparently they do work with the Pencil. Wrist Protection in the app settings must be turned off, otherwise the Pencil does nothing, though stray wrist marks sometimes will show up. A post on Reddit says an update is coming to address this.

GoodNote's wrist protection is bulletproof, even to the point of not drawing at all with your finger if you don't want it to.
 
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Any suggestions for a good app to annotate PDFs with the apple pencil?

Thanks
I don't know what specific functionality you're looking for. Notability has pretty primitive annotation; it treats PDFs as a static background and lets you write over them. I've used it (with the Pencil) for grading papers.
 
I'm looking to replace printing and scanning. So writing/annotation and resaving.


Notability has been great with the apple pencil, I have used it to replace scanning. I had not been a fan of notability on my iPad Air, but with the pencil it has been the best pdf app that works with the apple pencil, at least for my uses.
 
Does PDF expert work with Dropbox? Can I annotate files on the desktop and have those annotations in sync with the ones on the iPad?
 
I agree with the recommendation of GoodNotes. I use it primarily for all my handwritten notes, but it is also excellent for highlighting and annotating PDFs. In fact, you can import a PDF into a GoodNotes document, annotate and highlight it and then add pages of handwritten notes either before or after it. You can export the resulting document as a PDF that can, among other things, be stored to an iCloud Drive (or Dropbox, etc) or sent via email.

In short, this one app does everything I want with a highly intuitive interface--not a complex interface like OneNote that makes you work the way it wants you to. With GoodNotes you can create documents (notebooks), create folders (categories) in which to keep the individual notebooks, and do pretty much anything you want to seamlessly. Exactly the app I was looking for. Highly recommended.
 
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I agree with the recommendation of GoodNotes. I use it primarily for all my handwritten notes, but it is also excellent for highlighting and annotating PDFs. In fact, you can import a PDF into a GoodNotes document, annotate and highlight it and then add pages of handwritten notes either before or after it. You can export the resulting document as a PDF that can, among other things, be stored to an iCloud Drive (or Dropbox, etc) or sent via email.

In short, this one app does everything I want with a highly intuitive interface--not a complex interface like OneNote that makes you work the way it wants you to. With GoodNotes you can create documents (notebooks), create folders (categories) in which to keep the individual notebooks, and do pretty much anything you want to seamlessly. Exactly the app I was looking for. Highly recommended.

Does good notes have handwriting recognition/conversion to text?
 
Alas, I don't believe GoodNotes does handwriting recognition/conversion to text--or if it does, I haven't found it yet. Sorry.
 
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Alas, I don't believe GoodNotes does handwriting recognition/conversion to text--or if it does, I haven't found it yet. Sorry.

That's ok, notes plus will convert for me, but I'm looking for something a little more full featured...
 
Does PDF expert work with Dropbox? Can I annotate files on the desktop and have those annotations in sync with the ones on the iPad?

Not only does it support Dropbox, but it supports just about every cloud service out there. I have it connected to my OneDrive for business account as well as my company FTP.
 
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Not only does it support Dropbox, but it supports just about every cloud service out there. I have it connected to my OneDrive for business account as well as my company FTP.

Yes but what if I want to annotate on my desktop (Mac) as well as iOS?
 
If you store the files that you want to sync in Dropbox, then wouldn't Dropbox take care of that? Isn't that its purpose?

I'd like to be able to annotate files on both Android and iOS ideally using the same app. Since there's no version of PDF expert for OS X, how can I continue annotating on OS X unless I use a different app?
 
I'd like to be able to annotate files on both Android and iOS ideally using the same app. Since there's no version of PDF expert for OS X, how can I continue annotating on OS X unless I use a different app?

Yes, you would need a different app on your Mac. But if you use Dropbox, then the files would sync between the 2 programs.
 
Just so you all know, goodnotes does indeed have handwritten text conversion. To convert text, use the lasso tool, select your handwritten notes, and once selected, tap the anywhere inside the lasso (just like with iOS copy/paste). Several options will show up with one of them being "convert". The conversion works very well I must say as I have pretty bad handwriting and occasional stray marks.

My only complaint is that there really should be an option to convert and replace handwritten notes with converted text, with an option in the dialog box to edit the text. To copy the text, you have to select the 'share' icon, then select copy. This could be improved as well by proving a 'copy button below the converted text.
 
Just so you all know, goodnotes does indeed have handwritten text conversion. To convert text, use the lasso tool, select your handwritten notes, and once selected, tap the anywhere inside the lasso (just like with iOS copy/paste). Several options will show up with one of them being "convert". The conversion works very well I must say as I have pretty bad handwriting and occasional stray marks.

My only complaint is that there really should be an option to convert and replace handwritten notes with converted text, with an option in the dialog box to edit the text. To copy the text, you have to select the 'share' icon, then select copy. This could be improved as well by proving a 'copy button below the converted text.

Super helpful, thanks!
 
Hello all – those who might be using it, does Goodnotes allow one to set specific (several) highlight colours (and retain those set, for future use)? Would appreciate some clarity! Many thanks!
 
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