digprof - using digital tools in academia

Dedicated to the effective use of digital tools for the 21st century scholar. Includes information on workflow, GTD/productivity, soft/hardware, but unashamedly Mac-centric. To select a special topic, click on the term in the cloud:


A blog by Joachim K. Rennstich, PhD. Follow digprof on Twitter.

Sponsored in part by Fordham University.

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  1. Round-up of iPad PDF editors [updated]

    [Updated to reflect app updates] It took a while, but finally we actually have a variety of PDF editing solutions for Apple’s iPad available. Reading or viewing PDFs has been an early feature for both, the iPhone and the iPad for a while now. Editing PDFs - highlighting, underlining, drawing notes (say a red circle around a graph or data in a table), strike-through text, etc. - however, has been a different story. This has always been a big problem for academics and others (like me) who have decided to place their entire research realm into the digital sphere (from reading to the final draft) who wanted a solution for working with material when apart from a computer.

    The first solution for the iPhone, Aji Annotate, has remained the sole player in that field for a long time. And it works fairly well. Well, as well as one can expect this to work well on an iPhone. The screen is simply too small to do some serious editing apart from the proof-of-concept-I’m-living-on-the-digital-scholar-edge-sort-of-feeling. Then came the iPad. And still, Aji was the only provider with a solution (called iAnnotate). One big improvement others introduced  was the ability to directly import PDFs through Dropbox and of course through iTunes and over WiFi server options and not having to first pace the PDF through some little program on the Mac called Aji Reader that would allow you to format the PDFs so they could be edited better on the iPhone and also would serve as a WiFi server to get PDFs onto the iPhone and out of it back onto your Mac/Win PC). It might have been the only kid in town, but the iPad solution is pretty solid, works well, and does what it promises to do.

    Not sure what happened, but all of a sudden there’s been a flurry of activity on the scene. Some specialty apps (such as the excellent Papers from the makers of a Mac solution for exploring and managing your digital research) have provided PDF editing across digital platforms (on a computer and on mobile devices) but for a software independent work-flow that didn’t force you to use any kind of specialty solution such as Papers user can now choose from a variety of different solutions. I never found the user interface of iAnnotate appealing or especially intuitive (even with the latest update in version 1.3). It is amazingly feature-rich, but that’s not really that helpful when the UI doesn’t work for you. So the new entrants into the field are a welcome addition. Here’s a round-up of some of the iPad apps I checked out so far:

    1. iAnnotate - as far I can tell the most feature-rich of the bunch feature-rich and has set the standards for others (who have caught up by now), but a bit weird takes a  little to get used to, as they insist on their own UI design, which has been greatly improved in the version 1.3. Its not difficult to master, it just doesn’t feel as intuitive (click-hold-drag) as the other offerings. The complete feature-set and ability to interact with one of the main Web 2.0 file cloud solutions (Dropbox) as well as their own file exchange system makes this app a very attractive solution for power-users especially who like to tinker with their system and settings.
    2. GoodReader for iPad - my favorite so far. Very intuitive, everything works as you would expect it to. You click in the text, select it, and then you get options for what to do. The software is very much “not in your way” and just let’s you get on with your reading and note-taking. Not as feature-rich as iAnnotate, but far less clicks to get your note-taking done. At the moment (first days of October) they actually have a sale - I got it for $0.99 - which is way under-priced for such an app…
    3. PDF Expert for iPad - From the makers of Readdle. Offers the basics for a complete set of features now, promising more features in the future (and have delivered in their other apps on such promises). At the moment, this is my favorite application of for PDF editing on the iPad. It has a complete set of features, is very intuitive (click-drag-hold-pinch), and has all the usual Web 2.0 file cloud solutions (Dropbox, Box.net, MobileMe iDisk, Google Docs, FTP/SFTP, WebDAV). In terms of usability, this is the one to get, both in terms of access to files and use on the iPad.
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