Quote:
Originally Posted by jaggy
This is useful to know, as that's how exactly I plan to use the Edge. It's really unfortunate that it's not usuable as it should be at the moment for marking up pdfs.
Though anotating academic PDFs can be tricky, as it depends how they've been formatted. I've used annotation software on a Windows pc tablet (e.g. Bluebeam PDF Revu), which has sophisticated zooming and I still found it awkward.
When marking up converted MS Word docs as pdfs, it's usually not difficult as font-size & margin spacing is fine. But often, you find on academic pdfs, the text can be natively small and there is not much margin space to hand annotate comments (and instead inserting comments in a box via the pdf software, rather like MS Word comments system, seems easier). Or you zoom in and write comments and then zoom out. But the Edge doesn't have that feature properly working yet. Even if it sorts out landscape rotation, this ends up restricting how much of the article you can see, which is a rather artifical way of reading a (dense academic) document. On a tablet pc, I found zoom in/out for writing comments hassle, and I got impatient when using it as it went against how I interact with pdf articles via quickly scribbling notes and marking up, going back and forth etc. (Of course everyone has their own method of working with texts, so my comments here may not be relevant!)
It makes me wonder if apart from simple highlighting and underlining, properly annotating academc pdfs is ever going to be really practical on e-readers (or tablets). Sure, Edge/other e-readers are great for allowing you to carry huge numbers of academic articles. But for close reading and interaction with a text and making hand-written markups, whether printed paper pdf and a fine-tiped pen ultimately leads to a simpler life?
Instead of investing in the Edge, I buy a decent light weight 10/12in e-reader (lots of new ones coming on the market) for general pdf reading, and invest in a sheet-feeder scanner/printer and actually re-scan my marked up pdfs....heretical thing to say on an Edge forum  |
You make some excellent points. By far, it is easier to do the ol' pen-and-paper method of annotation for academic PDFs. However, the time, weight, storage, and cost (monetary and environmental) of printing out every PDF I want to thoroughly read verges on demoralizing. For me, if the annotations would just stay with the particular area of the paper I put them on while I scroll around, zoom, or whatever, the EE would be a perfect device. Rescanning my marked up PDFs would defeat the purposes of saving time, money, and energy, even if it would alleviate the storage and weight issues.
Thanks for the insight, though! I really do appreciate everyone's comments!