Bookmarking Ebooks? On the Mac?

[MarjaE]

Hi,

I don't know if Calibre can do this or if another tool might work better. But I'm looking for a good reliable way to bookmark specific pdf pages.

Apple's Preview adds bookmarks to pdf files, rewriting them in the process. So not an option.

Canoe's Clearview keeps bookmarks in a special folder. But it slows down and freezes if I can't clean out the preferences every few months, so I can't keep the bookmarks for longer than that.

Calibre seems ideal for logging important data about each book, at least as long as I've processed and imported each book. But it means adding even more matadata to a crowded window, and it isn't set up to open specific pages.

Is there some better solution which I've missed?

[BetterRed]

Try this ==>> Skim PDF Reader

And see this ==>> Annotating PDFs in OS X w/o modifying the file

That second link refers to a post in the calibre forum. It's out of date. To add the .skim file to a calibre book folder simply drop it onto the Book Details pane.

BR

[MarjaE]

Thanks, but not Skim. I don't want a dozen extra windows and I don't want to deal with so many 3-key shortcuts.

P.S. My current best idea is to create project folders and export the relevant pdf pages to the relevant project folders.

[BetterRed]

I've never seen Skim, it was only that I recalled the exchange I had with piovac. I also have problems with multi-key shortcuts - it's one reason I like MS Ribbons, you only need one finger to drive them

Have you considered using Evernote for your projects.

• EN works best on Macs, i.e better than it does on Windows.
• It is good at organising loosely coupled information structures
• Evernote Premium has an integrated PDF annotation feature that works on embedded PDF's i.e. PDFs you drop into a note. Sample attached.
• You can copy a note-link from EN, paste it into a calibre custom column, then when you click it in the calibre book details pane the EN Note will open. No plugins or add-ons needed to do that.

BR

[MarjaE]

I don't know much about Evernote or Bear. I tried Apple Notes but couldn't use it. I think me top feature requirements are:

1. Must be able to stop blinking cursors and stop or avoid other animation.

2. Should be able to link specific pages from each pdf.

P.S. Looking at Bookmarkable, but I think I would need to learn to code my own plugins. I can't get it to work with my other apps as-is.

[BetterRed]

When you add a PDF to EN it is a single unit (note). You can annotate it much like writing on a paper book. But AFAIK you cannot link to individual pages within a PDF, you'd have to convert the PDF's into HMTL and break it up into pages.

[MarjaE]

Thanks.

That doesn't look like it would work for my needs. Ideally, I'd like to be able to-- 1. avoid blinking cursors and other animation, 2. bookmark specific pages, 3. organize bookmarks based on topics, and possibly 4. sync bookmarks between computers. The last one would require apps to copy files to their own shelves, I'd previously preferred for them NOT to copy files.