iPad Extensive note-taking & highlighting

Pipes · 08-07-2010, 04:10 PM

I am thinking about purchasing an iPad--mainly for reading books and PDFs but wanted to inquire about its ability to handle a high quantity of highlighting or note-taking.

My experience with the Sony PRS-900 (Daily Edition) has been disappointing. I currently have 60 books (mostly PDFs) and over 700 notes on my Sony reader (the notes are mostly highlighted sections about 2-3 sentences long). After reading and highlighting the first few books/pdfs, I noticed a lag of several seconds while the reader "processed" the note. This lag has gotten progressively longer, forcing me to become increasingly selective with highlighting. It now takes about 3-4 minutes for each note to process! The delay obviously makes highlighting while I read impractical.

I am looking for a reader that can handle academic-type reading (PDF manipulation, extensive highlighting). Can anyone confirm that the iPad is suitable for this? Thanks.

owl123 · 08-07-2010, 05:47 PM

It is. Use iAnnotate app for all kinds of bookmarks, notes, highlighting and handwriting. It's great.

lilman · 08-07-2010, 07:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by owl123

It is. Use iAnnotate app for all kinds of bookmarks, notes, highlighting and handwriting. It's great.

+1
iAnnotate is a quality app, I wish I had it in school.

drukos · 08-08-2010, 04:49 AM

Hello all!

I just noticed that when I view a book (either in Flash view or HTML view), the text is not reflowing. By "reflowing", I mean that when I zoom in for a more comfortable size of text, the line-breaks re-arrange themselves to "re-flow" to accommodate the changed text size.

Since the text is not reflowing, increasing the text size causes text to spill OFF the screen, so that reading means constant panning to read text either side of center. Very inconvenient.

This happens ONLY on the ipAd, and NOT on my MacBook; on the MacBook, the text reflows as normal. I noticed the non-reflowing on my ipAd while trying to read at an open-air bench. Having settled down to an orgy of learning in the fresh air, I got a rude shock to find out that the text woudn't reflow, the only way to read text of a reasonable size meant panning left and right at each line--which made it impossible to read. I thought this to be most odd, wondering: "Have those smart-ass programmers at Safari tried to 'improve' things yet again???" I also wondered if the same would happen on my MacBook, and hurried home to find out. Luckily, Safari Books on my MacBook works as normal; i.e. the text reflows as expected. But not so on my ipAd. And I bought the ipAd ESPECIALLY to read books in the Safari library.

DAMN!!!!!

I'm loathe to bang on Safari's technical support door yet again; I've done that too often, and the problem(s) I report usually have been reported by others already.

Oh, well, I guess it's back to study cooped up in my bedroom again, instead of out there, reading while being caressed by birdsong and breeze.

murraypaul · 08-08-2010, 05:48 AM

Why not download the ePub versions rather than PDF?
(Assuming these are O'Reilly books)

08-07-2010, 04:10 PM	#1
Pipes Junior Member Posts: 4 Karma: 10 Join Date: Aug 2010 Device: PRS-900	Extensive note-taking & highlighting I am thinking about purchasing an iPad--mainly for reading books and PDFs but wanted to inquire about its ability to handle a high quantity of highlighting or note-taking. My experience with the Sony PRS-900 (Daily Edition) has been disappointing. I currently have 60 books (mostly PDFs) and over 700 notes on my Sony reader (the notes are mostly highlighted sections about 2-3 sentences long). After reading and highlighting the first few books/pdfs, I noticed a lag of several seconds while the reader "processed" the note. This lag has gotten progressively longer, forcing me to become increasingly selective with highlighting. It now takes about 3-4 minutes for each note to process! The delay obviously makes highlighting while I read impractical. I am looking for a reader that can handle academic-type reading (PDF manipulation, extensive highlighting). Can anyone confirm that the iPad is suitable for this? Thanks.

08-08-2010, 04:49 AM	#4
drukos Junior Member Posts: 2 Karma: 12 Join Date: Aug 2010 Device: ipad	SafariBooks on ipAd: Text does not reflow .. Hello all! I just noticed that when I view a book (either in Flash view or HTML view), the text is not reflowing. By "reflowing", I mean that when I zoom in for a more comfortable size of text, the line-breaks re-arrange themselves to "re-flow" to accommodate the changed text size. Since the text is not reflowing, increasing the text size causes text to spill OFF the screen, so that reading means constant panning to read text either side of center. Very inconvenient. This happens ONLY on the ipAd, and NOT on my MacBook; on the MacBook, the text reflows as normal. I noticed the non-reflowing on my ipAd while trying to read at an open-air bench. Having settled down to an orgy of learning in the fresh air, I got a rude shock to find out that the text woudn't reflow, the only way to read text of a reasonable size meant panning left and right at each line--which made it impossible to read. I thought this to be most odd, wondering: "Have those smart-ass programmers at Safari tried to 'improve' things yet again???" I also wondered if the same would happen on my MacBook, and hurried home to find out. Luckily, Safari Books on my MacBook works as normal; i.e. the text reflows as expected. But not so on my ipAd. And I bought the ipAd ESPECIALLY to read books in the Safari library. DAMN!!!!! I'm loathe to bang on Safari's technical support door yet again; I've done that too often, and the problem(s) I report usually have been reported by others already. Oh, well, I guess it's back to study cooped up in my bedroom again, instead of out there, reading while being caressed by birdsong and breeze.

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08-07-2010, 05:47 PM	#2
owl123 Addict Posts: 234 Karma: 214 Join Date: Nov 2008 Device: Galaxy Note 3, Galaxy NotePro 12.2, InkBook	It is. Use iAnnotate app for all kinds of bookmarks, notes, highlighting and handwriting. It's great.

08-08-2010, 05:48 AM	#5
murraypaul Interested Bystander Posts: 3,725 Karma: 19728152 Join Date: Jun 2008 Device: Note 4, Kobo One	Why not download the ePub versions rather than PDF? (Assuming these are O'Reilly books)

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