iAnnotate PDF
- iTunes:
- Price:$9.99
One of the first apps that was widely used for PDF management was iAnnotate. As we noted, iAnnotate is a great tool for annotating documents although it can certainly be improved upon for PDF management. Interestingly, Stanford has adopted iAnnotate as a core app and supplies a copy of this app with every iPad.
Unfortunately, iAnnotate is not the best app to manage a PDF library and the main reason for this is that the ability to import/export documents is flawed and challenging at best. iAnnotate can import documents from a number of sources on the iPad, such as email attachments and Dropbox (see more below). However, it can only export documents via email or when connected to a desktop. This can rapidly become overwhelming to manage if a number of documents are dealt with on a daily basis.
The lack of Dropbox integration means that file and folder structures will not automatically appear within iAnnotate and will need setting up manually. In terms of actual document management, iAnnotate offers a functional, albeit, basic set of features. Included is the ability to duplicate files, create folders, move and rename files alongside a useful tagging feature which allows you to tag each document. iAnnotate contains a search function and can also sort files using a number of criteria such as date last read. However, other features, such as the ability to open a PDF in a different app on the iPad are inexplicably absent.
iAnnotate is a really popular app which is likely due to the fact that this was the first legitimate iPad PDF annotating app. While its ability to annotate files is well implemented, its ability to manage a collection of PDFs is less so. This could be substantially improved with Dropbox integration which would automatically download and upload annotated PDFs, simplifying the import/export process considerably.
iAnnotate’s inability to handle multiple file types (.doc and .ppt are currently in Beta) such as .zip files or .txt files limits its functionality as does its general file management user interface, which is not always clear. As a result, iAnnotate cannot be recommended in the role of PDF management app as there are alternative apps that are more effective in this role.
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Consider the free app neu.Annotate PDF; it has more of the features you mentioned that are missing from iAnnotate such as annotating–hence, the name, marking up, emailing and saving to Dropbox, YouSendIt, Blio, ACTPrinter, etc. I have the basic, free versions of Dropbox, Box.net, SkyDrive and YouSendIt. I prefer the latter cloud app by far. It has many more features than Dropbox, including some of the PDF-specific attributes you noted as missing from Dropbox. I use DocuSign Ink when my signature is required. I use all of these apps on my iPhone 4 that I use at home and work as a pharmacist at a federal teaching, healthcare agency.