Device with pen for highlighting and writing on .pdfs

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doug_7506

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My job requires to me to do a lot of research. My normal process is to do the research on my pc/laptop until I find something that catches my eye. Once I find a good document, i'll save it as a .pdf and then print it out. Once I have a hard copy, i'll highlight it and write notes on it. Once i'm done, i'll scan the document back into my computer where it is saved in my research folder.

If i'm in a jam where I can't print the document, I'll use my mouse to highlight text in adobe.

Ideally:
I would like to be able to download a .pdf and then use a stylus to highlight the text and write notes directly onto the document. Then I could just save the document into the folder I want to put it into.

Would appreciate feedback. Open to any kind of device. Wouldn't mind something that would replace my laptop. Currently using ux31a.

Someone recommended iAnnotate .pdf. The program looks like it would work pretty well, but it seems like the process of getting the document to and ipad and back would be cumbersome.
 
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Have you considered the Surface Pro lineup? It's basically going to do exactly what you want, and you'd get a laptop upgrade to boot. Of course, budget comes into play too, not sure what you were planning to spend in terms of a hardware upgrade (if going that route at all).
 
Surface Pro or Thinkpad Yoga (with the pen). Surface Pro is probably what you want.

You can use PDF Annotator to do the highlighting.
 
Drawboard on a surface pro/book hell the book and pro 4 comes with it MS likes it that much
 
Yeah i've been looking at the surface line up. Really like the whole line up, but I wasn't sure how well the pen worked with included software. ill check out those two programs right now.

EDIT: how much does drawboard run? Says try for free on the website and says free on the app store.
 
I've been using a Thinkpad Yoga with stylus for over a year now. I'm in med school and use it to write on and annotate PDFs literally every day in either OneNote or PDF Annotator. It's exactly what you're looking for.
 
kumquat said:
I've been using a Thinkpad Yoga with stylus for over a year now. I'm in med school and use it to write on and annotate PDFs literally every day in either OneNote or PDF Annotator. It's exactly what you're looking for.
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How do you like the yoga compared to a surface pro? What made you decide to get the yoga over the surface pro. SP3 seems to be about the same price as a yoga (used prices).
 
It's fine, but I rarely use it in tablet mode unless I'm walking around with it for some reason. It has a far better keyboard than the Surface Pro and is more versatile as a laptop since it doesn't need to lean back on a stand. If your use case involves potentially more tablet use, then Surface Pro by a long shot.

Also, I'm talking about the Thinkpad Yoga. The Lenovo Yoga doesn't fit the bill.
 
kumquat said:
It's fine, but I rarely use it in tablet mode unless I'm walking around with it for some reason. It has a far better keyboard than the Surface Pro and is more versatile as a laptop since it doesn't need to lean back on a stand. If your use case involves potentially more tablet use, then Surface Pro by a long shot.

Also, I'm talking about the Thinkpad Yoga. The Lenovo Yoga doesn't fit the bill.
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I thought the name was a Lenovo Thinkpad Yoga? Could you link me. I have the same worry about a SP3, not a fan of the kickstand. SB looks great, but is really pricey.
 
Their model lineup is confusing. There are a variety of Lenovo Yoga products, but the Lenovo Thinkpad Yoga is its own thing. The Thinkpad products generally have better build quality and the keyboard blows away the non-TP ones.
 
I always import my PDF's in Onenote and then add notes. The Surface Pro lineup is awesome for this!
 
doug_7506 said:
With onenote, can you take notes directly onto the document? Or are the notes stored separately?
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You can write, type, draw, etc right onto the document, and the workspace itself. It's great for organizing things too. You can have separate notebooks, tabs within notebooks, and many documents within a given tab.
 
kumquat said:
You can write, type, draw, etc right onto the document, and the workspace itself. It's great for organizing things too. You can have separate notebooks, tabs within notebooks, and many documents within a given tab.
Click to expand...

Thanks, I never use one note, but will look into it for putting together my files.
 
I bought drawboard ages ago but the Surface 3, Pro 4, and Book all come with it preinstalled, but to buy it is probably somewhere between 5 and 10 bucks, or that's what it was when I got it a few years back
 
doug_7506 said:
Thanks, I never use one note, but will look into it for putting together my files.
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OneNote is awesome and a must have a Surface device. DrawBoard I think stand alone is $10, great for marking up PDFs. One thing can do with OneNote is print out a PDF to it and handwriting is searchable. Very nice.
 
If its basic PDF writing etc... a Galaxy Note 12.2 is exceptional at it. Also a Surface 3 not pro but regular is just fine for basic pdf writing. I would stay away from the Pro 4 because of price right now and its overkill for basic writing tasks.
 
what about a ux31a touch? My wife has the touch version that we could swap. Is there a stlyus that would work with the us31a?
 
Touchscreen is not the same as a stylus input. The Surface Pro and Thinkpad Yoga have (well, it's an option on the Thinkpad Yoga and standard on the Surface Pro) Wacom stylus-enabled digitizers.
 
kumquat said:
Touchscreen is not the same as a stylus input. The Surface Pro and Thinkpad Yoga have (well, it's an option on the Thinkpad Yoga and standard on the Surface Pro) Wacom stylus-enabled digitizers.
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Good point. so it seems the sp3 is the way to go. Although i would really still like something that can be a laptop.

Any other good 2in1s beside the surface book? Just too much for it.
 
What about something like a dell venue 8?? It is cheap enough where I dont mind buying it and using it just for my research purposes, yet it is small enough that it shouldnt be a problem to carry it aorund with my laptop. An 8 is probably too small though. I'd guess I should probably look into the 10
 
I have a first gen Venue 8 Pro. Pretty nice tablet but the pen experience on those devices was not good. Not sure what the state of Synaptics pens are these days, Dell and HP use them. If you really are going to need the pen you might want to look at Toshiba's tablets that use Wacom's newer pen technology. The Dynabook might work for you. It's Atom based but shout be plenty powerful for your purposes.
 
I have a Nexus 7 and it would be way too small for this sort of scenario. You also won't have the high-res Wacom digitizer input with buttons. I think you can get Bluetooth styluses, but they use batters and don't have the precision of a Wacom anyway.

If you want to mark up documents, you really want something with a real stylus digitizer IMO.
 
Appreciate all the input. Played around with Drawboard PDF and im in love. Works really really good even though i'm using a mouse.
 
I would recommend the thinkpad yoga 12 2nd gen as your best bet for a good laptop and note taking device. It has a touchscreen, the best keyboard of all other 2 in 1 devices, and its wacom digitizer implementation is of the EMR kind - older tech, but the best I've used (even with only having 1024 levels of pressure).
 
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