HACKER Q&A
📣 horsellama

iPad Pdf Annotating Workflow?


I was spoiled during grad school as the department let us print as many documents as we needed. As a result my workflow was heavily paper-based. Now I’m in a R&D team which is proudly paperless and printers are banned. Basically I’m forced to read pdfs on a computer screen while keeping notes on a separate piece of paper. The pdf viewers integrate note taking tools feel all distracting and break my reading-note taking flow.

I happen to have an iPad Air with an Apple Pencil but I didn’t find a good app for annotating pdfs. I always end up zooming in a lot, writing notes and zooming out. Again, this breaks my flow.

I saw the Remarkable2 which may be good for my purposes, but I’m interested in hearing other solutions


  👤 rahimnathwani Accepted Answer ✓
GoodReader or GoodNotes on a 12.9" iPad Pro.

GoodReader has better file organization capabilities.

GoodNotes has better annotation capabilities.

Both are cheap.

A 12.9" iPad isn't cheap, but it means you don't usually have to zoom.


👤 Tomte
GoodNotes.

If you can stand subscriptions: also Notability.