Skim is a definite improvement over Adobe and Preview for reading and annotating PDFs, so I've been attempting to find a way to interact as rapidly and easily with a PDF on screen as I do on paper. Unfortunately, printing the PDF is still much easier/faster when I really need to absorb and interact with the material.
But I do see the possibilities. I have been experimenting with a small graphics tablet at work and a big monitor (24", which shows two full PDF pages at a time) I have only briefly attempted Ink, without much success so far because I don't seem to write in a way it understands. This may be because my small Wacom "Bamboo" tablet is getting mapped to the big, wide monitor, and so my normal writing doesn't map in a way that can be interpreted by Ink. As for using Skim with the tablet, there are two problems I have: 1. my most legible writing on a tablet is printing. But printing does not work in Skim because each stroke is a separate object, which then gets moved around when you try to make the next stroke. Cursive writing is almost tolerable. It looks terrible, but *is* barely readable. Unfortunately, words requiring multiple strokes incur the same problem as printing. [note: it looks terrible because 1) you don't get the same feedback as writing on paper, and 2) the pixels in Skim are either ON or OFF with no smoothing or shading as seen in a paint program.] The fix, if it is possible, could be to have a hot key (while held down?) that enables multiple strokes as one object. I can imagine it would be easy to use, and difficult to accidentally use. In that case, I would always print, and give up cursive writing. Or perhaps a way to disable the ability to grab and move objects so you can keep writing. [the second one won't make sense if you haven't tried writing a note]. 2. Highlighting is, at this point, no (or little) better with the graphics tablet than with a mouse. But it could be. What is needed is a way to switch highlighting ON and then start underlining whatever you want (as you do with a highlighter on paper), rather than the old Select-then-apply-format method, which is way too slow. MS Word offers this option. I don't know how they implement it. I've always wondered, by the way, what the Skim home page means when it says Skim offers: "Highlighting important text, including one- swipe highlight modes". One-swipe mode *sounds like* what I'm asking for. But I sure don't know how to turn it on. In any event, I am still thrilled by what Skim offers, and I hope a more natural interaction (using a graphics tablet) can someday be implemented. - Rick ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ Skim-app-users mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/skim-app-users
