How to Edit PDF Files

Annotate, Highlight, Sign (PDF Annotations, Highlights, and Markups)

 

You can view, create, edit, and delete various kinds of PDF notes, drawings, highlights, and markups. All PDF Annotations that you create or edit in GoodReader are saved in the PDF file so that you can see them later on a computer or in another copy of GoodReader on your colleague`s device.

Types of annotations that you can create and edit in GoodReader: popup notes ("sticky notes") with 7 different icons, text highlights, typewriter notes, text boxes with callouts, freehand drawings, lines, arrows, rectangles, ovals, "cloudy" shapes, text underlines (including "squiggly" ones), text deletion marks (strikeouts), text insertion marks, text replacement marks. You can adjust the color of all of the above.

The other types of annotations that you can view or delete — but not edit — in GoodReader: polygons and polylines, rubber stamps, file attachments. Polygons and polylines can be edited in a limited fashion (color, placement, size).

 

Two main gestures that you should use to work with annotations — quick single tap, and tap & hold. Depending on where you tap (on a text, on an existing annotation, or free space on a page), different popup menus are presented to you.

 

 

 

To edit or delete an existing annotation, tap it briefly, or tap and hold it for a while.

Two exceptional cases to note: text note popups and highlights/markups. When you tap a text note, a default action (opening a note) invoked right away. To access more options (deletion, color adjustment), tap and hold it for a while. On the contrary, when you tap and hold a highlight/markup, you activate a default action - text selection, which is more natural for an underlying text. To access editing options for a highlight (deletion, color adjustment), you have to tap it briefly.

 

To summarize:
Just memorize the following very simple rule: one of two gestures (quick tap or tap & hold) should always work. If one of them doesn`t, try another.

 

 

Besides self-explanatory text buttons, there are graphical buttons on the annotation menu:

 

The buttons are:

• Add Bookmark, Typewriter, Popup Note, Highlight, Underline, Squiggly Underline, Strikeout, Line, Arrow, Rectangle, Oval, Eraser, Freehand Drawing.

 

iPad only: Creating markups (highlights, underlines) works differently when done via the popup menus or via the Side Menu. While popup menus mark up a text that is already selected, using the Side Menu`s markup buttons activates a special "markup" mode, in which you draw over a text with your finger to mark it up.

 

 

While you can move a note or drawing via a popup menu, there`s a more natural way to do it. Tap and hold a note or drawing for a while, then start moving it without releasing your finger.

 

You can see a summary of all annotations in a file by opening Locations window with this button:

 

Also, you can send this summary via email, or print it via AirPrint with the Actions button:

 

 

Enter your name in the Author field in PDF Settings, and all annotations you create will be tagged with this name. Also, the name will appear in a summary list.

 

 

iPad only: Freehand drawing tool can work in two different modes - a "normal" mode, in which you draw with your finger over a PDF page, and a special drawing mode with the Handwriting Zoom Window which allows you to draw tiny details in a large zoomed window while seeing an overview of the entire page.

 

Note the blue Auto Advance Zone. When you`re drawing there, the zoomed section auto-advances its position on the page, like a caret of a typewriter.

When drawing in the normal mode, you can zoom or pan a page with two fingers. It can be useful when creating a long handwritten note that doesn`t fit on one screen.

Pinching with two fingers inside the Zoom Window scales its relative size on the PDF page.

 

Another helpful feature is an adjustable Palm Rest Zone where you can put your palm while drawing:

 

 

All notes, highlights, markups, and drawings created outside GoodReader and stored correctly in a PDF file can be viewed or edited in GoodReader.

 

Many types of annotations, including drawings (lines, arrows, freehand drawings), can have a text comment associated with them. GoodReader allows you to view those comments and edit almost all of them.

 

You can extract files from PDF file attachments.

 

Please note that PDF annotations are bound to a particular page. Therefore you cannot draw across pages, even if you`re currently reading a PDF file in a double-page mode.