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 annotations that you create or edit in GoodReader - notes, highlights, markups, and drawings - are saved in a PDF file so that you can see them later on a computer or in another copy of GoodReader on your colleague`s device.

First, transfer a file to GoodReader (see: How To Import Files & Folders), then tap a PDF file name to open it.

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 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 unique options for a highlight (deletion, color adjustment), you have to tap it briefly.

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 annotations menu:

The buttons:

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

Pad 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 draw with 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 application settings, PDF section, and all annotations that you create tagged with this name. This name appears 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 to draw tiny details in a large zoomed window, while seeing an overview of an entire page.

Another helpful feature is the adjustable Palm Rest zone, where you can put your palm while drawing. Here are the buttons to control these features:

Buttons to adjust the position of the zoom window on a PDF page Undo and Redo buttons toggles between drawing modes - normal, and zoom mode toggles the adjustable Palm Rest zone on and off when dragged, adjusts the size of the Palm Rest zone, when tapped, toggles the entire combination of zoom window and palm rest zone on and off drag this arrow to adjust the size of the Auto Advance zone. When you`re drawing to the right of this arrow, the position of the zoom window on a PDF page is advanced to the right automatically Pinching with two fingers inside the zoom window scales its relative size on a PDF page. Palm Rest zone doesn`t work well with system-wide Multitasking Gestures (swipes with four fingers to reveal multitasking bar). When putting your wrist on the palm rest zone, the system will intercept this event and often confuse it with a four fingers swipe. If you plan to use the Plam Rest zone, it is recommended to switch Multitasking Gestures off in main device settings.

When doing a freehand draw in a 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. iPad only: The same gesture works in the "markup" mode that activated via the Side Menu`s markup buttons - Highlight, Underline.

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.

Types of annotations that you can create and edit in GoodReader: popup ("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 freely adjust the color of all of the above.

The other types of annotations that you can view in GoodReader: polygons and polylines, rubber stamps, file attachments. All annotations that can be viewed can also be deleted. Also, polygons and polylines can be edited in a limited fashion (color, placement, size).

You can extract files from PDF file attachments.

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