Thinkpads Forum

A major draw for me to get the x tablet version is the idea of making notes directly on pdfs (i.e. research papers) and print them later with those notes included. Not to mention the ability to easily draw and capture diagrams and control flow as apart of program design would be invaluable (i.e. a recordable whiteboard of sorts)

Also what seems a great benefit would be switching to portrait mode and reading papers the long way; much less time scrolling. Although using the base of the laptop as a pseudo-stand while reading laying down would be missed..

What would the software be that would enable you to write with the digitizer pen on the pdfs (and can the digitizer write on ppt too?), and how is this working out for folks who are using it in this manner? Thanks.

Acrobat Professional has a "pencil tool" that you can use with a mouse that I'm sure would work with the digitizer acting like a mouse.

Don't know about inside PPT itself, but you can drop images of almost any Office document into Microsoft OneNote and within OneNote you can take notes with the digitizer. Definitely look into OneNote if you get a tablet; it has some issues, but there are a number of great Tablet-friendly/note-taking features in it.

smvp6459 wrote:Acrobat Professional has a "pencil tool" that you can use with a mouse that I'm sure would work with the digitizer acting like a mouse.

Don't know about inside PPT itself, but you can drop images of almost any Office document into Microsoft OneNote and within OneNote you can take notes with the digitizer. Definitely look into OneNote if you get a tablet; it has some issues, but there are a number of great Tablet-friendly/note-taking features in it.

QFT. I really like using OneNote to take notes and do my school work with. IIRC, in OneNote 2007 you can import pdf files, ppt files, and pretty much anything else directly into a notebook and just write notes over the files.

I second one note, i use it alot in school . You can turn pdfs into one note documents as well. Most useful piece of software that ms has made in years

try "pdf annotator"
i haven't used it but supposedly better than acrobat

i used my X41T extensively in school for taking notes directly on power point presentations i got from my professor before he presented them in class. power point has an inking function, and you can add a button for it to any toolbar. tap that, then write directly on slides, or click "insert new slide" for noting there in handwriting. i preferred to keep my handwriting as the form of notetaking, then would save the changes as images when finished. this way does not convert the handwriting to text but just saves your handwriting as a layer of graphics on the slides. worked great for me in that context... when i went back to review the slides and notes i could have my special signs, formulas, and drawings that i could recognize easily.

if you wanted to have it saved as text, then you'd have to use the Text Input Panel... which I have not cared for in the least and doesn't do a bang-up job of recognizing symbols and scientific stuff.

also, if you do choose to note in this fashion on power point, then i'd recommend changing your presentation's template theme to "plain white" for easy reading and all the room for noting.

i did quite a bit of the same in Acrobat Pro 7, but saved it as text. using the TIP was never my thing so i wasn't crazy about it, but it works.

You can also use Journal (included with every Tablet PC) to print the Acrobat notes to Journal.

You can then write on them, paste stuff onto them, add extra pages and finally, if you want to print the whole lot.

Between Journal, PDF annotator and Office (including One Note) you have a whole range of tools to do the job. Most intuitive for what you want to do may be Journal though.

ty for taking the time to respond, this is useful