Zettelkasten Forum


iPad in PC ecosystem?

edited August 2020 in Software & Gadgets

Sorry for off topic question.

My home desktop computer, my university computer, my 10" (traveling) laptop are PC computers. So I have no experience with Apple. I could not (and frankly, I don't want) to switch completely to Apple ecosystem, but I like a lot how iPad handle pdf's. As far as I can see, majority here are Apple users, so my question is: can iPad communicate/export pdf, notes in pdf's etc well to Windows programs? I know that there are better (tech) forums to ask this, but this sort of questions, at the end, produce kind of holly wars between Apple and Windows users which is not my intention.

Post edited by Sascha on

Comments

  • It's not offtopic. :smile: We are not tied to an operating system.

    I am a Zettler

  • @damaskin said:

    can iPad communicate/export pdf, notes in pdf's etc well to Windows programs?

    Many iPad programs can produce PDF files and once you do so, it is simple to "share" it, say via e-mail. You can open a PDF file on any computer platform - it has ultimate portability.

  • @damaskin I think you'll want to search the web for GoodNotes, a very popular (file management and) PDF reader application with annotation support. I don't personally know what people do with the annotations on Windows, though.

    Author at Zettelkasten.de • https://christiantietze.de/

  • @ctietze said:
    I don't personally know what people do with the annotations on Windows, though.

    I am looking something like Kindle's My clippings, to export highlights and annotations to .txt, so I can import them in my ZK system. Unfortunately, reading .pdfs on Kindle is hard. I can convert pdfs in mobi format, but in that case, I'm loosing page numbers, which I need for citations. Now, I am using Citavi, but it's Windows only program. So, for out-of-a-desk research, (as I can see) I have two options: iPad or some Windows based 2-in-1 or clamshell laptops. The problem with the last is the screen quality for reading.

  • I don't know about Citavi, but Zotero has a plugin called ZotFile, where you can convert annotations made on an iPad (or whatever-tablet-device) to text-based notes. If I remember correctly the text-notes in Zotero are in some kind of rich-text-format. But there is a plugin to export them to markdown: https://github.com/argenos/zotero-mdnotes

  • You can also check out the app Highlights you do not need a Mac to use it as works great on an iPad.

    The paid version (both monthly and yearly options) will export highlights and text annotations to Markdown. It also automatically adds the page numbers. It will also fetch the metadata of a PDF and "Automatically find DOI-links in scientific articles and download the correct metadata. Markup a citation and tap the link icon to look it up. If you have already read the citation Highlights will link it to the PDF on your device."

    It has really helped me process articles more quickly and get them into my system easily. It does not support handwriting on the article, you will have to use a different app for that

  • @ProfMac Wow, that's exactly I ask for. Thank you.

  • @runit Thank you, I don't know how I missed it.

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