Bluebeam PDF Revu

[leaftye]

Let's discuss it. I'll start by asking three questions.

Will it resize and move annotations quickly, even when the tablet is set to power saver mode?

When you search for text, does it highlight the term it finds?

Does it allow multiple "pencil/pen" widths?

I've used PDF Annotator since early last semester and over the winter session, and I'm hoping to find a better solution to these shortcomings I'm finding in PDF Annotator. I'd love to hear from someone that's owned and used both extensively.

[lavenderpup]

I believe its Yes, no and yes to those questions, but they do have a trial version you can use to test it out.. Markup is like the onenote smoothness but you can't search [or it can't read my handwriting. . .]
http://www.bluebeam.com/web07/us/downloads/

[leaftye]

Thanks, I checked out their website, but lost the answers to my questions in their descriptions. I got the impression that tablet capabilities wasn't a very big priority, quite unlike PDF Annotator since they highlighted many of their other capabilities first.

I've had too many issues with crappy trial versions to risk it on my tablet, but I do trust multiple glowing user reviews.

[Frank]

I tried the trial some time ago, everything I still know is:
- you can use different widths, it has an eraser, highlighter, pen, shapes, ... It is easy to use and annotation is perfect.
- if you search some text it will create a list on the right side and then you can select each entry and it will highlight the word in the document.

Everything seems perfect, but whatever I do, it stresses the CPU all the time I move my cursor over the document. If I write or only move the cursor over the document, the CPU usage of the program is always about 30-50% (50% means it stresses a whole core) It doesn't lag in power saver mode, it runs fine, but it stresses the CPU, I don't know why, maybe I can deactivate something, but I hadn't found this and that's why I still don't have a PDF annotating program.

- PDF Annotator: creates only bitmaps
- PDF Revue: perfect, but stresses the CPU
- Acrobat Professional: lag
- Jarnal: lag

[Frank]

Ok, I installed the trial a second time but unfortunatly the trail period expired *cry* So i decided to uninstall it again, and delete all registry entries, installed it again, and *tatahhh* it worked, I have the whole 30 days again ^^ Nice.

Anyway, I played a bit with it again, and created a small sample annotated PDF file, if you are interested, download it and look at it.
Download via RapidShare (scroll down, select "free", wait about a minute, insert the displayed code and start the download)

PS: It's possbile to move and resize PDF annotations easily, even in power saver mode and with a bit lag even with active 50% CPU throttling.

[leaftye]

Frank, thanks for the feedback. The cpu usage is a bit alarming. I generally get LOTS of battery life (easily over 10 hours), but that certainly wouldn't be the case if I had the cpu maxed while studying a few chapters.

Thanks for putting up that pdf. I downloaded it, and wow, I'm very impressed by all the pen widths, and especially impressed by how fine the 0-point pen is! I also like how it highlights the text in the same manner as Acrobat, which allows it to create straight lines of highlighting, whereas PDF Annotator basically paints over the text without regard to the text beneath it. Oh yeah, and you're quite the artist too!

If I can find a solution to the cpu usage problem, I think I'll buy it.

[leaftye]

Okay, I tried out PDF Revu on vmware, and while I didn't have the cpu usage problem, I had two other issues.

First, it wouldn't erase a string of continuous writing. It broke a continuous line into multiple sections, and I had to go over the same area with the eraser many times and in many directions. This would be completely unsatisfactory for deleting one line of text within a paragraph since I would have to swipe the area around an area the size of the paragraph just to erase a couple bits of ink within one line. As if that wasn't bad enough, I couldn't get some bits of ink to delete at all.

The second, and possibly bigger problem, is that I couldn't find a fullscreen viewing mode. Both Acrobat and PDF Annotator make it very easy to view a document fullscreen. PDF Revu needs a way to do this, and it needs to have a minimal toolbar like PDF Annotator so I can still ink while in fullscreen.

The program looks rather robust, but I'm afraid these shortcomings are more than enough to keep me from using it on my tablet. If there are easy fixes to these problems, please share them. I want to like this program, so please don't hesitate to let me know if there's a better way to use it.

[Frank]

1. Good, that you tried it, too.
2. I made a restart and tried it again, and, lo and behold, it only consumes 0-10% CPU power while inking.
3. Eraser: I wasn't able to remove only a specific piece of a line. If I remove a line it sometimes removes the whole line or it splits the line in two or three smaller lines and I have to erase them.
4. Fullscreen: There is no fullscreen mode. But it doesn't need a fullscreen mode. It has profiles. You can align all your toolbars, etc. and then save this placement as a new profile. Now you can switch between profile "tablet" or someting other and your own profile, which represents the fullscreen mode now

[leaftye]

That eraser thing is weird isn't it? It really shouldn't be breaking the line up. I want to remove the entire line every time just like it's done in Onenote.

Thanks for the tip about the profiles. If they fix the eraser, I'll give it a shot. Fortunately v6 is supposed to be released this month, so hopefully they've already fixed the eraser.

[Blaze1248]

@leaftye: Regarding Full-screen
While there isn't a full-screen mode, there actually there is a reduced mode that removes all of the extra bars to your bare essentials. All you have to do is select the Tablet mode, there should be a drop down box and it is in one of the menus.

Also, imo, I don't think that it was designed especially for tablet users. It's more for people who do a lot of markups (say the engineering, architecture, building, construction type industries) and the tablet pc interface has been bolted onto that.

I use it every day and my toolbox has become quite complex and has a large range of customized tools which make my job easier. I mostly use the tablet pen to sign documents (even though it doesn't do pressure sensitivity), and to do super-quick markups.

Regards,

Blaze