Hi,
I a new scrivener user and want to use it for writing my PhD thesis.
I have the research documents related to my PhD in PDF format. Can I annotate a PDF within Scrivener - highlight, add notes etc. to save time?
Any guidance would be most appreciated thank you.
As best I understand, you can store and view PDFs in Scrivener (must go in the Research folder I believe)… and edit them from within Scrivener via launching an external editor. Launching the external editor can be done from the menu, via an icon below lower right corner of view of PDF and probably other ways (keyboard shortcut)… See my reply in the following thread. There’s an extra little two step involved… mentioned in the thread or see below.
https://forum.literatureandlatte.com/t/useless-text-selection-in-pdf-files/27180/10
Note the little two step involved. If you anticipate making/saving any changes to the PDF, once you have launched the external editor, click/point elsewhere in the project in Scrivener so that the PDF contents are no longer being displayed by Scrivener itself, as Scrivener having it open will block you from being able to save the changed PDF back into the project.)
Best I can advise is try this, via the free full featured evaluation download of Scrivener plus Adobe Acrobat Reader or whatever other robust PDF editor you prefer as the “external editor” and see if the approach works for you. My sense is, some like/use it, others don’t. You’ll have to decide for yourself.
literatureandlatte.com/trial.php
“The trial runs for 30 days of actual use: if you use it every day it lasts 30 days; if you use it only two days a week, it lasts fifteen weeks. Before the trial expires, you can export all of your work or buy a licence to continue using Scrivener.”
Hopefully others more expert/experienced with this will also answer. You might also try searching these forums (search field in upper right hand corner) on keywords such as “thesis”, “external editor”, “annotate PDF”, “PDF annotation”, “PDF thesis”, etc.
Hope that is some help.