Mac OS X ’s Preview practical software is amazingly powerful for what is basically an image watcher . However , if you need serious PDF editing feature article , you need something like the $ 50 PDFpen or $ 95PDFpen Pro , or the $ 449 Acrobat .
But what if you just want a more - ripe PDFreaderand , like me , prefer to keep Adobe Reader off your Mac ? Check outSkim 0.2 (; free ) , an open - source app by Christiaan Hofman , Michael McCracken , and Adam Maxwell that provide a turn of utilitarian features for PDF viewing . ( Thanks toTUAWfor the heads - up . )
reasonably much anything you may do with a PDF in Preview — viewing , resizing , bookmarking , etc.—can be done similarly in Skim , so I wo n’t get into those features here . However , Skim volunteer a undecomposed phone number of unique features that heighten PDF viewing and annotating . For example , whereas Preview lease you tote up float text notes and ellipse annotation , Skim offers those features plus the capability to highlight , underline , or strikethrough school text ; add rectangle annotations ; and add Acrobat - same anchored notes ( notes that show up as a little note icon , only displaying their text or image contents when you get through on them ) .
Even better , by viewing the Notes Pane , you’re able to see a leaning of every annotating you ’ve made in the current PDF papers and rapidly jump to any of them .
Skim ’s contentedness pane works much like Preview ’s Drawer — you may watch thumbnail of each Sir Frederick Handley Page of the current document or view the papers ’s table of content ( assuming it has one ) , although Skim ’s board - of - contents show actually lists the Sir Frederick Handley Page numbers . I also like that when you do a lookup of a PDF , Skim not only play up the search term on the relevant pages , but also circles it ; I find this approach readable than Preview ’s highlight - only method . ( You also have the choice to use a received Find dialogue that finds the first natural event of your search term and then lets you jump to the next or previous occurrence . )
But one of the coolest features of Skim ’s table of contents presentation is that it indicates — by gradients of color — not only which pages of the current document you ’ve read recently , buthowrecently ( up to the five most - recently - read Sir Frederick Handley Page ) . That is , the current page has the glum highlight , with the next - most - lately - viewed Sir Frederick Handley Page in a slenderly lighter highlighting , and so on , take a leak it well-situated to quickly leap back and forth between recently - viewed pages .
I also like Skim ’s reading legal profession , which lets you highlight one ancestry of text edition at a meter ; you could move the stripe up or down by weightlift Option - Up or -Down , respectively , or by dragging it in Text Tool fashion . ( you may interchange the coloring material and transparency of the meter reading - taproom overlay in Skim ’s preferences . )
Skim also allow a twosome interesting options for lay out PDF document onscreen . A Presentation mode display the PDF at full - silver screen size of it with black borders , allowing you to pilot using the left and proper arrow key ; you’re able to also switch to actual size ( if that size is unlike from full - screen size ) using an onscreen control . But what I like is the full - sieve “ cubicle ” modality for browsing and reading PDF documents . This mode displays your PDF at full - screen sizing , becloud other coating , but still gives you access to Skim ’s menus and tools , and you may quickly view the contents and annotations boxers by moving the mouse pointer to the left or correct edge of the screen , respectively .
Another utilitarian option is the ability to overstate a specific area of a page without have to zoom the entire document display . Choose Magnify Tool and press the want area and a rectangle will appear that contains a exaggerated sight of whatever is under the shiner cursor . Using various modifier - key combinations , you’re able to increase magnification , magnify a larger area , or zoom along out rather .
A similar feature film lets you preview internal links — connection that take you to a different location in the current PDF . Hover the mouse pointer over such a link and a small preview of the destination of that link will seem . control - come home on the link and a belittled , resizable windowpane will pop up displaying the destination ; this is a number like open up a link on a Web page in a novel web browser app window .
lastly , a unique feature film is the ability to take a “ snapshot ” of a section of a PDF document . For example , if your PDF has a table of data that you find yourself going back to repeatedly , you could take a shot of that board and keep it seeable while browsing the eternal sleep of the PDF . you could really take multiple snap , and can switch between them using the Snapshots listing in the Notes draftsman . unluckily , when you come together a snapshot window , that snapshot is edit ; in other words , these snapshots are irregular . ( And they ’re really just a new PDF - viewing window that ’s been resized to show only the selected area , which can be a bite confusing if you endeavor to resize the snapshot window . )
There are a couple other limitations to Skim that have to do with the agency the program salt away its banknote and annotation . These detail are n’t stored in the PDF file itself ; rather , they ’re stored in the extend dimension of the file cabinet ( essentially , metadata stored with the data file in the filesystem ) . This has two substantial disadvantages . First , it means that other PDF - viewing and -editing apps , such as Preview and Acrobat , wo n’t “ see ” tone and notation add in Skim unless you specifically employ Skim ’s Export program line to carry through the Indian file as a PDF With Embedded Notes . ( Although even if you do this , Anchored notes wo n’t appear in Preview . ) Second , it imply that if you send a Skim - cut PDF data file to someone else via electronic mail ( or copy it to a host or drive that does n’t endorse Mac OS X extended attributes ) , all your note and notation will be lost , even if the recipient see the PDF in Skim . Thankfully , the developers have provided a workaround : keep your PDF using Skim ’s File - > Save Archive command , which make a pack together archive of the PDF , preserving extending property ( and , thus , your addition ) . Still , this is an worriment .
Even with these limitations , though , Skim is a tricky lotion with some truly unparalleled PDF - viewing feature article . It just may take the place of Preview on my Macs , at least for reading PDF documents .
Skim 0.2 requires Mac OS X 10.4 or afterward and is a Universal binary .
