PDFpen and PDF doc’s saved to Evernote

It will come as no surprise to any reader of this blog, I am a massive fan of the paperless office, and of my use of Evernote. So today I thought I might show you the main way I save incoming documents into pdf and the easy way I save to Evernote.

The program I use is PDFpen from SmileSoftware, As far as I know its a mac product, but it has the ability to do just about All I need to take paper convert it to PDF, alter or make notes, and port it to Evernote, or just to my own system disk, so easily.

On the PDFpen site there ae a number of tutorial videos that show how to use PDFpen, the one I wanted to show but could not find and embed code is the Evernote video, it is so easy to use, and is my way of saving paper to both Evernote and to send as a clip within email.

As I am on a Mac, I also use Preview for certain PDF tasks, as I can easily add pdf files together, and alter the page order, but for the real pdf alterations, I use PDFpen.

Some time back I gave my Paperless Office presentation to some CIAT colleagues, so at the bottom, my presentation in full. For me Evernote is the way I store and now record all my CPD research, in PDF,Photo,Sound audio, and plain text, I even have a IFTTT formula to add the title to any Evernote note I make from my Diary.

Yesterday I gave my Structure overview lecture, no calcs, just why the AT student should take note the way load is transmitted through the structure to the bearing ground. So todays photo is one I used to show this taken to its ultimate , in the form of this cathedral roof.

Architectural Technologist – Scanning notes to Evernote

I tend to get just loads of magazines, some good some not so, but within them I find articles or adverts I want to keep, in the old days I would try and keep then in a large blue ring binder, as clips or the full page, it was unwieldy and not so usefull, I would often forget it was even there.

But not now, I save just about all I can to Evernote, via an App called PDFpen for the Mac, it has the ability to control my Brother Scanner copier, and send the PDF to Evernote with a new title.

I prescribe to the pro version of Evernote, which gives me the avidly to get PDF articles scanned, and made available for search.

This is a major boon for me, as I search for things in Google, I get both the web finds, plus a small box with what I have in my personal archive within Evernote that matches the search.

For students this should be almost Mandatory, for lecture notes, reticle and the like, for the technologist, it's a smart way to add credos to you, the transferable skill set that should be so part of your CV.

Today's photo is on a search I made for a box article I made about 10 mins after the video below was made, showing the PDF turn up in a search for Box trees.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Architectural Technologist – CPD workflow for saving, creating notes and recording the hours

I thought you might like to see a video I did recently looking at the way I store information I find during my research, it centres on Evernote of course, and also my way of recording the actual hours in my Google Doc Spreadsheet.

I also use PDFpen to scan in documents into Evernote, if they are paper based. I can also just add time direct into my spreadsheet, copy it and paste direct into Evernote.

I can now quite happily search for items on the web, but because I have the Evernote app in my search program like safari or chrome, it can also see what I have stored in my personal database stored within Evernote.

We that is both Technologists and Architects, in fact most profesionals need to complete and show 35 hours of quality CPD in any one year, this is my way of recording that information, but more importantly, how I can see and use it, in my day to day activity.

If you can't work out how to make up the spreadsheet, let me know and I will make up one specific to you, for a small fee of course !!.

 

 

Posted with Blogsy

Architectural Technologist – PDF File

We all use PDF files for sending out our drawings but most people do not know much about the structure and size control of them, or for that matter how to manipulate them once they are created.

Within my CAD program Vectorworks I have a lot of control over what is included within the PDF file and wether its a single sheet of multiple sheet file. The default setting for the DPI is 300, I have tried lowering it to say 150, it make little or no difference to the PDF, it looks the same and file size was reduce by very little, bearing in mind I have no jpg or tif pictures embeded.

What does make a difference is adding the export design layers and classes, this almost doubles the file size, and on a large file set, this might just cause problems sending over email. A lot of us tend not to send these large files over email, preferring instead to use drop box public folders, sending the link for recipients to download the files.

I use Mac, so PDF use has been built in for some time, an interesting little tool that I have never used, but does help, is the colorSync utility, if you have jpg or tiff files reduce them before you use them within your cad package, I do and the difference onscreen is almost not seen, and the resultant file size is greatly reduced. Macintosh how to have a good article on this.

Of course, using Zip is a great way to help reduce file size and also protect the file in transit, you can also add some form of protection in the form of a password to keep the file to selected users.

As a Mac user I have preview, it's a program that's packaged free, and has some very powerful utilities, I like the way I can add PDF files together, and sort the sheet order, I use this a lot. And of course we have had print to PDF for a long as I can remember. I have included a nice little video below on the basics of Preview, in the side bar look down to see more excellent videos on the subject.

I use PDFpen for adding text, lines, all sort of things to a PDF document, even altering existing text, if you have the money, adobe acrobat is the ultimate utility for PDF creation and editing, but at a cost, PDFpen is a good alternative at a lot less. But this article from Adobe is very useful.

So there it is, PDF is a day to day tool for many of us, yet we just accept the structure, and make do, yet there are many program's that allow us to alter, in many way, the size, shape and internal layout with ease. The CPD is to do a little research, and find out just what PDF is all about, the creation, the use and manipulation.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Architectural Technologist – PDFPen and adding links,scanning and so much more

Tiling

I use PDF for so many things, from drawings, collecting information to attaching information and letters to emails. My mac has the ability to save to PDF within the print function, and Vectorworks has a built in batch PDF save item that makes drawings so easy to send out to clients, Mac preview has some nice functions to merge and collate single PDF documents and also a nice simple set of pens and annotation tools, but in the recent update of the Mac OS to Mountain lion, we lost some of the annotate functions from preview, like adding links, this is particularly annoying and makes a bit of a problem with one job we are doing.

On loading up the new version of Vectorworks 2013, I was so pleased to find a new link tool added to Architect, cool I thought, problem solved, but, is there not always a but in these tales, the export to link tool save to PDF, the Architects main way of disseminating prints, is disabled and is only available in Designer, I ask you, was I a little pissed off, no arf.

So I went on the prowl for an answer and came up with PDFpen, a Mac program that has a very nice link tool for both web and pages withing the document, problem solved, although it means I have to redo the links ever time I update the map, bummer. So Nemetschek, hear me, I am upset, the great 2013 update is fouled because you took the profit route and want me to spend so much more money just to have this function, which I probably told you about, in a meeting over a year ago.

Now I have cooled down, back to PDFpen, because this great app, not only has some cool annotation tools, that have saved the day for me, but will scan, and send to Evernote as well, now I'm getting all hot and bothered again, it's opened up a completely new work flow for me, saving items I can scan, oh and it knows that I have a document feed, so a 10 page document was very easily imported, nice. Plus all the usual markup, merge, and signature items, and some features I'm not sure what they are for yet, but worth the £36 I spent to download it.

Today's phot is of a nice tiling shot from the underside of a pitched roof, showing the tiling battons and I think I can see a little touching, but nice al the same.

 

Posted with Blogsy