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How to Read and Write on PDF or Image Files on iPAD

GoodNotes App

Do you have your child do math or reading practices with worksheets? I have found many free printables recently while searching for some fun learning activities for the summer. These printables are great, but I don’t feel like to print out all of them, so I found a way to read and write on PDF or image files on iPAD directly. All you need is the app GoodNotes.
How to Read and Write on PDF on iPAD
GoodNotes can read files from your device’s photo album, your Dropbox, or Google Drive. It can read both PDF file and image file. Within the app, you can highlight, underline or circle certain parts of the text or image, you can also add text (as note) or draw on the page too. I tried several PDF reader apps (including Adobe) and GoodNotes is the first one I found that is FREE and allows hand writing and drawing – this makes it possible for kids to mark their answers directly on iPAD, instead of writing the answers on a separate paper. With this, our summer study becomes truly paper-free!

How to use GoodNotes?

First, when you find a printables you like, download them into your Dropbox or Google Drive. If it is an image file, you can also save it in your photo album on your device.

Then open GoodNotes. To read the file in GoodNotes, you tap on the little “+” sign at the top left corner of the screen, and then choose where the file is – in my case it is Dropbox.  You will see all the files in Dropbox.  Tap on the file you want, it will start loading into your GoodNotes.
How to Read and Write on PDF on iPAD Step 1

Once the file loaded in GoodNotes, you will see it on the bookshelf on the app’s open screen. Tap the file to open. At the top of the screen, you will see various tools available. For kids, they probably just need the pens – you can adjust the thickness and the color of the strokes, depending on the tasks they are going to do. If they just need mark out the answers, you can make it thicker with bold color; if they have to write words or numbers, you might want to change the strokes into the way they are used to on paper.
How to Read and Write on PDF on iPAD Step2

There are other functions, such as underline or highlight the text, or add comments. These are useful features for older kids or adults when reading articles in the app.

Overall, it is a great app. They do have a full version of the app that allows more files. With the free app, you can only have two files of maximum ten pages at a time. To load more files, you have to delete a file first. If you need have more than two files at a time, you can upgrade to full version via In-App Purchase for $5.99.  For us, I have everything in Dropbox, and just load the sheet I want my son to work on.  Once he finishes, I delete it, and load another one.  It works out perfectly for us. 

GoodNotes is available on iPAD.  There are two versions, one is free with an upgrade option via In-App Purchase. The full version is $5.99. Update: The free version is now not available, only the full version is available on App Store now.
 
If you would like to check it out or purchase it, please use the App Store link provided below. The cost is the same to you, but iGameMom gets a small percentage. Thanks for your support! Note: The link works for all countries.
GoodNotes

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For more note taking apps, you will like Notability.
Taking Notes is never the same again with Notability App

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