Skim | SourceForge.net

Skim download | SourceForge.net

Skim is a PDF reader and note-taker for OS X. It is designed to help you read and annotate scientific papers in PDF, but is also great for viewing any PDF file. Skim requires Mac OS X 10.6 or higher.

I have used Skim for a while (years) but not very heavily. I always wanted a way to share annotations with PDF files in Preview just because it’s the default reader.

I have decided for the time being that Skim will be my default reader/annotator. Why? Search works very well compared to the anemic (and sometimes broken) search in Preview.

Search the “Logic Pro X User Guide” for ‘add a control point’. In Preview we get the words found on 47 pages. In Skim we get the 5 locations where the string occurs. That’s exactly what I want.

Bookmarks in Skim can be session-only, or remembered. Very handy.

The multi-pane window interface — table of contents on the left (or search results) and annotations on the right, with separate search criteria. Document remains in the middle. Very much like the interface in Scrivener, which I use for all of my notebooks and workbooks.

Now if I could get Scrivener to open PDF files in Skim I would be happy. In the interim I have created a script and assigned it to a key command that will open the Preview document in Skim for me.

I feel like I have accomplished something useful today.