Skim: The Speedy PDF Editor

Looking for a better PDF reader than Preview? Skim is a PDF reader with a few powerful built-in editing tools such as adding an arrow/circle, or striking out unwanted text. With Skim, you can quickly sort through and edit your PDFs in a pinch.

In order to access Skim’s main interface, you have to open a PDF file using the File > Open command or Apple + O. Once you’ve loaded your PDF, you’ll probably notice the interface is a lot like Mac OS X’s Preview. There’s a text selecting tool, a cropping/selecting tool, and a note tool. One new tool is the zoom tool. To use it, click on a section of the PDF to show a small box which magnifies the text and images. This makes it easy to look at sections of your PDF when already zoomed out.

To the left of that set of tools are the main features of Skim. From left to right you’ll notice four toolbar items that allow you to add notes, circles, text editions, and arrows. The Add Note toolbar item is the same as the note tool in Preview. Simply click it to add a note to the page. If you click and hold down on the Add Note toolbar item, Skim will give you the ability to add an Anchored Note. An Anchored Note is a note that stores more data but doesn’t show it on the actual PDF. Once clicked, you get the ability to type as long a message as you want and store an image without using up any real-estate on the page.

Another useful feature of Skim is it’s drawing tools. Add circles and boxes with a click of a toolbar item. Scale your object and reposition it to your liking. Once done, just click somewhere else on the PDF to deselect it.

The next tool over is the Add Markup tool. To use this, you have to have your text selected with the text selection tool identified by the big A in the toolbar. To use the Add Markup tool, click and hold the toolbar button to choose between striking out text, underlining the text, and highlighting the text. If the setting you want is already selected, simply click the toolbar item to use it. Save all of your notes and editions onto the PDF or into a “.skim” file which you can import using the “Read Notes” command located in the File menu.

To the right of the main window is a view that allows you to view all of your notes at a glance. Click on the page number and Skim will take you there. The second tab is for snapshots. Snapshots are visual links to different parts of your PDF file. To take a snapshot, go to the File menu and click the Take Snapshot menu item or press Apple + Option + S. Click and drag up and and down in the popup window to choose what you want to show. Once done, got to the snapshots tab and double click your snapshots to have them slide into view with a neat effect.

Once you have everything spread out and just the way you like it, go to the View menu and click “Present” to show your PDF in a full screen view.

Skim is full of many, many features designed to quickly edit and organize your PDF files. Skim is available for the unbelievable price of free and is available at it’s official product page.