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Tuesday, July 25, 2006

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BlueBeam Revu for the Tablet PC InkShow

- Rob Bushway

It is always a good thing when new software for the Tablet PC hits the market. Such is the case with BlueBeam Revu for the Tablet PC.

Bb-TabletPC BlueBeam Revu is an application that lets you view, markup, and edit PDF documents using your Tablet PC. There are a lot of things that BlueBeam has done that are specifically tailored to the Tablet PC user. From a built-in TIP, to searching ink in the PDF, to a high quality zooming and panning function.The best one, in my opinion, the ability to store ink components in a tool set and re-use them later in other pdf documents. For people who mark up a lot of documents or use specialized editing symbols, that is a killer function.

There are a couple of features they could improve upon, like offering a lasso tool for selecting ink, and improving upon their highlightng. However, in my opinion, if you spend a lot of time in PDFs working with large documents, using the same type of mark-up symbols over and over again, zooming in and out frequently, then you need to take a serious look at BlueBeam. If you need to sign a pdf document every now and then, and mostly work with smaller pdf documents, then I think PDF Annotator is a better solution for the money at $49.

There is a lot more to this application than what I demoed. My intent in this InkShow was to cover the features that would matter to a Tablet PC user. I’d encourage you to dig deeper into the product to learn everything it can do. It is a full-featured application.

So, sit back and take a look at BlueBeam Revu for the Tablet PC and see if this PDF annotating software could be for you. My apologies for the high resolution – I recorded this on a test M400 and forgot to change the resolution before doing the recording. Live and learn…

Watch the InkShow (21:22 minutes, 49mb, .wmv streaming or direct download.). This InkShow is best viewed by downloading to your computer and playing it locally.
Download 30 Day Free Trial of BlueBeam Revu for Tablet PC

Price: $99

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InkShows | Software | Tablet PC | BlueBeam Revu

7/25/2006 9:26 PM MST

BlueBeam Revu for the Tablet PC InkShow Comments [4] | Digg This | del.icio.us | Citations

Wednesday, July 26, 2006 10:18:52 PM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

First, I want to thank you for these inkshows. They're informative, interesting and uniformly well-done. You can gain muych more knowledge from watching them than you can from reading a review or visiting a manufacturers site.

That said, you've left me in a real quandary. I recently spent the $50 to buy PDF Annotator, but I'm wondering if I should invest another $100 in BlueBeam. I frequently mark-up PDFs of pre-press documents, so a good annotation tool is a must. For the longest time, I tried getting by with the tools in the full-version of Acrobat, but finally decided that inking and Acrobat really weren't meant to go together. PDF Annotator has served me just fine so far, but I'm wondering if you think BlueBeam is more stable or offers significantly better features to justify shelling out another C-note?

Again, thanks for the show!

Dan

Wednesday, July 26, 2006 10:35:22 PM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

Here is what I would do - down the trial of BlueBeam. Do some annotating of PDFs in both Annotator and BlueBeam for the next month, and see if you end up using the extra features of BlueBeam. Also, determine if you have more success opening larger PDF documents, zooming, paging, setting bookmarks, etc with BlueBeam than with PDF Annotator.

It really depends on your need. For those who just sign a couple documents here and there, then PDF Annotator is a no-brainer. However, I think that if people live inside a PDF document alot, do bookmarking, re-using Ink, etc, then BlueBeam might be a better solution. You won't really know, though, until you try them both out against your own needs.

Rob

Wednesday, February 07, 2007 7:42:14 PM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)

You mentioned in your InkShow that this program costs $99, but I see a price of $149 on their web site. Did the price go up? And do you think BlueBeam Revu is worth 3x what PDF Annotator costs?

Thanks,
--woodstock

Nathan Hess

Wednesday, February 07, 2007 8:11:16 PM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)

Nathan:

They did have a price increase. To determine which program you need, I'd download the trials of each and determine which will meet your needs. There are a tremendous amount of features in Bluebeam, and most people have found that it handles larger PDFs much better than PDF Annotator. However, PDF Annotator is a much lighter program and well worth the price.

Rob Bushway

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