Have you ever felt that Preview in Mac isn't really powerful enough? If so, you'll appreciate Skim, which feels like a more advanced version of Preview and is ideal for viewing PDFs and scientific papers.
Skim is specifically designed to help you read and annotate scientific papers in PDF, although it is suitable for viewing any PDF file. It is quite basic compared to Adobe Acrobat X and is a little unintuitive at times.For example, changing fonts should be made a little easier and there are far fewer capabilities when it comes to handling hyperlinks in PDFs.However, Skim does a tremendous job of making reading PDFs and note taking very straightforward. Most of the major features you need when viewing PDFs are included in Skim including adding and editing notes, highlighting important text, making snapshots for easy reference and navigation using table of contents or thumbnails, with visual history.
Skim also features support for external apps such as LaTeX, SyncTeX, PDFSync and BibDesk.All of Skim's extensive features can be found in the comprehensive Help manual.
It might not be quite Adobe Acrobat X but Skim is an impressive free PDF reader and note taker that offers many of the features that Preview doesn't.
Changes
Fix saving of notes as RTF from notes document.
Avoid Mountain Lion bug when converting PostScript.
Remember export save option.
Improve efficiency of freehand note drawing.
Pros
Great for reading and editing PDFs
Liike Preview but with more features
Highlight text, navigate with TOCs and more
Integration with LaTeX, PDFSync etc
Cons
Not as advanced as Adobe Acrobat X
Some basic features not as intutive as they should be
Skim is a PDF reading and note-taking app for Mac OS X that is designed to make reading research papers and manuals better. Just like in Preview, you can search, scan, and zoom through PDFs, but you also get some custom features for your workflow:
Snapshots
If there�s a graph on page two and the description continues to page three, just draw a box around the graph with the command key down and a snapshot window pops up with the graph, and you can keep on reading with the graph in view.
For more fun, minimize that snapshot window - they stick around in their own dock in the document window.
Tooltips
If a PDF has links, such as for citation references or indexes and section headings, you can click on them as usual to go to the destination, but there�s more - hover the mouse over those links and Skim will show you a tooltip with the target of the link.
No more losing your place to peek at a citation! For more fun, command-click on a link to pop up a snapshot window showing the link�s destination.
Presentation and Full-screen Modes
Full-screen reading is handy. So is showing a PDF as a presentation. But they�re a little different.
For instance, you might not want to show the table of contents in a presentation, but it�s nice to see it when you�re just reading by yourself.
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