Stylus use across all Office progs plus others?

[Paul Foulkes]

I am likely to get myself a Surface Pro 3 at the end of the year ( once they come to UK and I can see one hands on).
I especially like the idea of the stylus and being able to make notes like a note pad ( I am a construction project manager and being able to take notes on site visits is essential ).
My question to users - can you use the stylus in other programmes? ie to make notes on an existing word document or a pdf file? ( Most plans I deal with are pdf docs and to be able to make notes directly onto these whilst onsite is probably a deal breaker for me ).

I think I am right in saying that a new touch orientated set of Office programmes so I hope it would be completely integrated into these. ( I may have to wait until these are released before I buy?)
Thanks

 

[marco alia lanese]

Sure, a lot of this function are already enabled on normal tablets with Microsoft Windows 8/8.1, with the Surface Pro 3 you'll be the luckiest and happier construction project manager. However, yes, you will be able to write everywhere, also on Word/PDF there's already the function to add handwritten comments

choosing a 365 subscription you'll be able to update to the new version (when released) without pay more and you have free tech support and 1Tb of OneDrive cloud storage until the end of the subscription

 

[WanderingTraveler]

OneNote (WinRT) + Stylus is something you'd love, then.

There's a Win8 software input option to input via handwriting in certain languages, such as English, so there's that.

As said earlier, there's already the option to add comments directly to .docx or .pdf files.

 

[stephen_az]

Sure, a lot of this function are already enabled on normal tablets with Microsoft Windows 8/8.1, with the Surface Pro 3 you'll be the luckiest and happier construction project manager. However, yes, you will be able to write everywhere, also on Word/PDF there's already the function to add handwritten comments

choosing a 365 subscription you'll be able to update to the new version (when released) without pay more and you have free tech support and 1Tb of OneDrive cloud storage until the end of the subscription

Office 365 has reasonable pen and inking support. This includes the ability to handwrite comments in standard comment callouts, highlighting, and writing directly on a document. Most functions are on an enabled Pen tab on the ribbon. Oddly though writing a formal comment is still solely under the review tab, as opposed to just writing directly on the document which is on the previously mentioned pen tab. The difference, BTW, is inking a comment via the review tab function creates comments that can be reviewed, responded to, and deleted instead of just being handwritten notes on the surface of the document. Of course standard editing and formatting functions controlled by a mouse also work with the pen (actually any active stylus.

If you need to use Acrobat in particular for marking up pdfs that is a different story. Pen implementation is virtually non existent in Acrobat (all versions) other than use as a pointing device/mouse replacement. There are apps out that offer higher levels of pen integration but if you specifically need to use Acrobat, it is just a rather clumsy pointing device.

 

[tweedie]

I don't know about office or pdf, but someone provided me a link outlining all the graphic drawing type of programs that runs on sp3.

Surface Pro 3: What Runs, What Doesn't — Surface Pro Artist

perhaps might have some use for you. You could I suppose ask the website for specific software.

 

[cdf3]

I'm running Office 2013, and it has a built in inking option within the Review tab on Word & Excel.
The Reader PDF app that comes preinstalled allows you to markup PDF's

 

[stephen_az]

I'm running Office 2013, and it has a built in inking option within the Review tab on Word & Excel.
The Reader PDF app that comes preinstalled allows you to markup PDF's

The reader app, Acrobat reader, and the full version of Acrobat all have different features which almost all are nothing more than what you can do with a mouse. The reader app does let you scribble on pdfs but that is about it. In my experience, PDF Touch has the best balance of features but lacks red/black lining. Xodo Docs and Annotate101 probably have the strongest capabilities, with Xodo Docs having the broadest but they are both a bit clumsy.

 

[alisaad619]

for PDF , the guy who made surface recommend Drawboard (on the AMA) + was featured on the press confrence

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mH-oNlH_bs

Drawboard: PDF Annotation for your mobile device