Skim
Skim is a PDF reader and note-taking application for macOS. It provides annotations, highlighting, and notation tools for PDF documents, allowing users to mark up PDFs. Skim also enables searching PDF documents and works well with large PDF files.
pdf
reader
notes
annotations
highlighting
Skim: PDF Reader and Note-Taking Application
Skim is a PDF reader and note-taking application for macOS, providing annotations, highlighting, and notation tools for PDF documents, with features like searching and support for large files.
What is Skim?
Skim is a PDF reader and note-taking app designed specifically for macOS. It provides a clean, uncluttered interface and fast performance for working with PDF documents.
Some key features of Skim include:
- Annotations - Skim allows you to highlight passages, add text notes, draw shapes and lines, and more to annotate PDFs.
- Text highlighting - Easily highlight passages of text in multiple colors.
- Sticky notes - Add text box notes that function like physical sticky notes to call out sections.
- Shapes and lines - Draw circles, rectangles, lines, arrows, and other shapes for marking up PDFs.
- Outline view - See an outline overview of long PDF documents for quick navigation.
- Tabs and splits - Open multiple PDF documents in tabs and view PDFs in splits side-by-side.
- Presenter display - Use special presenter display view for slideshow-style presentations.
- Sync notes - Sync highlights and annotations via Skim Library for access across devices.
- Search - Built-in searching helps you quickly find words or passages within PDFs.
- Lightweight - Skim uses minimal system resources for smooth operation.
If you regularly work with PDFs on a Mac, Skim provides an efficient way to read, review, mark up, and manage PDF documents.
Skim Features
Features
- Annotation tools
- Highlighting
- Notetaking
- Searching PDFs
- Works with large PDFs
Pricing
- Free
- Open Source
Pros
Free and open source
Clean and simple interface
Fast and responsive
Good PDF management
Syncs notes across devices
Cons
Limited to macOS
Less features than paid alternatives
No OCR support
No auto-updating highlights
Official Links
The Best Skim Alternatives
Top Office & Productivity and Pdf Tools and other similar apps like Skim
Here are some alternatives to Skim:
Suggest an alternative ❐
Adobe Acrobat Reader
Adobe Acrobat Reader is a free software application developed by Adobe Systems for viewing, printing, signing, and annotating Portable Document Format (PDF) files. It is the most popular PDF viewer and one of the most widely used free software downloads with over 2 billion installations across platforms and devices.Acrobat Reader...
SumatraPDF
SumatraPDF is a free and open-source document viewer that supports many file formats. It was originally designed as a replacement for the Windows PDF reader while being much lighter, faster, and more customizable.Some key features of SumatraPDF include:Support for PDF, EPUB, MOBI, CHM, XPS, DjVu, CBZ, CBR file formatsMinimal design...
PDF-XChange Editor
PDF-XChange Editor is a powerful, yet easy-to-use PDF editing software for Windows. It enables users to view, edit, annotate, OCR, and sign PDF documents.With PDF-XChange Editor, you can add text, images, shapes, and freehand drawings to PDFs. It comes with a wide range of annotation tools including highlights, underlines, strikethroughs,...
Master PDF Editor
Master PDF Editor is a powerful yet easy-to-use PDF editing software for Windows. It provides a complete set of tools for efficiently working with PDF documents.With Master PDF Editor, you can easily view, create, edit, annotate, protect, convert and sign PDF files. Its intuitive user interface and advanced capabilities make...
Drawboard PDF
Drawboard PDF is a feature-rich PDF annotation and editing application designed specifically for Windows tablets and touch-screen devices. It provides a fluid and natural experience for working with PDFs by harnessing the power of touch and pen input.With Drawboard PDF, you can annotate documents with a selection of intuitive tools...
Flexcil
Flexcil is a feature-packed digital notebook and PDF annotation application designed for Android and iOS devices. It aims to replicate and enhance the experience of writing by hand on paper, while taking advantage of the conveniences afforded by digital technology.One of Flexcil's standout features is its flexible notebook system. Users...
Okular
Okular is a feature-rich document viewer application designed for the KDE desktop environment on Linux operating systems. It can open and display a wide variety of document formats including PDF, EPUB, PostScript, DjVu, CHM, XPS, ODT, FictionBook, ComicBook, Plucker, and others.Some of the key features of Okular include:Smooth scrolling and...
Foxit Reader
Foxit Reader is a free, fast and lightweight PDF viewer that allows you to view, annotate, sign, and print PDF documents. Developed as an alternative to Adobe Acrobat Reader, Foxit offers the essential PDF features without the large file size and system resource usage of Acrobat.Key features of Foxit Reader...
Xodo
Xodo is a feature-rich PDF reader and annotator that allows you to view, edit, sign, share and collaborate on PDF documents across devices and platforms. It is offered as a free app for Windows, Linux, Android, iOS and as a web app that works in all major browsers.Some of the...
MarginNote
MarginNote is a multi-platform PDF and EPUB reader and annotator designed specifically for active reading, note-taking, organizing research, studying textbooks, annotating documents, and gaining insights while reading.Key features include:Annotations like highlights, notes, bookmarks which sync across devicesOutliner to visualize document structure and ideasMind maps to link ideas and make conceptual...
Xournal++
Xournal++ is a free, open-source digital notebook application designed for notetaking, keeping a journal, and sketching. It is available on Linux and allows you to annotate PDFs, create notes, or just sketch ideas using a graphics tablet or other pointing devices. Some key features of Xournal++ include:Support for pen input,...
Evince
Evince is a lightweight document viewer application designed for the GNOME desktop environment. It supports the most common document formats including PDF, PostScript, DjVu and TIFF. Some key features of Evince include:Fast and efficient, optimized for GNOMESmooth scrolling and responsive UIThumbnails and two-page layout for easy browsingAnnotations and form-filling supportMinimalistic...
MuPDF
MuPDF is an open source software library and set of tools for rendering PDF documents. Developed by Artifex Software, MuPDF is designed to be lightweight, fast, and efficient.As a PDF viewer, MuPDF allows users to quickly open and scroll through PDF files while using minimal system resources. It renders PDF...
Preview
Preview is the default document viewer and simple image editor software included with macOS. It enables users to quickly view and print various file formats including images, PDFs, webpages, Office documents like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, as well as media files.Some of the key features of Preview include:Fast previewing of...
Butterfly
Butterfly is an open-source, cross-platform SQL client designed to make database management easy and intuitive. With Butterfly, users can connect to MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite, SQL Server, and other major database servers to manage databases and tables, write SQL queries, and visualize data relationships.Some key features of Butterfly include:Intuitive graphical interface...
PDFpen
PDFpen is a feature-rich PDF editing application developed by Smile for Mac users. It provides a comprehensive set of PDF modification tools that enable users to easily edit, annotate, sign, redact, and secure PDF documents.With PDFpen, you can add text, images, shapes, signatures, highlights, sticky notes, and more to any...
Google Docs Viewer
Google Docs Viewer is a free web-based tool from Google that allows you to view a wide variety of document file types directly in your web browser without needing to have the application used to create them installed on your computer.With Google Docs Viewer, you can view, print and download...
RepliGo Reader
RepliGo Reader is a feature-rich, multi-format eBook reader that helps you read eBooks from various sources with ease. It supports common eBook formats including EPUB, MOBI, PDF, DjVU, FB2, DOC, RTF, HTML, TXT, CHM and CBD.With RepliGo Reader, you can customize your reading experience with options to adjust font, font...
MJ PDF Reader
MJ PDF Reader is a free PDF viewer for Windows that provides a lightweight yet full-featured alternative to Adobe Acrobat Reader. Developed by Software995, it aims to balance functionality, speed, and ease of use.Some key features of MJ PDF Reader include:Tabbed document interface for opening multiple PDFsFast page loading and...
Icecream PDF Editor
Icecream PDF Editor is a free, easy-to-use PDF editing program for Windows. It provides a wide range of tools for editing PDF files without compromising document integrity.With Icecream PDF Editor, users can view, edit, convert, merge, split, extract, rotate, reorder, sign, annotate, and fill PDF documents. It supports both new...
TagNotate
TagNotate is a free, open source software for tag-based note taking and personal knowledge management. It runs on Windows and allows users to create hierarchical tags to categorize and link related notes.Some key features of TagNotate:Intuitive tagging system to associate notes with multiple tags for easy filtering and searchSupport for...
Lumin PDF
Lumin PDF is a feature-rich PDF editing software that enables individuals and teams to view, annotate, edit, sign, organize and collaborate on PDF documents with ease. It provides a clean, intuitive interface that makes working with PDFs simple and efficient.With Lumin PDF, users can annotate documents with highlights, text boxes,...
PDF4QT
PDF4QT is an open-source C++ library that provides PDF support for applications built with the Qt framework. It allows developers to read, create, and manipulate PDF files from Qt applications without needing external PDF libraries.Some key features of PDF4QT include:Reading existing PDF filesCreating new PDF documentsAdding text, vector graphics, images,...
Paperboy
Paperboy is an open-source news reader and feed aggregator application designed to simplify how users discover, organize and read news content on the web. It supports subscribing to both RSS and Atom syndication formats to pull in new articles and blog posts from websites and blogs.Some of the key features...
PdfDocs
pdfDocs is a feature-rich PDF reader, editor, creator, and annotation tool for Windows. It provides a complete solution for working with PDF documents.With pdfDocs, you can view, print, edit, comment on, sign, fill forms, and collaborate on PDFs. It supports both new and scanned PDFs. You can open and view...
PDFlite
PDFlite is a free, open source PDF viewer developed by PDFlite Inc. It is designed to be a lightweight, fast, and easy-to-use alternative to heavier PDF software like Adobe Acrobat.Key features of PDFlite include:Fast PDF rendering and smooth scrolling for large documentsSupport for opening and viewing PDF documentsBasic annotation tools...
PDF Previewer for Windows 8
PDF Previewer for Windows 8 is a free, lightweight PDF viewer and editor application designed specifically for Windows 8. It provides a simple, easy-to-use interface to view, print, annotate, and edit PDF documents on Windows 8 tablets, laptops, and desktop PCs.Key features include:Fast and smooth PDF rendering and scrollingSupport for...
EPapyrus PDF-Pro
ePapyrus PDF-Pro is a full-featured PDF editing application for Windows. It provides a wide range of tools for working with PDF documents, including:Creating PDFs from various file types such as Word, Excel, images, and moreEditing text, images, links, bookmarks, and outlines in existing PDFsAdding annotations like comments, highlights, stamps, drawings...
PDF Reader Air
PDF Reader Air is a free, open-source PDF viewer available for Windows, Mac and Linux operating systems. It provides a lightweight yet full-featured interface for viewing, printing and annotating PDF documents.With PDF Reader Air, you can open multiple PDFs in tabbed view for easy multitasking. It supports essential PDF features...
VuDroid
VuDroid is an open-source, community-developed media center application for Android devices. At its core, VuDroid allows users to easily play videos, music, and photos on their Android phone or tablet from both local storage and online sources.Some key features and capabilities of VuDroid include:Intuitive and customizable interface - The interface...
PDF Reader Online
PDF Reader Online is a free online PDF viewer that allows you to view, print, and annotate PDF documents directly in your web browser without needing to install any additional software. It works across all major desktop and mobile browsers.With PDF Reader Online, you can open PDFs from your computer...
Sioyek
Sioyek is an open-source PDF and DJVU viewer and reader application designed specifically for academics and researchers. It focuses on providing an easy-to-use interface optimized for reading scientific papers, academic journals, articles and books.Some of the key features of Sioyek include:Clean and distraction-free UI focused on the contentFast and responsive...
PDF Assistant
PDF Assistant is a versatile PDF management application designed to provide users with a comprehensive set of tools for working with PDF documents. It allows you to view, create, edit, convert, merge, split, extract, protect and organize your PDFs through an intuitive and easy-to-use interface.Key features include:View and read PDFsCreate...
