Tip for using your iPad as a knitting tool

I love my iPad. But I've been an Apple girl long before I could afford my first Mac (an LG475, had to use 3 different credit cards, see if you can figure out my age from these clues) so I'm a little biased.

Here's a good trick for using your iPad as a knitting companion: get a decent PDF reader. I use GoodReader. GoodReader lets you view PDFs and make notes and marks right on the PDFs. It also makes it pretty easy to move files around.

You can use GoodReaderUSB on your computer, and copy files back and forth from iPad to computer. Or (this is the one I prefer) you can use the free Dropbox system. Drop your PDF into your Dropbox, and pick it up from within GoodReader. Or you can Download from Web.

But here's the best thing about GoodReader: the mark up tools. The image above is a screenshot I just took on my iPad. To see the toolbar, just touch and hold the screen, or select a portion of text. You can add text, hidden notes, underline or highlight text, draw lines, arrows, shapes, or just draw freehand.

Here are some of the ways I use the mark up tools:

- Every time I move to the next row, I move the line.

- I also like to add notes; GoodReader has a callout feature, which adds an arrow that you can point at the text

- The highlight tool is great for highlighting stitch counts, or the size your are working on.

- The freehand drawing tool is great for circling areas of a pattern.

Oh, and I bought my iPad and GoodReader of my own free will, no one is bribing me to say nice things.