One of my favorite and most commonly used tricks combines three pieces of Nitro Pro functionality into a great solution for a task I perform at least once every week.
Working in the world of software development and the web, I regularly need to add quick feedback to something I’m looking at on my computer, and by combining the Create PDF from Clipboard feature, drawing annotation tools and the Send by Email features, I can add my comments and feedback to my screen capture and have it delivered to my colleagues extremely quickly. (You can read more about the Nitro Pro functionality at the PDF creation and PDF annotation pages.)
The key distinction I must make for this tip is that I’m adding comments to an image, and while the image may contain text, only the drawing-annotation tools will work. If I wanted to do an electronic review of a text-based document, then I would convert the document to PDF using the Create PDF From File functionality, and then use the full set of annotation tools, including the Highlight and Cross-Out Text tools.
If you take a look at the screenshot below, I have captured a screenshot of a dialog (from Nitro Pro), annotated it with the Pencil tool, and then entered feedback into the pop-up note attached to it.
I mainly use the trick when I need to comment on dialogs, applications and web pages. Of course, you’re not limited to just these. It works for anything you can capture from your screen. For example, you could take a screenshot of a problem or error message you’ve experienced, add comments, and then send it off to your tech support team.
So here’s how you do it:
- Press the Print Scrn button on your keyboard. (To capture one window instead of the whole desktop, hold down the Alt key at the same time.)
- In Nitro Pro, on the Home ribbon, click the Create PDF button and then click From Clipboard.
- If you want to crop the area of the capture, on Insert and Edit, on the Page group, choose Crop.
- To add your annotations go to the Review ribbon tab, choose a drawing tool, and annotate the PDF file.
- To open the pop-up note, double-click on the annotation.
- Enter your feedback.
- Once finished, click on the Nitro PDF Professional button (top-left position), and then click Send > Email.
That’s it. I hope it’s of use to you.
