I'm studying Japanese, and I haven't had luck in finding an iPad program that can do what I want. I'm also interested in alternative methods of going about what I'm doing. Google Docs is the closest to where I've gotten where I want to be. Here's an example. I want to write down Japanese text I am reading, and I want to be able to highlight each part of the text and make notes: this is the word's meaning, this is the word's reading, etc. etc. This way, I can read a text without distracting annotations, but can make reference to my notes on the text whenever I need or want by clicking on the part of the text I'm interested in.
In Google Docs, I do this through the comment feature. Microsoft Word on the Ipad and Apple Pages also have a comment feature, but it doesn't work with Japanese text. If I have two words I want to comment on, but they are not separated by anything, Word and Pages will force me to comment on both words at the same time.
The problem with Google Docs is that it's pretty basic. I don't seem to really have access to different Japanese fonts. It's also not like Notability where I can have the text appear on yellow, ruled paper. I like the organizational features of Notability too. The problem with Notability and GoodNotes however is that I haven't found a way to add comments like I can in a word processor. I've tried alternatives. For instance, Notability lets you split view different documents. I tried having a separate document that hosts my notes on the text, but it's just not as effective as being able to tap the word I'm interested in and see only what I want.
Another thought I had, is about how the program would display that there is a comment. If the program is going to yellow highlight every thing I comment on, it would be good to be able to hide comments at times. Or, it might be nice if the program let me or automatically applied different colors to the highlighting so I didn't just have a continuous span of yellow highlighting comprising multiple different words and comments.
Additionally, while a very minor thing, I can't help but feel like I'm using the comment feature in a way it's not intended in Google Docs or Word or Pages. As you can see in the image, the comment window is visually busy, full of unused space and unnecessary features. I don't need to see the time I made the comment. I don't need to resolve or reply to the comment. And I don't need all that extra white space. Ideally, I could find a program where just resting my finger on the particular text would pop up a very minimal bubble with solely the information I inputted. |
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