Foxit: A PDF reader that's less "librarian", more "university bookstore"

I was having some issues with books. I needed a way to access my important reference documents from anywhere without having to wheel a carry-on to and from work each day. PDF you say? Sure! Sadly Adobe Reader treated my PDF files like library books -- worse, like library books on CD-ROM. No marking up, no highlighting, I couldn't even use a bookmark! I need to be able to refer to these docs quickly and efficiently, without wasting time leafing through each time I open one. As people discovered prior to the updated iterations of most e-readers, if you can't make notes or mark one or more places, electronic files can be worse than useless. Getting Adobe Acrobat at $150 was, of course, out of the question, as I hadn't been paid in nearly three months (no longer the case -- woohoo)! Enter Foxit, an excellent all-round solution.



As a certified teacher, I rely extensively on my province's curriculum, and as a new teacher, I look at it on a daily basis. I have one hard copy of each curriculum document, which I was given in teacher's college. Since then, a few of the documents have been overhauled, so my print copies are next to useless. Not to mention, making or ordering duplicate hard copies of them (about 7 documents, around 60-100 pages each) seemed wasteful in more than a few ways. They take up so much space!

So I did a search online for people having issues similar to mine, figuring there had to be a solution involving PDFs but that didn't entail paying over $100 for the e-equivalent to a pen and a stack of post-its. I'm not trying to write curriculum after all, just leave my mark on my personal copy of it.

On one forum I visited, a program was suggested that could be downloaded free, and let you make and save edits to PDFs. I did my due diligence first, of course -- consulted CNET and other reviews to make sure it was legit and didn't have major known bugs or malware content -- then I downloaded and installed it, making sure to carefully navigate the setup as advised in reviews, so I didn't end up with unnecessary toolbars and irritating mini-programs in the package.


Now, I am happily using Foxit Reader to read my PDFs. And like the university bookstore, it doesn't mind if I've subjected my books to bookmarks, sticky-notes, margin-writing, and even doodling, as long as they're still perfectly readable and as useful (or moreso) as when I first acquired them.

I definitely recommend it.