Skim

Open source; $0

Current Version: 1.2 (November 12, 2008)

Skim is an pleasing, powerful and essential substitute for Adobe Reader that also happens to be free. It is a both a PDF reader and note-taker, designed to help you read and annotate PDFs. Features include:

• Viewing PDFs
• Adding and editing notes
• Highlighting important text, including one-swipe highlight modes
• Making "snapshots" for easy reference
• Navigation using table of contents or thumbnails, with visual history
• View all your notes and highlights
• Convenient reading in full screen
• Giving powerful presentations, with build-in transitions
• Handy preview of internal links
• Focus using a reading bar
• Magnification tool
• Smart cropping tools
• Extensive AppleScript support
• Bookmarks
• Saving passwords in Keychain
• Export notes as text
• Automatic download of remote PDFs
• Support for Apple Remote Control
• Interaction with LaTeX and PDFSync
• Integration with BibDesk
• Spotlight support
• Highly customizable

Version 1.2 adds/changes the following:

• New freehand note type, only supported through tool mode.
• Allow choosing an associated document with presentation notes to be navigated simultaneous with the presentation. Requires a 1-to-1 correspondence of pages.
• Improvements to notes document. Support searching, printing, and multiple selections.
• Support Word 2007 Format (docx) templates (Leopard only).
• Add file name as comment to keychain items.
• Allow opening some PDF files with a wrong extension.
• Allow changing the default text color for text notes (Leopard only).
• Use capsule style toolbar buttons on Tiger.
• Add optional "-r" argument to displayline script to revert the document.
• Add option to match the scale in the split PDF with the main PDF: select "=" in the scale popup.
• Support for trackpad gestures in snapshot and split PDF features.
• New AppleScript command to grab part of a page as an PDF or TIFF image.
• Fix open script command on Tiger.
• Fix PDF-TeX backward search for the Aquamacs Emacs preset.
• Fix saving of anchored notes from a notes document.
• Avoid a hang after the first double-click in tables.
• Avoid an excaption that could occur when closing a document with an active search.
• Smoother fade out of full screen windows.
• Use consistent set of icons for various note types.
• Fix for an exception in the Info window.
• Remember the current page after page rotation.
• Clean "alien" characters from selection strings.
• Fix PDFSync and SyncTeX support for file names containing spaces and periods.
• Fix sorting exception in notes document.
• Fix a crasher when removing a bookmark while editing it.
• Make sure old Skim notes are removed from extended attributes when saving.
• Make sure the main window becomes key after closing a note or snapshot window.
• Fix a crasher that could occur when closing a document with open snapshots.
• Allow more complex recursive specifiers for scripting selections, as well as selections in the whole document.
• Change preference keys for text note font, you may need to set it.
• Only set fullscreen key window when the main or side window was key.
• Allow saving passwords for files without an ID in the Keychain.