Boogie Board Sync 9.7 eWriter

Posted by Dr Andus
Jul 2, 2014 at 11:59 PM

I couldn’t resist in the end and got myself a Boogie Board Sync. Two main uses/benefits have emerged so far:

1) Doing quick concept maps and flow charts by hand as part of brainstorming, outlining, and working things out. Then I’d import the PDF into the desktop, convert it into a .PNG image file (PDF-XChange Viewer’s export function has some nice tools for naming the files and saving them into a desired folder at the desired resolution), and insert it into the body of an application such as ConnectedText or VUE (drag-and-drop).

This capability is helping me track and document my brainstorming/outlining process better, as in the past I’d do this on paper, which tended to get lost or had to be redone in VUE or scanned/photographed, which would slow things down.

2) Because it is much lighter than an iPad and gets more legible with sunlight, it’s a great note-taking device when one is outdoors but doesn’t want to drag around anything heavy.

The main limitation is that saved notes cannot be recalled on the device. They can only be viewed once synced with the desktop. It’s a bit like taking analogue photos and developing the pictures later.

Also, all notes are saved as black and white PDFs on the device (which has around 2GB memory). The option to convert them to .PNG is only there if the notes are synced via the Evernote conduit in the desktop companion software. Otherwise one needs to convert them manually, as described above.

All in all I’m pretty happy with it, though I imagine that future versions will probably aim to have the ability to view the notes on the device too and to have an eraser (which it currently doesn’t have) to correct mistakes.