One of the pleasures of being freelance is that I can use any technology I like get get my books from ‘manuscript’ to ‘files to the printer’. Just recently I realised that I had been spending far too much time than was good for me or my back sitting in front of my desktop computer or at a desk reading and editing proofs.
So I’ve switched to doing most of my editing on the iPad using PDFs. I still print books out once, towards the end of the process, if they’re destined for print, but otherwise it’s an iPad and desktop relay all the way.
However I was getting a bit frustrated with trying to accurately write or mark with my right hand – when I’m left-handed. Do most left-handed people use touch screens and computer mice with their right hand? Dunno – but I do. So I bought myself this handy stylus/pen thingy which I can use with my left hand. It looks a bit like a crayon, yes. But it’s made of aluminium, so it handles like a pen. And being left-handed I can still do all the other pinchy zoomy swipey things I’m used to doing with my right hand. Result!
Hurrah! Now all I need is a way to actually edit InDesign files on the iPad…
Stylus – yes it looks a bit like a crayon.
Three Wishes Books 
I like the idea of that. Are you just using adobe to edit the PDF? I might try this.
Hi Pete. Yes, I use the Adobe reader app to annotate and mark up. Then I move to the computer to take the corrections into the InDesign file. I open the PDF in Acrobat and have the two files up side by side. I would love to get to a point where I can make corrections directly to the InDesign file on the iPad. I am investigating.
Great. Thanks for that I might investigate more 🙂