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PDF Annotation & Readwise Integration: Bridge the gap between reading and thinking

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If you spend a lot of time reading PDF files or e-books, you may find yourself highlighting and annotating a significant amount of content. At Heptabase, we believe that the highlights you make while reading are valuable materials for your learning and research. That's why we not only support importing and highlighting PDFs, but also integrate with Readwise, a service that helps you organize your highlights. This allows you to better understand and review what you have read in the past.

In addition, we also support a powerful feature: you can drag and drop every highlight you make (whether from PDF or Readwise) directly onto the whiteboard to integrate it with your existing notes and help you think.

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How to create highlights and annotations in PDF cards

If you want to use the PDF highlight and annotation feature in Heptabase, you can simply drag and drop the PDF file from your desktop onto the Card Library or a whiteboard to turn it into a PDF card. While reading the PDF card, you can select text to highlight directly, or you can click Cmd/Ctrl and use your mouse to draw a box to highlight the selected area.

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How to integrate Heptabase with Readwise

If you want to integrate Heptabase with your Readwise account, go to the top of the left sidebar and click on Heptabase > Settings > Connections. Follow the instructions shown there to paste your Readwise Token.

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Once done, you will be able to view all your Readwise highlights in the Highlight section of the left sidebar. Alternatively, click on the Highlights button in the top right corner of the whiteboard to open them on the right side and drag them onto the whiteboard to think and reflect on your past highlights.

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How to embed a highlight in other cards

Many times, we may want to reference or embed a highlight in a regular note card. To do this, it's very simple: you just need to select the highlight you want, click on the menu in the top right corner (…), choose "Copy link," and then paste this link into your note card and select "Paste as embed." This will complete the embedding process.

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