OP said:
I'd like to become more efficient but still use a pen/stylus. What software/hardware packages are out there that can allow me to open PDF files, mark up drawings by hand, maybe even rasterize, and save/email them off in an entirely digital environment?
I've been looking long and hard for something like this. And, because I'm into my tech, cost is pretty much irrelevant to me. That said, it's the stylus bit that I've never been able to solve. Yeah, there's iPad's and bamboo tablets out there with drawing apps but they all either fall into one of two categories of disappointment:
1) Drawing is not precise enough for engineering sketches.
2) Drawing is utterly precise and therefore painful beyond measure to use.
These days, I'm into Bluebeam all the way, both on my computer and my iPad. Here's how I use to satisfy most of my needs:
1) You can set scales and measure things which is very helpful.
2) If you're adding text comments, it's great to just type everything in there. The people that read your markups can isolate them using the internal database which is awesome for processing redmarks.
3) You can easily set up a custom tool chest full of commonly used symbols. I've got expansion anchors, deck callouts, weld sybols etc to cover the day to day stuff.
4) Often, I'll lift the content of an architectural detail, paste it back down screened to 30%, scale it to suit me, print it, and hand draw my structural details over top. It's a real time saver being able to draw perfectly to scale without any effort at all.
5) I can do most of my markups on reviews within Bluebeam using the stuff mentioned above. On occasion, I may want to add a detail to a set of shop drawings etc where attempting to draw the detail in Bluebeam is just to painful. When that happens, I draw the detail on paper old school, take a picture of it with my phone, wait five seconds for the the dropbox app on my phone to synch with my computer, and paste the detail into bluebeam looking all sexy. It sounds like a lot of operations but I can literally go from finished sketch to having it in blue beam in under ten seconds. It's faster than getting up to go to the scanner, although much less healthy. Sometimes I'll sketch a detail graphically but then use Bluebeam to annotate the detail. It goes fast, cure's my physician's handwriting, and allows me to edit content later.
I like to debate structural engineering theory -- a lot. If I challenge you on something, know that I'm doing so because I respect your opinion enough to either change it or adopt it.
