5 Student hacks college never told you

Many college students spend hours of learning time searching around for lost documents, handwriting class notes, and organizing study material. If you identify with this, you’ll know it’s a headache.

However, college life really doesn’t have to be so complicated. What if we told you that there are really easy ways to manage your schoolwork and stay organized without any effort?

Follow these college hacks to organize documents

Although documents frequently appear in the school curriculum for homework, assignments, research, and reports, they shouldn’t require you to use a printer or carry a heavy backpack across campus. Sorting study material doesn’t have to eat into your valuable study time either.

By learning a few simple college hacks, studying with documents can feel like a breeze. If you want to be more organized and efficient next semester, the best place to start is by memorizing this list of document tips and tricks.

They can be applied in the physical and remote classroom without having to purchase or install any software. We hope you find them useful!

1. Take notes in digital textbooks

First, avoid buying physical textbooks or literature because they’re expensive, waste paper, and take up your desk space. You can get digital versions of most academic resources in PDF or eBook format online from sites like JSTOR. Plus, digital textbooks are compatible with all devices and are easy to annotate. 

To help you study for exams, download your digital textbooks as PDF files. Then, you can add notes on pages you find useful using a free annotation tool. Sites like iLovePDF offer a simple note-taking system that can be accessed from your web browser or smartphone. This way you can also highlight text, comment on PDF, and review your notes on the move.

2. Create a digital study guide

Once you’ve learned the previous textbook hack, you can do this easy trick: Compile all your annotated pages into one study guide for learning. For this, you can use a Merge PDF tool.

You can also add pages from previously purchased physical textbooks. Just scan the pages with your iPhone or capture scans on your Android device to create PDFs. Finally, take out any pages you don’t need or want to save as separate PDFs, and your study guide is complete!

If you want to carry your study guide with you on your smartphone, download the iLovePDF Mobile App. From the app’s File Manager, you can create a folder for each class, then add your files to create your own filing system.

3. Convert PDF files to editable text

Your teacher probably asks you to submit assignments in PDF format because it can be easily opened in any program or device. But, what do you do if you need to edit content from PDF files?

Many college students get stuck in this situation because PDF files aren’t easily modified. Luckily, there are two genius ways around this problem:

• Use a PDF Editor. PDF Editors allow you to edit PDF documents by adding text. This option is great for when you need to quickly insert a title or the date to a file submission before emailing it to your tutor. All you need to do is upload your academic document, type the text, and download the modified version.
  
• Convert PDF files. You can use an online file converter to transform your PDF back to its original editable file format like a Microsoft Word document. Use this method when you need to change the pre-existing text in your PDF. (Free sites like iLovePDF offer conversion tools for all the common Microsoft Office document formats.)
  

4. Save a useful webpage as a PDF

How many times have you found a website containing valuable content that you wish was available as a downloadable digital resource? Previously you might have taken screenshots of the web pages you needed but this can get messy if you’re capturing loads of images.

If you want to enrich your study guide with useful web content, use an HTML to PDF converter. Copy and paste any website URL to turn the content into a PDF file. It can then be downloaded or saved in Google Docs to continue studying in the Google Classroom. 

5. e-Sign academic forms

If you’re tired of borrowing a classmate’s printer to get forms signed for college, then this final tip is for YOU: When you enroll in a new course or complete another student application, instead of printing it to add your signature, just sign the document online. 

You can easily sign a PDF document using a digital signature tool. iLovePDF offers a straightforward e-Sign tool for you to self-sign academic forms without any time wasted.

Make college life easy with iLovePDF

Whether it’s at the start of the school year or mid-semester, it’s never too late to learn new life hacks to stay on top of your schoolwork. Once you’ve found a system that works, you’ll be more productive.

We hope these document hacks make your student life easier and more enjoyable. If you found them useful, share this post with your classmates! 

Did you know iLovePDF offers more than 20 PDF tools to help college and high school students study more efficiently? Students can also enjoy 12 months of FREE Premium tools and features. To access your Edu promo, click on the link below.

Get free PDF tools to make learning easy

Register now