I prefer images over PDFs for handwritten notes, as it shows in the note preview, is easier to read without clicks, and I can resize it. I have a few shortcuts related to bringing in my written notes that make all the difference. The shortcut described in the images below shows what I do with PDFs or any other images to get it into Bear. This shortcut accepts files or copied items, lets you choose the size of the image (great for saving storage space), and has a few ways of dealing with the output, with bringing up my Bear daily note for pasting, and creating a new Bear note with the image automatically included and a title that is auto-generated from the image (this also works better for multi-page documents), as the options I use the most. I trigger this most often from either the share sheet on the file I want to bring into Bear or via a shortcut alias in the control center.
Note that this shortcut has to make intermediate image files that are then deleted after processing. The deletion process asks for permission because sometimes I like to keep those files around for another purpose, so I added the extra click.
For scanning, I prefer the Preview app because it is easier to crop and copy (crop is rectangular vs the more free-form used in scanning elsewhere, which works better for just trimming blank space off the page), but you could use whatever you want to create the source clipboard copy or file.
