Best apps for reading PDF files on your iPad | AppleInsider

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Many apps have come and gone, while others have debuted and given PDF Expert a run for its money. PDF Expert is delightfully easy to use, offers the fastest PDF app reading experience, works with many syncing services, and has the most robust toolset available on the iPad. For almost any contract-based business, PDFs are a way of life. For many professional-based businesses — such as accounting, law, and realty firms — PDFs are a necessary evil.

PDFs happen to be one of the best and most universal ways to send a document to another person. Almost any computing device can view them, and they will almost always display as intended — with formatting and layout intact — across all manner of platforms and devices. We spend an inordinate amount of time sorting through hundreds of apps to find the very best.

Our team here at The Sweet Setup put together a short list of our must-have, most-used apps in These apps work on iPad, iPhone, and Mac. And they range across several different categories but are mostly focused on productivity. They will help you get the most out of your devices and your day.

Get the List ». For our testing, we included both paid and free apps that were popular or recommended. Many apps have been discontinued since or have seen major updates. The apps we tested include:. We also utilized a page general ledger PDF document as a dummy unit for testing document merge speeds. There were many apps that could do almost every task, but often fell short in one or more tests — most notably in the merging and form-filling tests. Through numerous review iterations, PDF Expert has surprised us time and again — the last time this review was updated, PDF Expert introduced a new categorical feature all by itself.

Of course, nearly all the best PDF apps on the iPad can now perform basic and even complex document merges. But none of them do it for free, do it as fast, and do it as simply as PDF Expert. In talking with many iPad PDF users, a common theme ran throughout: The most important features of a PDF management app are organization , annotation , and reading.

PDF Expert 6 offers the best of class in all three of those categories, and adds yet another: editing. Many of the other apps we tested hide common user tasks with gestures and tap zones the user must somehow learn and remember. PDF Expert tries to avoid taps and buttons where it can by clearly labeling things where needed and tailoring the gestures intuitively based on the view the user has chosen in the app.

PDF Expert makes it easy to tap-hold-and-drag a file to perform actions on it — no need to find the Select button formerly Edit. Once an app is tapped and held, PDF Expert shrinks the left sidebar options down to folders available for moving.

Like everything else in PDF Expert, moving files around is extremely quick and easy. Side note: Dragging a PDF file on top of another creates a folder, which is shown via the files changing into a folder icon nice touch , but we would love to be able to toggle this action into a merging action. Dragging one PDF file onto another to merge the two together would be a better use for this action; after all, folders can always be created by tapping the new folder icon.

When you do find yourself tapping the Select button, be prepared to smile if working with PDFs is a large part of your life. As expected, tapping this button allows you to select multiple files to act on. However, it also opens up a new set of options in the sidebar, including:. Not all of these features are unique to PDF Expert, but it was the only app we tested with all of the features together in one app.

The most elusive to other apps are the tagging, zipping, and merging features. Even at that, many other apps simply did not perform these actions as easily as PDF Expert does. One of our contributors works in an accounting office and constantly uses PDF Expert on the iPad to merge files and create outlines for PDFs — both workflows on the Mac require separate apps, additional in-app purchases, and a surprising amount of computing horsepower to complete.

Though specialized apps do exist for this specific task, we are trying to find a good all-in-one PDF solution. We also tried both merging methods with a page method. In both cases, PDF Expert handled the task quickly and without hiccups. While viewing a document, tap either one from the top-hand toolbar to select that mode. When it comes to annotations, PDF Expert has always had the most feature-rich highlighting engine in our testing.

Offering very opaque coloring and dark colors makes it one of the few apps tested that allow you to easily redact lines of text using a black highlight, but do note that you need to flatten the PDF if you want it to remain redacted when shared. This is something the NSA should probably look into. Annotations are also done very well when moved from platform to platform. Creation of those annotations is also a simple task. Handwritten annotations using the Apple Pencil are also best in the business.

There are options for adjusting tip sensitivity, enabling you to hand-write with variable line thickness, just like with physical pen and paper. Highlighting, underlining, and strikethrough tools can all be applied easily with the Pencil as well. Another nice trick: When using the Pencil, your fingertip is used for navigation while the Pencil is used for annotation. The small nature of the note bubble can make for rather tricky placement with a finger.

PDF Expert also boasts solid signature support. Our only complaint is the thickest line thickness is still a little thin for many forms. It used to be that you could only stow one signature in PDF Expert. PDF Expert allows you to switch between vertical and horizontal scrolling modes, both of which perform admirably.

You can also view PDFs in two-page mode. This is great for providing an overview of a specific section in a PDF, and is doubly good on the largest The two-page viewing mode gets a little cramped on the inch iPad Pro, but will do the job in a pinch. This is helpful for providing larger text when viewing in two-page mode on an inch iPad Pro, but otherwise eliminates margins where many tend to create annotations.

The voice reads quite slow by default, so make sure to tap on the gear icon and speed up the voice a little.

Pushing the speed all the way to the hare end of the spectrum is ridiculously fast — somewhere right in the middle should do for most people. Overall, the reading experience is solid, offering one of the fastest renderings of large PDF files we tested.

In other words, no matter what your office uses, you can probably sync your documents in the app. Readdle has also created a secure and fast way to transfer PDFs from your iPad to your Mac and vice versa when both devices are connected to the same local network.

I can rotate it back around using PDF Expert, which is yet more steps, but actually might not be too bad because it means the image fits the page better. With PDFpen it keeps the inserted images right way up but wastes space from putting a landscape image on a portrait page. Neither a deal breaker though.

What would be nice is if any of these apps could convert multiple images to PDF in one step, one per page or one per file. This would save bouncing between two apps. Feels extremely clunky. Thanks for the really interesting and informative article on these apps. I found it on the iTunes store whilst browsing, nice little app that sorts me out for my PDF viewing, editing and printing and makes my job a little easier!

Great comparison, Kazza. Thanks so much. Could you tell me how you do it? Hi, It looks like you are doing it correctly. It will save a text file that will open automatically after its been generated with all the words that you hi lighted,underlined, typed in etc.

Good luck! Thanks, Kazza. I think using underlining is more reliable than the highlight pen. Great review Kazza. I find PDF expert is the most user friendly especially when working with Dropbox. Iannotate needs to simplify their dpsaving process as I do like some of their rotating and editing functions.

Great review! We are working on a PDF which competing direct with three apps above. We even support rich text format for Typewriter annotations and much more.. Please contact us for beta testers or you just want to take a look. We also would like to invite Kazza to give our app some tries if possible.

Thanks for the great review again! Hi, thanks for this very informative post! I have no problem for the extra 5 bucks. Here is the thing. Does pdfexpert sync entire folders with Dropbox? Then, once I go online again, the files should sync with Dropbox, and I should be able to read the annotated files with my acrobat reader on pc. With respect to this need, are the two equivalent?

If yes I will then go for the slick pdfexpert. Otherwise, I will go for good reader, even if it is if I understood correctly a bit less nice and intuitive. At any rate, thanks a lot!! Hi Francesco, To answer your questions: 1. You will have to set it up so it auto-syncs though. Karen thanks! I bought it yesterday, and now I am practicing.

I now am trying to see whether changes introduced in goodreader are compatible i. I will let you know thanks again!! Hi Kazza Thank you for your thorough review! Thank you in advance Xraydoc. I want to be able to pick up my iPad and continue the document where I left off.

Hei, Annotations can be seen after you sync each time — so if you edit on your Mac, you will have to sync your iPad to pick up the changes before editing on the iPad itself. Once u finish annotating on the iPad you will have to update it so that it syncs the changes in the Dropbox server. What does this exactly mean?

Have you tried using that before? Is it just as easy as dropbox, or is the dropbox integration better? Autosync means you can set up the app to sync automatically with your desired folder in Dropbox — u can do this with all three apps. It will update the folder when you ask it to if u made any changes to any of the PDFs in the folder. Thanks for this info. Can you tell me if iAnnotate on the iPad enables you to have thumbnails of the doc constantly viewable with the page you are currently reading?

I am trying to find an app that has this feature. However, I do not think any of the apps will show the page that has been most recently annotated as a thumbnail when browsing through files though if that is what you are asking??

I have not used the pdf apps for a month or so now, as I am on my semester break. I have however updated to the new iAnnotate v2. This may pose a problem for you, especially in a team setting. If all members are connected to the remote server and each individual annotates the same document, I think the program may throw a tantrum.

Firstly, thanks for the comprehensive review! It was very helpful. My needs are simple: 1. Would also like the option of both flattened and editable annotations, so I can continue to work on it using Preview or Adobe Acrobat. Could you comment on this and offer your suggestion? PDF Expert will allow you to do this though 2 — iAnnotate is more customisable in terms of typing and highlighting notes.

Hi Karen, Thanks for replying. What do you mean by editable highlighting in iAnnotate though? Do you mean you cannot change what you have highlighted or do you mean there are more colours etc?

You can in iAnnotate though. Loving it so far! When I open an already highlighted file on either iAnnotate or PDF expert, is there any way to remove highlighted sentences again? However, PDF Expert has undo buttons, which work with highlighting a sentence, and undoing?

In my opinion they are pretty equal in this. I wonder about the already on the macbook-made-highlights…. Does iAnnotate import ppt only with the 4 slides on each page format, or can it do one slide per page? IAnnotate converts ppt into 1 slide per pare PDFs. Then you can choose to print 4 or 6 on a page if you like after. Thanks for this great review! I am a teacher looking for a great app on which to grade papers.

As is, they are enormous! Thanks again for this great info. I want to see how extraction looks. I have notability and it works great for annotations but it is missing the function of extracting annotations.

Does Annotation summary preserves the highlight colours and text? Which in my opinion is not good when you need to quickly glance at the article to refresh your memory. How does Iannotate handle this? Thank you for great review. Nice job, Your review is really a great source of informations in the PDF tool era. By chance, did you have a look at neu. With the low price, I think I gonna go for a try, but you expert advice will be welcome anyway. Following a lecture and changing pen anything color, font size etc is exceptionally time consuming and leaves you well behind the lecture flow — I too like to use multiple colors, a mix of typing with horrible courier new font and free drawing, with arrows here and there.

Changing pen color midway through handwriting changes ALL text in that annotation ie, if you start writing in blue, then change to green, ALL the blue text changes green too, not just new text. You must save the annotation and re-open the writing tool, or use the writing menu to change to eraser, then back to pen and the previous text is background saved and the new color applies from then on….

NO ability to insert a blank page is annoying. Annotating a PDF lab book, full of text and diagrams, a blank page for notes and or graphs would be great. Nor can I insert a PDF page created in notability etc. Standard highlighter only works by selecting text and color filling it.

To free form highlight, you need to use the pen, set the size ie. No easy highlight option. On home pc, simply define which folders will sync, without having to save in special Dropbox folder. Multiple PDFs open at once is a cinch — great to have textbook open on one, and lecture notes on other all in same app.

I can do without the fancy GUI, but these lacking features frustrate me to no end. An early look at neu. Are you aware of any worth trying perhaps new entrants that may fit my needs? Thanks you very much.

I was just wondering if others of you have had a problem with PDF Expert suddenly quitting and losing all of your annotations from that session? Hi Karen! Wow, this is a great review! I am a vet student who needs some way to annote PDFs quickly and efficiently. With the PDF Expert 4. I really love that iAnnotate 2. Do you know if the PDF Expert update has changed that at all?

I wonder if you can see what I do wrong below. Is this insuffienct or wrong? Do I also need to save the file in some way? I simply want the edited file to replace the one on my computer, or possibly be saved as a new copy.

Eric, Is your fold synced with Dropbox? The easiest way to check is when in the main menu screen eg figure 4 , there should be a little green tick on the folder icon that is currently automatically synced to your dropbox. This was the problem! Apparently only some of the folders had the little green tick on the folder which I completely missed to notice. Thanks for your help! Excellent reviews. I have been an avid iAnnotate user for a while, however was recently introduced to PDF expert.

Thanks for all the fantastic information. Loved this article and all the comments. I own several PDF apps, and use them for different purposes. Well, I found out the hard way there is no Undo in iAnnotate. Wrote a whole paragraph of commentary for a piece I was reviewing in my writing group then put a drawing of my initial in the lower-left corner.

When the screen zoomed out after the drawing the drawing was covering part of my text. When I clicked the drawing in an area where there was no text and hit delete, my text was deleted but my drawing remained. There was no way to recover the text. Simply put, the interface is much easier to use!

The organization seems to be less cluttered and less bulky than Goodreader. Here is a link that does an incredible job of breaking down three of the top PDF readers on the market.

I used PDF Expert almost exclusively but started having syncing issues, mainly with large files textbooks after I highlighted, wrote notes, labeled diagrams, etc. So, I switched over to iAnnotate…. After using iAnnotate for a while, I decided that I liked PDF Expert better, namely because it has more tools available and because it is just easier to use.

I could delete some files and not others. Not sure why. Moving files was not nearly as intuitive as PDF Expert drag and drop. I did like the fact that iAnnotate allowed me to open Word and PowerPoint files, however. Your style is unique compared to other folks I have read stuff from. Hey there! This is my first visit to your blog! We are a group of volunteers and starting a new initiative in a community in the same niche.

Your blog provided us valuable information to work on. You have done a outstanding job! Hi there just wanted to give you a quick heads up. The words in your article seem to be running off the screen in Firefox.

The style and design look great though! Hope you get the problem fixed soon. The whole point of tabbed browsing is to be able to switch quickly between PDFs.

Pick one and you are there. That moves your curent PDF down one in the Recent List and opens your selection which is moved to the top of the recent list.

I had spent a lot of time learning iAnnotate and used it for two years as it gradually improved. I also liked GoodReader since the day I bought the first iPad. IAnnotate always seemed to be awkward and not well designed in the UI. I like the ability to merge or even extract pages from a PDF to limit sending info to others.

I use that to cover up any useless advertising that someone included in a PDF. I also search and locate images that may illustrate a point then resize them to fit in the margins.

They are at the bottom of the display. To reveal them one tap on screen while reading. I prefer the ability to swipe […]. I agree that the toolbar is complicated to set up, but once you do, it allows you to create a customized work flow suited to your purpose.

Thanks for a thorough and interesting review. It is quite helpful. You are commenting using your WordPress. You are commenting using your Twitter account. You are commenting using your Facebook account. Notify me of new comments via email. Notify me of new posts via email. Email Address:. Random Musings Cynical Babblings about the world in general.

April 5, By Kazza. Currently using Adobe Acrobat Reader X 1. Search is off to the side, but bulky highlighted term is a turn off. It also searches annotations. The whole text edit option here is simple and neat. Goodreader — a variety of text editing options to choose from.

The preset font size is handy. Goodreader — Adding text is a major turn off! Text window takes up half the screen usually the important half , and there is only 1 font!

Palm rest included also grey bar on bottom. Best of 3.

 
 

 

Best PDF Readers For Mac In Free And Paid | TechRadar

 
PDF Expert is delightfully easy to use, offers the fastest PDF app reading experience, works with many syncing services, and has the most robust. One advantage of PDF Expert by Readdle is that it’s available in both a free and premium version. The free version offers all of the basic. Made by Readdle, PDF Expert is a strong and free PDF reader that offers viewing of documents in various ways, as well as text to speech for.