The Best PDF Reader Apps for the iPad
pdf-notes and iAnnotate for iPads
Looking for a good PDF reader/annotater for your iPad? iAnnotate PDF is the best, according to this review. I actually downloaded it a while back, but have been too busy playing with pdf-notes (review here, on iTunes here) to try it out yet (also, I couldn’t see that it could do anything that pdf-notes can’t, but I now see there are a few). That will change.
I agree with the reviewer below in his opinion of iBooks (poor). The article reviews a total of 6 pdf-readers for the iPad. If you’re looking for one, I recommend this review.
‘iAnnotate PDF‘ is like the PhotoshopCS5 to the other apps’ MS Paint. In fact, it may suffer from too many features, with a zillion helpful pop-ups for every page and tool. Thankfully, once you’ve worked your way through the app’s myriad options, you can turn off the help windows, and customize the interface within an inch of its life. It sports dynamic highlighting, a pen tool, notes and bookmarks, all of which can be saved to the file so that they can be read in any PDF reader on any device. If you have a free Dropbox account, you can wirelessly sync files from your computer to iAnnotate either via Wi-Fi or 3G — perhaps the best feature of the app. It features an in-app Web browser, the ability to pull in your e-mail attachments, and other necessary goodies. Conspicuously absent from other PDF readers is the ability to read more than one file at once; iAnnotate thankfully provides you with much-needed tabbed browsing. It may be a stretch for cash-strapped students at $10, but its everything-but-the-kitchen-sink features make it our best bet.
via The Best PDF Reader Apps for the iPad.
What I don’t like about iBooks is you can’t do anything with PDF files on it except bookmark pages. You can’t can organize your pdfs into folders or categories, but when I upgraded a few months ago, I discovered most of my pdfs no longer showed the author, so I couldn’t even sort that way to help me find the pdf I’m looking for.
Also, when I changed the title of a pdf file on my iPad from within iTunes, the change wasn’t reflected when I next opened my iPad (after disconnecting).
PDF-notes is good for annotating – you can annotate using your finger, very useful when trying to work standing on crowded trains. It also has a text-note function. I only view my annotated PDFs on my iPad, but I understand your annotations are saved and viewable in other PDF-reading programs.
What you can’t do with pdf-note is select, copy or highlight text in the pdf, which might sound a trivial gripe, but it’s something I often want to do, especially to add snippets and quotes to, e.g. Evernote. (I haven’t figured out how to add pdfs to Evernote notes on my iPad – is this even possible?). If iAnnotate can do this, I’ll be delighted.
Here’s another reviewI found, tho not quite as useful as the one quoted above.
I recommend the following guides: Brett Kelly's "Evernote Essentials 3.0", Dan Gold's $5 guides to Getting Everything Done with Evernote and Springpad, and DocumentSnap Solutions' Paperless Document Organization Guides. Be sure to try DocumentSnap's free email course on going paperless first before buying his products. Sign up for it on his homepage. If you purchase any of these digital products from this website, your cost will be the same as if you order directly and I'll get a commission, about the price of a drink. Thank you! :-)
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Comments
If you want to convert a pdf to an app rather than simply view pdfs in iOS.
I know that writepdf lets you select, copy and highlight text
I have an ebook that i am working on and use writepdf to highlight text and make notes on etc saves so much time can’t do with out it!