Best way to view PDFs on ipad?

[cdietschrun]

I want to run and play games with my ipad and I have the PDFs of some of my books. Does anyone have recommendations for the best preferably free apps on the ipad to view and search the PDFs?

Thanks!

[Ninten]

It isn't free but I have been using GoodReader for just over a year now and it has worked fine.

[Raymond Lambert]

For a free app check out PDF-notes!

I like that I can use it to highlight in freehand or text select form, hand write/draw, or type messages/notes in multiple ways right onto the PDF.

To download PDFs from Paizo, I use another free app named downloads. It has a green icon with a white arrow.

[Hmm]

My Friend Bret transfers his PDFs to ibooks. I'll see if I can get him on to this thread so that he can discuss how he does that, because his PDFs look great.

I use the kindle app for ipad and transfer pdfs to my ipad's kindle account by emailing them to my ipad's kindle address. Once you have loaded the kindle app on your ipad, sign in with your Amazon id.

Then go to Amazon to find your email address for sending personal documents to kindle on the ipad.

1. Go to Amazon.com.
2. Sign in.
3. Go to your account.
4. Select "My content and devices" from the dropdown menu.
5. Select the tab for my devices.
6. View your ipad, and you will see the email address

I just send the pdfs as an attachment. Note: Don't put "convert" in the subject heading of these emails. You want your pdfs to stay pdfs.

I also note that this only works for the smaller books. To get a larger book to my kindle account, I think I would have to transfer using USB.

Hmm

[Babbling Bazzar]

If you have a computer with iTunes, you can open the PDFs in iTunes and then they will save as books. You can then import them to your iPad and read them through the iPad books app. Another way to get them on your iPad is to use Dropbox, but I find that the PDFs load slower if you download them from Dropbox.

[Bigdaddyjug]

I use an app called iZip to download and unzip the files. I then read them in the normal Adobe app you can get for free. If you use the Lite version of the files it works great.

[Ciaran Barnes]

What's wrong with the standard viewer?

[Steel_Wind]

Ciaran Barnes wrote:

What's wrong with the standard viewer?

Nothing is wrong with it. It is simply that Goodreader is faster, allows for notations and its built in support for Dropbox makes it far easier to transfer files to your iPad and organize them in folders for use.

The less use I am forced to make of iTunes, the better.

[Captain Beaky and his band]

Don't buy an iPad...Slave!

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Batty Bat

[Zaister]

I use PDF Expert, mainly because it offers a full text search across all documents, a great feature for a library of Paizo PDFs.

[Dennis Baker]

Goodreader 4 is on sale right now for $.99. You can transfer over wifi, send PDFs downloaded from the web to it, or use DropBox or other services. Easily worth a buck.

My favorite thing about dropbox is the fact that I can set a crop level and it applies it across the entire book so I can get rid of thick borders and just view the text.

[wolfear]

I'll chime in with saying that Goodreader is the best pdf reader I have found on iPad, and I've tried a lot of different ones.

[Bigdaddyjug]

Will Goodreader unzip them as well? If so, it might be worth downloading just so I don't have to use 2 different apps.

[Kris Vanhoyland]

Want to throw in my support for Goodreader as well, been using it for a year, and am very pleased with it.

[Ciaran Barnes]

Good to know. I'll have to check it out.

[Dennis Baker]

Bigdaddyjug wrote:

Will Goodreader unzip them as well? If so, it might be worth downloading just so I don't have to use 2 different apps.

Yes,

Good Reader can deal with zipped PDFs also. Generally when I'm using my iPad to download direct from PDF it prompts me to open in Goodreader and it just takes care of everything.

[Bigdaddyjug]

Awesome. Just downloaded good reader now time to re download all of my PDFs.

[Krodjin]

I've been happy using iTunes and the default iBooks app; but are saying I can skip having to transfer files through iTunes and download from Paizo directly on my iPad using this Goodreader App?

[KidDangerous]

Dennis Baker wrote:

My favorite thing about dropbox is the fact that I can set a crop level and it applies it across the entire book so I can get rid of thick borders and just view the text.

Cool, how do you apply the crop?

I've found that the dropbox app for iPad actually opens and runs the PDFs way faster than iBooks. It also runs word documents and is much easier to upload to.

Never tried goodreader

[LessPopMoreFizz]

Captain Beaky and his band wrote:

Don't buy an iPad...Slave!

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Batty Bat

Thanks for the helpful post, nonconformist buddy.

[Dennis Baker]

KidDangerous wrote:

Dennis Baker wrote:

My favorite thing about dropbox is the fact that I can set a crop level and it applies it across the entire book so I can get rid of thick borders and just view the text.

Cool, how do you apply the crop?

I've found that the dropbox app for iPad actually opens and runs the PDFs way faster than iBooks. It also runs word documents and is much easier to upload to.

Never tried goodreader

Sorry, I meant to say "My favorite thing about Goodreader is the..."

In Goodreader, you just tap the display and pick the crop button and it is pretty obvious. Not sure if you can with the Dropbox reader (which is also pretty good and free).

[Lanitril]

Krodjin wrote:

I've been happy using iTunes and the default iBooks app; but are saying I can skip having to transfer files through iTunes and download from Paizo directly on my iPad using this Goodreader App?

I typically open em with Winzip then transfer them to iBooks. I'm pretty sure from either one you can share to Dropbox.

For what it's worth, my friend with an Android tablet is jealous of the interface on iBooks. I dunno what app he uses though.

Though being able to make notes and open without Winzip? Those sound like some pretty neat features too. I'm pretty sure iBooks was promised note taking on PDFs, but it never happened. Goodreader could be neat.

[Bigdaddyjug]

I am loving Goodreader. I had been wanting to download it, but kept saying I wasn't paying $5 for a PDF reader when Adobe's was free. For a buck, I couldn't pass it up. Got all of my PDFs redownloaded, including full versions of the hardcover books instead of Lite versions. Only one that gave me a problem was the ISWG. Had to DL that to my PC and xfer it over via iTunes.

[cdietschrun]

I bought good readers on sale thanks to the suggestions here. Thanks so much!

[BretI]

Can GoodReader handle Inner Seas World Guide?

iBooks on either Mac or iPad just seg faults on that book. Not sure why.

I've been using iBooks. Usually I'm downloading on my laptop, decompressing, and then adding it to the iBooks library.

It will share bookmarks and I can control the library, although the Collections doesn't work as seamlessly as it should. Since I've enough space on the iPad I just leave the books stored locally allowing me to access them even when I don't have WiFi connection. This is important since not everyplace I game has a wireless access point.

Previously I've kept character information in google docs and a mixture of spreadsheets and documents. I've recently purchased Hero Labs as a digital character sheet. Still exploring the best way to use this.

I'll continue to use Google docs for some stuff just because it is so much easier to share information. Great way to keep game logs.

[LessPopMoreFizz]

BretI wrote:

Can GoodReader handle Inner Seas World Guide?

iBooks on either Mac or iPad just seg faults on that book. Not sure why.

Yes, it can.

[Kudaku]

I frequently use the ISWG with no hassle. As long as I don't try to rapidly "leaf through" PDFs, Goodreader works flawlessly. It'd probably handle that too if it was used on something other than my venerable 1st gen iPad.

[NOG the Demoralizer]

I personally download all my pdfs to my computer, rename them, and then organize them into my dropbox account in folders based on what line they are from. It is then a snap to browse my Dropbox folder in GoodReader to find the exact file that I am looking for. I have a new iPad, but only got the 16gb version, so I can't load everything that I want on to the device.

The thing I like best about GR is how easy it is to delete a pdf once I am done reading it so that it doesn't sit there taking up valuable storage space. I am sure other programs can do the same thing, but it wasn't intuitive in the 3 or 4 other apps I tried using.

[fjw70]

I store my PDFs in goodreader but do most of my reading in the iBooks app. I find navigating the PDFs much quicker in iBooks.