Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Best software for PDF reading on the IPAD

I got an Ipad. I bought it for just one reason ... reading PDFs. My job is such that I need to keep myself updated with the latest and greatest technologies in .NET. So the first thing I did was get PDF readers:

Here's what I reviewed and why I left them:

  • Air Sharing HD: Kept crashing 
  • iGoodReader: You cannot view two pages at a time. For pdf viewing it is one page to second page only. And when code listings are between pages this becomes "Annoying"
  • iTech PDF Reader Pro: Laggy between page changes. Also couldn't browse pdf bookmarks. Above all a bad anti aliasing.

Here what I stuck with: 
iAnnotate PDF

I love it with ALL MY HEART! With Good Reader and PDF Reader Pro i knew these shortcommings the moment I installed them (and concerned about the iPad purchase). This software however blew me away. It is ULTRA responsive. Completely worth it!


Advantages:

  • One huge advantage (which I didn't even consider possible in iPAD) it has is the ability to highlight (and generally annotate) PDFs. I mean for real...into the pdf file so that it is maintained even when you view it with adobe reader on your PC.
  • You can open multiple pdf documents simultaneously ... which is simply amazing. And therefore browse them side by side
  • Search all the PDF (text) in the library!
  • Once you exit the application and open it up again ... since it is tab based .. it will open all the books that were previously open in the tabs ... and on the last viewed pages. A great time saver! Just exit -> Ipod -> back ... makes reading on this the best experience ever I have had in a long long time (much much better than adobe reader on the PC)


Note:
Also once you import the file it does some preprocessing (only once per file) ... so you need some patience ... but after that boy does it work. You can fly between HEAVY pdf pages with ease.

Thanks guys (if you ever read this :))

Enjoy!

2 comments:

  1. Did you try iBooks ?

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  2. This was posted before iBooks supported PDFs :) But I havent tested it .. and don't intend to since now I am addicted to annotations.

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