GoodReader supports viewing of very large PDF files (including password-protected files). You have to make sure that your file has .PDF extension, otherwise it may be opened by device's built-in viewing engine, which doesn't have many of the features that our own viewing engine has.

Read Me First

Buttons and controls

Tips for reading, scrolling and zooming

PDF Annotations, Highlights and Markups

Flattening annotations

PDF Reflow (Extracting Pure Text)

Copying text from a PDF page

Find Text in PDF

Tap Zones

Crop Margins

Pre-caching of adjacent pages

Horizontal Scroll Lock

PDF Links (tappable hyperlinks)

Locations - Bookmarks, Table of Contents (Outlines), Annotations Summary

Day / Night reading mode

PDF Portfolios

About page rendering

Help us to help you


Read Me First

When you open any file, you can see a navigation menu and a button bar, which you can use to close a file and to select actions with buttons.

This navigation menu and button bar soon will disappear to give you more viewing space.

To bring the menu and the buttons back you have to quickly tap in the middle of the screen (this applies to every file type). There's a very special case with PDF files, when tapping in the middle of the screen is not desirable. For example, the middle of the screen can be occupied by a big PDF Link, which will take you to a very different place if you tap it. For cases like this we have provided another way to turn the navigation menu on/off - a quick tap with three fingers anywhere on the screen.

You can switch between two PDF displaying engines - the "fast" one and the "safe" one. The safe engine is the original GoodReader's engine that was used in many versions prior to v.3.1. The newer fast engine shows smoother page zooming/panning, but consumes more memory, therefore may crash on certain files that can easily be opened with the original "safe" engine. However, it was noted that older engine loads pages faster for some PDF files. So try both these engines, and choose the one that you like more.

You can choose the level of quality for scanned PDF images with the Higher quality images switch in app settings, PDF section. Choosing higher quality images produces better-looking scans, but impacts performance noticeably. If scanned images is not your main concern, you can disable this switch to get a faster page rendering.

The "one page at a time" viewing model was chosen intentionally due to serious stability and performance issues. Read our viewing tips on how to turn pages.

You have 2 options to rotate the screen - automatically or manually. Choose your option in General Settings section of Application Settings. In automatic mode screen orientation will follow the actual device movements. In manual mode (very useful for reading in bed) you can always rotate the screen manually with the dedicated button at the right bottom corner of the screen on a button bar.

Use pinching gestures to zoom in or zoom out. Also use 1-finger double-tap (zoom in) and 2-fingers single tap (zoom out).

Choose between Horizontal and Vertical page swiping in Application Settings, Viewing PDF files section.

Enable pre-caching of adjacent PDF pages in settings to create a better page turning feel. Be careful with this option, because it impacts memory consumption and performance, and may lead to eventual app crashes due to a low memory condition.

Annotate your PDF files and save your comments and drawings directly into a PDF file to share with others.

Use PDF Reflow feature to extract pure text from a PDF page and to comfortably read it with word wrap, without left/right scrolling and with the font size of your choice. Quickly switch back and forth between the Reflow mode and the original PDF page.

Use Find Text in PDF feature to search for text.

Use Tap Zones feature to read a very wide text without constantly dragging a page to the left and to the right.

Use Crop Margins feature to get rid of unnecessary page margins. Independent crop settings are available for odd and even pages.

Print your files on AirPrint-enabled printers (iOS 4.2 or later, works only on iOS devices with multitasking)

Use Horizontal Scroll Lock feature to isolate a single column of a text on the screen and prevent further left/right movement.

Use PDF Links feature to follow hypertext links to different places in the same document, to other documents, or even to web-sites.

Use Locations feature to access your own named Bookmarks, Table of Contents (a.k.a. Outlines) and Annotations Summary list.

Use PDFPortfolio button of the Actions menu to extract files from a PDF Portfolio.

Use Day / Night Mode switch to quickly dim the screen for comfortable night reading.

Consult our Troubleshooting guide if you're having problems opening PDF files.

 


Buttons and controls

 
  Day / Night mode switch. Quickly dims the screen for comfortable night reading.
 
  Go Back button. If you accidentally jumped to a wrong page or tapped a wrong link or bookmark, just go back to the previous page with a button click. Memorizes every page change or link click. Up to 20 recent positions memorized.
 
  PDF Reflow (Extract Pure Text) feature. Extracts pure text from a PDF page to comfortably read it without left/right scrolling and with the font size of your choice. Allows to quickly switch back and forth between the Reflow mode and the original PDF page.
 
  use Crop Margins feature to get rid of unnecessary page margins that occupy precious screen space. Separate settings for odd and even pages.
 
  Opens up a choice of actions:
  • Find Text. Use it to search for text. More details here.
  • GoTo Page. Use it to enter an arbitrary page number to quickly jump to it.
    You can use both numeric and symbolic labels (i, ii, iii, etc.), if your file has them defined. If you enter a page number, it is treated as a logical one. However, if logical (relative) page numbers do not correspond to physical (absolute) page numbers in your particular file, you can tell GoodReader to treat a page number as an absolute one by prefixing it with a '@' character.
    GoTo Page action can also be invoked by tapping the floating badge with a page number:
  • Locations. Use it to work with your own Bookmarks, with embedded Table of Contents (a.k.a. Outlines) and with Annotations Summary list.
 
  Horizontal Scroll Lock. Use it to lock/unlock horizontal scrolling. Use it along with zooming to isolate a single column of text and hide the rest of the page behind screen boundaries. When the Lock is on, no matter how you drag your text with a finger, you will only move page vertically. And tapping any of the Tap Zones will also result in vertical movements only.
 
  Offers a choice of actions for a currently opened file - Open In..., Flatten Copy, E-Mail File, E-Mail Annotations Summary, E-Mail File + Summary, Print File and Print Annotations Summary.
 
  You have 2 options to rotate the screen - automatically or manually. Choose your option in General Settings section of Application Settings. In automatic mode screen orientation will follow the actual device movements. In manual mode (very useful for reading in bed) you can always rotate the screen manually with this button.
 
  Use this slider to whisk across pages in a large PDF file with a single gesture. Use side buttons to turn one page up or down.
 
  Tap this badge to invoke GoTo Page feature. Use it to enter an arbitrary page number to quickly jump to it. The same feature is accessible via a special button.
You can use both numeric and symbolic labels (i, ii, iii, etc.), if your file has them defined. If you enter a page number, it is treated as a logical one. However, if logical (relative) page numbers do not correspond to physical (absolute) page numbers in your particular file, you can tell GoodReader to treat a page number as an absolute one by prefixing it with a '@' character.

 


Tips for reading, scrolling and zooming

 


PDF Annotations, Highlights and Markups

You can view, create, edit and delete various kinds of PDF notes, drawings, highlights and markups.

All annotations that you create or edit in GoodReader - notes, highlights, markups, and drawings - are saved in a PDF file, so you will be able to see them later on a computer or in another copy of GoodReader on your colleague's device.

Two main gestures that you should use to work with annotations - quick single tap, and tap & hold. Depending on where you tap (on a text, on an existing annotation, or on a free space on a page), different popup menus will be presented to you.

To edit or delete an existing annotation, tap it briefly, or tap and hold it for a while. Two special cases to note: text note popups and highlights/markups. When you tap a text note, a default action (opening a note) is invoked right away. To access more options (deletion, color adjustment, etc.), tap and hold it for a while. On the contrary, when you tap and hold a highlight/markup, you activate a default action - text selection, which is more natural for an underlying text. To access special options for a highlight (deletion, color adjustment, etc.), you have to tap it briefly.

Just memorize the following very simple rule: one of two gestures (quick tap or tap & hold) should always work. If one of them doesn't, try another.

Besides self-explanatory text buttons, there are graphical buttons on the annotations menu:
Popup note  Highlight
Typewriter  Underline
Add bookmark  Squiggly underline
Line  Strikeout
Arrow  Insert text
Rectangle  Replace text
Oval     
Freehand drawing     

While you can move a note or drawing with a popup menu, there's an easier way to do it. Tap and hold a note or drawing for a while, then start moving it without releasing your finger.

You can see a summary of all annotations in a file by pressing this button:

and selecting Locations. Also you can send this summary via email, or print it via AirPrint with this button:

Enter your name in Author field in application settings, PDF section, and all annotations that you create will be tagged with this name. This name will also appear in a summary list.

When doing a freehand draw, you can zoom or pan a page with two fingers. It can be useful when creating a long handwritten note that doesn't fit on one screen.

All notes, highlights, markups, and drawings created outside GoodReader, and properly stored in a PDF file, can be viewed or edited in GoodReader.

Many types of annotations, including drawings (lines, arrows, freehand drawings, etc.), can have a text comment associated with them. GoodReader allows you to view those comments and edit almost all of them.

Types of annotations that you can create and edit in GoodReader: popup ("sticky") notes with 7 different icons, text highlights, typewriter notes, text boxes with callouts, freehand drawings, lines, arrows, rectangles, ovals, "cloudy" shapes, text underlines (including "squiggly" ones), text deletion marks (strikeouts), text insertion marks, text replacement marks. You can freely adjust color of all of the above.

Other types of annotations that you can view in GoodReader: polygons and polylines, rubber stamps, file attachments. All annotations that can be viewed, can also be deleted. In addition, polygons and polylines can be edited in a limited fashion (color, placement, size, etc.).

You can extract files from PDF file attachments.

Please note that PDF annotations are bound to a particular page. Therefore you will not be able to draw across pages, even if you're currently reading a PDF file in a double-page mode.

Note about iOS versions. Certain annotating features (typewriter notes, text boxes, flattening) require iOS 4.0 or later

Note about Mail app. You will not be able to see your annotations in iPhone/iPad's standard Mail app. It doesn't mean that annotations are missing, they're there. It's just Mail app is not capable of showing them. Mail app only shows you a basic preview of what's inside a file. PDF Annotations is an advanced feature that is not a part of a "standard" PDF content. While it's not a problem on a computer (most computer PDF viewers do support annotations, Adobe Acrobat Reader and Mac's Preview are the most popular free ones), on iPad/iPhone/iPod it is necessary to use an advanced PDF viewer with explicit support for PDF Annotations (like GoodReader app, or a number of other apps). Another solution is to flatten a file before sending it via email.

Note about Preview app on Mac computers. While Preview app shows most of annotation types, it sometimes has trouble showing squiggly underlines, text insertion/replacement marks and callouts. If you're on a Mac, and you need to read a file with those annotation types, try Adobe Acrobat Reader app. Another solution is to flatten a file before sending it to a computer.

 


Flattening annotations

“Flattening” is the process of embedding PDF annotations into the main PDF page body, making them a part of a normal graphical page content. You may want to do this for the following reasons:

Flattening feature requires iOS 4.0 or later.

Flattening option will be offered to you every time you're trying to email a single PDF file or send it to another app via the “Open In...” button. It is also available as a separate Flatten Copy command when viewing a PDF file.

GoodReader takes a smart approach to file flattening. It gives your recipient a chance to “unflatten” a file upon receiving (this can only be done in GoodReader app, other apps can't unflatten what was flattened by GoodReader). But this option must be explicitly enabled in GoodReader's settings (on a device that was used for flattening). The default setting is not to allow unflattening, to prevent your annotations from being edited by someone else. Please also note that if a recipient somehow edits a flattened file before unflattening it (by adding new annotations, for instance), the ability to unflatten previous annotations is lost.

 


PDF Reflow (Extracting Pure Text)

PDF Reflow feature allows you to extract pure text from a PDF page to view it as a simple TXT file, without left/right scrolling and with the font size of your choice.

Unlike with TXT files you don't have to choose the correct text encoding to view reflowed text, all necessary text encoding is chosen internally in this case. All other parameters that you normally adjust for reading TXT files in Application Settings apply to this mode.

Use all reading techniques that you normally use for reading TXT files, including Autoscroll.

PDF Reflow is done on page-by-page basis due to performance reasons. So you will only see the text from the current PDF page in Reflow mode. However, all techniques for turning PDF pages apply to Reflow mode - you can turn reflowed pages by swiping, by tapping or by using Turn Page buttons. Please note that when you turn page in Reflow mode, the corresponding page in the original PDF mode is also turned, so two viewing modes are always in sync page-wise.

While being in Reflow mode, you can copy the entire text of a PDF page to clipboard by pressing this button:

If Autoscroll is on and you're turning a page, autoscrolling will continue after 3 seconds pause - GoodReader lets you catch up with first few lines of text.

You can easily go back to the original PDF page by pressing back button in navigation menu. For your convenience, we have reserved the same zone of the screen for the same purpose when navigation menu is off. Just tap where the back button is supposed to be, and you'll get back to the original PDF page.

Please note that scanned page is not a text, it's a picture, and there's nothing to extract. However, modern sophisticated PDF creating applications provide OCR (optical character recognition) information when you create a PDF from scanned pictures. In such cases reflowing may be possible.

Please note that text extracted from a PDF page doesn't necessarily have the same grouping order as you visually see it on a page. Text lines may be mixed up. GoodReader extracts text as it is encoded inside PDF file, and it's up to PDF creator to encode text paragraphs in the correct order, which doesn't always happen.

Please note that PDF Reflow is a very experimental feature. The correct extraction of text is not always possible. The PDF format allows to omit information that would allow to extract encoded text. So there are many PDF files, which you can read in graphic mode, but extracting text from them may produce unexpected results. For example, PDF format allows to specify the exact page coordinates of every single character, therefore many PDF files do not include whitespace or line-break characters, making it very hard to determine word-breaks and line-breaks. We have implemented very sophisticated heuristic algorithm in GoodReader that makes guesses about word-breaks and line-breaks depending on letter-positioning on a page. Although we did huge amount of testing and we're proud to say that GoodReader handles most of cases well, there's still a chance of breaking words and lines incorrectly.

There are a few options in Application Settings that help break lines correctly depending on a text formatting style:

After changing line-breaking option in Application Settings you have to close PDF Reflow view, if it was open, and reflow the text again.

Notice for right-to-left readers (Hebrew, Arabic, etc.). Some PDF files with right-to-left fonts instead of encoding text as they should - from right to left - actually contain text stored in left-to-right (i.e. reversed) order. GoodReader extracts text in the order as it appears in PDF file, which makes it look backwards in Reflow mode. We're still working on this issue. Please keep in mind that this problem is created by PDF creating software, which doesn't store text inside PDF in the correct order.

 


Copying text from a PDF page

To copy a piece of text from a PDF page you have to select it first. To activate text selection mode tap on a text and hold your finger for a while.

Some PDF files contain scanned images that look like text, but they're not, they're actually pictures. You need to have a real text defined in a PDF file to be able to select it.

 


Find Text in PDF

Use this button to activate the Find Text feature and to enter a string to search, or to select one of 20 previously searched strings. The search operation is performed starting from the current PDF page. The found string is highlighted in inverse colors.

This button bar pops up when something was found with the Find feature. The buttons are: Find Previous (backward search), Find Next and Clear Find Results. The first two buttons perform a search starting from the highlighted position in respective direction. The third button removes highlight from the found text and hides this button bar. You don't need to clear find results to perform a new search using the main Find feature. The new highlighted search result will automatically replace the old one.

If you want to enlarge the found text without hiding navigation menu, double-tap somewhere near found text. Double-tapping not just zooms in, but it also brings the double-tapped point to the center of the screen.

Important notice about finding text in PDF files. PDF files don't have a continuous text flow, like text files do. PDFs are more like a graphical program with instructions on where to put certain letters on a page. This leads to the following inconveniences when searching for text in PDF files:

Notice for right-to-left readers (Hebrew, Arabic, etc.). Some PDF files with right-to-left fonts actually contain characters stored in left-to-right (i.e. reversed) order. To be able to find text in such files, the search string must be entered backwards. Use the Flip search string switch in PDF section of Application Settings to enter search string in readable form, and it will be flipped backwards internally during the search.

 


Tap Zones

Introducing Tap zones scheme. The screen is divided into 7 zones which trigger different actions when you quickly tap them:

Middle zone  shows and hides navigation menu. Use top left navigation button from that menu to close the current file and to go back to the file list view.
 
 
  1. if you're not at the top of the page, then scrolls one screen up
  2. if you are at the top of the page, then selects the previous page (only for vertical page swiping)
 
 
  1. if you're not at the bottom of the page, then scrolls one screen down
  2. if you are at the bottom of the page, then selects the next page (only for vertical page swiping)
 
  this tap zone is useful when you have a lot of very wide text lines and you need to scroll horizontally from left to right several times (one time per each line to read), without moving vertically. It works this way:
  1. if you're not at the right margin of the page, then scrolls one screen to the right
  2. if you are at the right margin of the page, then rewinds back to the left margin of the page without moving vertically
 
  this tap zone is the addition to the previous zone. You use it when you read the last line of a wide text. It scrolls to the right until it reaches the right margin of the page, then it rewinds to the left and scrolls one screen down. Works sort of like Return key of a mechanical typewriter.
 
  this tap zone does the opposite thing to its right-arrow counterpart.
 
  this tap zone does the opposite thing to its right-arrow counterpart.

You can always bring up the reminder of 7 tap zones locations using Help button on the navigation menu.

 


Crop Margins

If your file has large unnecessary page margins, you can get rid of them by cropping them out with this button. Set crop margins any way you like them. You can even define different crops for odd and even pages. Crop settings are memorized on per file basis.

While adjusting crop margins, use the "To cur.view" button (short for "Crop to current view") to crop with respect to a screen's aspect ratio. Zoom in and pan with two fingers to whatever you'd like to see on the screen after the cropping, and this button will crop out the rest, making the cropped page's aspect ratio match the screen's one.

 


Pre-caching of adjacent pages

GoodReader pre-caches adjacent pages to eliminate the need to wait for the next page to render when turning pages (you need to explicitly activate this feature in settings). Although it creates a more natural page turning feel, it also increases the amount of operating memory being used. Turn it off if you experience occasional out-of-memory crashes with heavy graphical files.

 


Horizontal Scroll Lock

Use it to lock/unlock horizontal scrolling. Use it along with zooming to isolate a single column of text and hide the rest of the page behind screen boundaries. When the Lock is on, no matter how you drag your text with a finger, you will only move page vertically. And tapping any of the Tap Zones will also result in vertical movements only.

If the Lock is on and you want to adjust your zooming/position, there's no need to unlock, adjust and lock again. Simply use pinching to adjust your zooming and position (lock will be temporarily removed during pinching). When you will release your fingers, the lock will be automatically restored.

This feature only makes sense when you do vertical page turns. Therefore it is automatically disabled when you turn the Horizontal swipe option on in Settings.

 


PDF Links (tappable hyperlinks)

Use links in PDF files to quickly jump to different places in a document, to open another document, or to visit a web-site.

Tap a link briefly to trigger it.

When you tap a link, it is highlighted to give you a visual clue that it's a link.

Use Show link bounds switch in Viewing PDF files section of Application Settings if you like to see all links surrounded by a thin line to indicate that it's a link.

 


Locations - Bookmarks, Table of Contents (Outlines), Annotations Summary

Use this button to open the Locations window, where you can select different modes - Bookmarks, Outlines and Annotations Summary list.

There are 2 types of Bookmarks - the ones created by you, and the ones embedded into a PDF file (also known as Table of Contents, Sidebar Reference or Outlines).

Creating your own bookmark memorizes current location in an opened file. Use Edit button to delete or rearrange your own bookmarks (you can also swipe a bookmark to delete it). Use a blue arrow button to edit a name of a bookmark.

Embedded bookmarks (Outlines) are structurized in a tree hierarchy. To save precious screen space, outlines only for the current level are shown. To see outlines of the next level, press a blue arrow to the right of the outline of interest.

Select a bookmark or an entry in annotations summary list to instantly go to its location.

 


Day / Night reading mode

Day / Night mode switch quickly dims the screen for comfortable night reading.

 


PDF Portfolios

PDF Portfolios are supported, but not for a direct reading, like it happens in Adobe Acrobat 9 or later. PDF Portfolios are complex PDF files with a very simple first page (usually it says something like "This file can be opened with Adobe Acrobat 9"), and a set of many PDF files embedded into this file, which is used simply as a container for other PDF files. GoodReader lets you extract those files from a PDF Portfolio for further reading them as normal PDF files.

 


About page rendering

Each time you change the zoom ratio or scroll to an area which wasn't previously rendered, GoodReader recalculates (rerenders) graphical representation of a page to achieve optimal quality of the graphics. Rendering takes some time, which depends on complexity of a page and the size of embedded pictures. You will see the animated indicator showing that rendering is in progress:

Until rendering is finished, you will see either chequered canvas (if it's the first time you're visiting this page):
,
or stretched (very blurry, if you're zooming in) image that was rendered for previous zoom ratio:
,
which will change to crisp image:

as soon as rendering will be finished.

Rendering takes place in the background, so you can continue scrolling and panning even if rendering is in progress.

Rendering is a very critical process that consumes a lot of operating memory. Sometimes it may lead to an app crash due to a low memory condition. If it happens, we'll automatically switch to a safer displaying engine for this particular file. It uses less memory, and it is more crash-safe in general, but it is considerably slower with zooming and panning. The fact that slower engine is being used is indicated by this sign:

You can always switch back to faster engine by tapping it. It may be useful if you have eliminated conditions for low memory crashes. For example, hard-rebooting your iPhone/iPad (with powering off) may help. As you run different applications on your device, they can occupy more and more memory and other system resources over the time, regardless of the fact that you've quit all those applications. Rebooting frees operating memory completely.

Another thing to try to prevent out-of-memory crashes under extreme memory conditions is disabling pre-caching of adjacent pages.

If you see this sign:
,
it means that GoodReader saw a PDF page, which internal structure could potentially crash the app. To prevent this, GoodRader has stopped page rendering process before a crash happened. It means that you probably see an incomplete page - some graphical elements could be missing.

You may consider optimizing your PDF file for iPhone/iPad viewing if rendering takes too long.

 


Help us to help you

GoodReader was dramatically improved since its earlier versions. The only thing that made it possible is user feedback. Our customers sent us a lot of problematic files, we studied those files, came to certain conclusions, and finally we were able to write a better code. We can't improve our application if you don't talk to us. We might actually solve the problem if you tell us about it! So we encourage you to send us as much feedback or feature requests as possible. Help us to help you!