Mobile PDF readers/management tools - Analysis and Recommendations (Free Readers)
There were lot of people who asked me about recommendations for good mobile PDF readers/management tool. So, I researched a majority of the free applications out there for mobile and found the following. So read on......
To start with,
1. There are NO native e-readers on the iPhone and Android which comes as part of the OS. A 3
rd
party tool is NEEDED for Document management.
2. Below is the list of document management applications I found for iPhone and Android. I classify it into three categories.
CATEGORY 1--
APPLICATION THAT WORKS FOR BOTH PHONES--
a. Adobe Reader (Free Application) - BEST SOLUTION!!!!! (And Mobile SM team also recommended it)
The Adobe Reader stores a list of PDF files viewed by the user and he/she can always open up the app and open the required document. This is true, both in Android and iPhone.
On the iPhone,
a. If a PDF document is opened from the website, the user is given an option to open in any document e-reader including Adobe Reader.
b. Once, Adobe Reader is selected, the pdf gets listed in Adobe Reader application and next time the user wants to see the list of pdf files he/she previously referred to, they just open it by clicking on Adobe Reader icon.
Refer Figure 1 below
Figure 1:
Once the user clicks on”Open in”, he/she gets options to open it in different applications and Adobe Reader can be chosen. Then the image above shows how all pdf flies are listed in one location in Adobe Reader.
On the Android,
a. If a PDF document is opened from the website, the document gets downloaded to the phone and the user can just click on it to view it.
b. Once this is done, the pdf gets stored as a list in Adobe Reader and can be opened at any time by clicking on the Adobe Reader icon.
Refer Figure 2 below.
Figure 2:
Adobe Readers lists down all the pdf files opened.
b. Dropbox – iPhone and Android (Free application)
This is a free tool and can manage your documents in the cloud to be accessed anywhere, anytime. Just like Adobe this is a native app that can be downloaded onto the phones.
All your pdf files can be uploaded using this software.
NOTE: on the iPhone, I can view the pdf docs I uploaded through the desktop onto Dropbox but cannot upload docs from my mobile phone onto Dropbox. As for android, I could not check this option.
CATEGORY 2---
APPLICATIONS AVAILABLE ONLY FOR THE iPhone-
a.iPDFReader (Free Appilcation)
This is a free PDF Reader which manages all PDF documents. The only problem is you have the give the direct URL where the document is present, for downloading the PDF file in order to view it. Check out some screenshots below.
Figure 3:
iPDFReaders lists the document but you need to provide the URL of a pdf document if you want to view them.
b.
iStorage – (Free Application)
It is very similar to the Adobe Reader application explained above. Once a document is viewed from a web page, there is an option to view it in iStorage. After this is done, the pdf list always appears in iStorage as shown below.
Figure 4:
iStorage lists down all the pdfs opened by the user.
There are numerous other paid applications like GoodReader and other apps present for documents management.
CATEGORY 3---
APPLICATIONS ONLY ONLY FOR THE Android-
a. Aldika (Free application)
This is again very similar to other pdf readers which allows user to read documents and list all the pdf document in one place. Refer Figure 5 below.
Figure 5:
Aldika reader listing down all the pdf documents the user has read.
b. eLibris Reader (Free Application)
Again very similar to the previous e-readers this is a really good free document reader. Refer screenshot below in Figure 6.
Figure 6:
eLibris Reader listing a previously read PDF document.
Again, there are lot more paid applications out there for the Android.
Hope the above list helped!!!!