What do you use to manage PDF files on your iPad?
Is PDF Expert still the best option?
I have a collection of game manuals and books that I would like to keep organized and easily accessible.
For game manuals, DEVONthink To Go is working pretty well for me. I’m also a desktop user of DT, though.
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I keep PDFs, that I use frequently, in Books.app.
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Ditto. DTTG for my PDFs. I have pdf expert but don’t see that it’s worth it for me.
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I was going to add the Kindle app, since I own a couple of Kindles and regularly use it for PDFs. But I just tired to send a 52.9 MB PDF to it using the Mac Send to Kindle app, and it told me it couldn’t because the size was over 50MB. I am sure I could send it by hooking up a cable…but Books or DTTG it is.
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I have DT for desktop and mobile but it feels heavy. To open a PDF I have to open up an entire database first. Does ever feel too “heavy” for when you just need to open a PDF for quick reference?
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DEVONthink ToGo never opens the all the files in the database if what you mean by “entire database”. It only “opens” and displays the files (PDFs) that your tell it to.
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I store PDFs on iCloud and open them as I require them. It’s the most futureproof way
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I use DevonThink for archiving because of its awesome search. However, I use Acrobat for PDFs I’m actively using because it’s quicker to open up and syncs better, and it has more powerful editing and highlighting tools.
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I serve on a large number of non-profit boards, all of which distribute documents in PDF format. Having tried all the options listed here, I too settled on just keeping them in iCloud (Files) on the iPad.
The built in tools are more than enough for what I need to do and I’m guessing that Apple Intelligence will be able to access info in the PDF’s better that way than any of the other options.
And it’s probably the least expensive option as well.
Files app and iCloud for me. The text content is indexed so search from the app finds files with no problem. Search from within the file is also very fast and the provided markup tools cover most of my needs.
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It sucks that the files app does not have Bookmarks on iOS. This is one of the main reasons I’ve been using PDF Expert.
Have you tried the Books app? It does bookmarks, highlights and annotation in pdfs. You can also add pdfs to the notes app which might be helpful in terms of note taking. All of these allow for adding hand written notes if that’s something that you need or want.
If you use the Apple Pencil an easy work around for bookmarks would be to simply bookmark pages by hand writing BM on a page. To find bookmarks just search in the pdf for BM.
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I use Goodnotes and PDF Expert.
I keep most of my PDFs in Dropbox. Dropbox doesn’t hold much advantage over the Files app, but it seems to more readily download files to my mobile devices. Also, Dropbox works well on Windows.
I’m really irritated that neither the Files app nor Dropbox will automatically download all of the files on my Mac to all of my mobile devices. The problem isn’t that I don’t have enough storage space on my iPhone/iPad, the apps just won’t do it. I want all the files automatically on all the devices all the time. Don’t see why this can’t be done. I contacted Dropbox support and got nowhere.
If you considered leaving all of your PDFs online? That way, all my files are available are all my devices. I have a handful that I keep in Books.app, the rest remain in the cloud until needed. I only download a file when I need to modify, or sign it, etc. Normally, I only open and view it.
I spend a lot of time in doctors’ waiting rooms where the WiFi is usually (not always ) crap to none and cellular isn’t any better. I have plenty of storage space on my phone; I just don’t see why I can’t have all of my files there as well as online. Of course, with Dropbox (and Files) they are online.
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I normally pass the time in waiting rooms, airports, and aircraft, etc. by watching other people. Or by listening to podcasts or audiobooks with my eyes shut.
On iOS/iPadOS 18, you can mark iCloud folders to be always available offline, and the OS will keep them downloaded to the device.
Edit: There are also other ways to keep everything downloaded from the cloud. OneDrive supports this feature natively in their iOS app, and for other cloud providers such as Dropbox, you can use the Documents app by Readdle to achieve this.
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I am currently using Books to read a 1,300 page PDF that I need to annotate heavily and then need to be able to find those annotations. It works mostly great for reading, but it is buggy and missing features. I am using it on an M4 iPad with a Pencil and a Mac.
Using Books on a Mac for PDFs in reality is just using Preview. The Books app is only syncing documents, but that doesn’t always work. Preview is great, but reading a PDF in Books on an iPad, it does not share the same feature set as Mac Preview.
Bookmarks work well, but they don’t always sync from iPad to Mac. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t. Highlights also work well enough and you can list all your highlights on a Mac, but not an iPad. Highlights made with the Pencil’s highlighter do not count as highlights. There is also no way to list all handwritten notes or highlights, so if I write something in, there is no way to quickly find where I wrote it and get back to it.
The Mac has an option to view “highlights and notes”, but I am confused by the “notes” part, because there doesn’t seem to be a way to take notes on a PDF that it will recognizing. It does work well for finding highlights (text based ones, not Pencil based).
This has not worked for me. My handwritten text, written as neatly as possible, is not showing up any text searches on Mac or iPad.
I would pay for a good app that supports the Pencil across iPad and Mac if one existed (although I would not pay a sub since I don’t need to do this a lot).
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