PDF Expert 5

PDF Expert 5

PDF Expert 5Long time DocumentSnap readers will know that I am a big GoodReader user. It has been the file system for my iPad for years, and the new iOS 7 update is quite nice. However, recently I have moved to PDF Expert 5 as my PDF application of choice on the iPad.

Readdle’s apps are getting more and more polished, and PDF Expert 5 is no exception. Since I am using it more and more, I thought I’d do a bit of a runthrough.

PDF Expert 5

Getting PDFs Into PDF Expert

Like any other iOS app, you can “Open In” a PDF from an email or other application and select PDF Expert.

This works well, but the real power is in PDF Expert’s integration with a number of cloud services. You can access documents from Dropbox, SkyDrive, Google Drive, Windows SMB shares, Box, and a whole host of other sources.

PDF Expert Cloud Services

You can either open documents from these services, or you can sync entire folders. If you do that, changes that you make to a document on one side are automatically reflected on other devices.

It would be nice if PDF Expert supported AFP shares like GoodReader, but it’s not the end of the world.

If you use PDF Expert for iPhone, you can store your documents in iCloud and they will automatically appear on all your iOS devices in the PDF Expert apps.

Organize PDFs

PDF organization is one of my favorite features of PDF Expert 5. The way they have done it really takes advantage of the touch interface.

If you want to move a document, you can tap and hold on the PDF. You can then drag it to a folder, or you can drag it to the sidebar and send it to one of your cloud services.

If you drag one PDF on top of another one, it will create a brand new folder. Nice touch.

If you hit the Edit button up at the top, you can select one or more documents and do a number of actions such as Copy, Move, Rename, Delete, Merge, Zip, Email, Upload, and Open In.

Many of these you can also do by dragging PDFs around, but this gives you a way to apply an action to multiple PDFs at once.

PDF Expert 5 Edit Mode

You’ll also see that you can star and tag documents, but don’t get too excited. These don’t translate over to Mavericks tags. Maybe someday.

Read PDFs

Until I bought an iPad, I was one of those people that needed to print out documents to read them.

I have found that tablets have changed all that, and I actually prefer to read PDFs on my iPad now.

PDF Expert 5 Reading

Reading in PDF Expert 5 is great. You can either swipe or tap between pages horizontally (my preference), or you can do vertical scrolling if that floats your boat.

A great touch for us old people is you can set the PDF to Night or Sepia mode to make reading a bit easier on the eyes, especially in the dark.

One of the more incredible features to me is the Text to Speech support. Just tap the reading button and turn on the Text to speech switch, and the app will read the text to you, highlighting each word as it goes. It works very well.

PDF Expert 5 Text To Speeech

Annotate PDFs

You can do the normal annotations on the PDF. You can add text, highlight text, draw shapes, strike out text, and there is a nice signature feature.

You define your signature in PDF Expert, and then you can drop it in a PDF. You can also add an image as a stamp and use that.

PDF Expert 5 Annotations

You can view a summary of all the markup you’ve made in the document, and you can send a “flattened” copy of the document which protects the annotations and ensures they are viewable on any device.

Edit and Manipulate PDFs

As mentioned earlier, you can merge multiple documents, and this works very well.

When you are viewing an individual PDF, you can work with the pages. When you tap the thumbnail button, you can delete pages, add a new page, and even copy and paste pages from another PDF.

If you want to split up a PDF into multiple documents, you can highlight and extract the pages you want as well.

PDF Expert 5

When you think about it, it is remarkable that you can edit a PDF to this level on a tablet.

PDF Expert 5

As you can imagine, I have many, many PDF apps on my devices. When I want to read, mark up, and manipulate documents, more often than not I find myself using PDF Expert 5 by Readdle. It’s $9.99 on the app store, and if you work with a lot of PDF documents on your iPad, it may be worth it to you too.

About the Author

Brooks Duncan helps individuals and small businesses go paperless. He's been an accountant, a software developer, a manager in a very large corporation, and has run DocumentSnap since 2008. You can find Brooks on Twitter at @documentsnap or @brooksduncan. Thanks for stopping by.

Leave a Reply 19 comments

Jessica - September 3, 2017 Reply

I’m having problems editing folders is there a easy way

S Summer - March 7, 2016 Reply

Dumb question: Can’t copy portion of a pdf expert 5 document onto a Word document. Can you help?

    Chuck - December 20, 2016 Reply

    I would also like to know how to copy a portion of a PDF to another PDF or even a word document..any such luck?? :o)

Kellie - August 8, 2014 Reply

Thanks Brooks and Lexvo for confirming the weird ‘swimming effect’ while scrolling when the page is zoomed in. I was beginning to think this annoying feature might be the resukt of me doing somerhing wrong. It’s a pity this happens because it spoils an otherwise brillant study tool.

If they fix the issue in the new version, does anyone know if the upgrades are free to current owners?

    Lexvo - August 8, 2014 Reply

    My problem was fixed in the new version.

    This new version also supports continious vertical scrolling, great!

    I think it’s a free upgrade if you have version 5.

Bob F - February 19, 2014 Reply

Sounds intriguing. Most of my PDFs are in iBooks. Is there an easy way to move PDFs from iBooks to PDF Expert? One feature that I want is to be able to rename a PDF after I’ve downloaded it. As far as I know, you can’t do that in iBooks — correct?

    Brooks Duncan - February 19, 2014 Reply

    So weird. I thought you’d be able to “Open In” from iBooks to another app such as PDF Expert, but apparently not. I can’t see any way to move things from iBooks to PDF Expert, but maybe someone else can chime in.

    As for renaming, you actually can do that in iBooks, but it is a little weird. I’ll do a video on this someday, but to rename:

    -When you are looking at all your PDFs, tap on the icon in the top right beside the Edit button. That will put them in List mode.

    -Hit Edit

    -Tap on the filename, and you can change it from there.

    -Hit Done

      Nick - August 8, 2014 Reply

      You can do it from iTunes, just view your apps then scroll to the bottom and you’ll have access to all PDFs in iBooks. Just copy them to your computer or pdf viewer.

    dminnici - January 3, 2015 Reply

    To Rename PDF’s in iBooks iOS:
    Yes, you can rename in the iBooks app. In the directory your PDFs are in, touch “Select” on top right of screen, touch the file name you want to change, a curser will appear. Delete the garbled-up iBooks name and then type in the file name that makes sense.

    To Export from iBooks to another app:
    I found a simple way to transfer PDFs from iBooks to any other app you have on your iDevice… However, you must be jailbroken for this to work.

    Here’s how:

    In Cydia, download and install PDF Printer (it’s in the BigBoss repo) (Note: your iDevice will respring once PDF Printer is installed)
    Open iBooks and open the PDF file you want to transfer.
    In iBooks, select the option to print / email PDF
    Choose print option
    Once print option box appears, choose PDF (to the right of “Print Option”)
    Once PDF is “Printed” choose the open in icon on the top left of page
    Open the PDF in the app you want a copy kept in, such as PDF Expert.
    I know it seems like a lot of steps, but it’s not. It’s really simple and MUCH easier and faster that emailing each iBook PDF to your self and way more convenient than syncing through iTunes.

Lexvo - February 17, 2014 Reply

PDF Expert is a great app.

However, it has a bug when you quickly do vertical scroll when zoomed in. Half pages are the result. It is very annoying because often you have to zoom out to restore the page. I reported it twice to Readdle support, hope they can fix it in short time.

    Brooks Duncan - February 19, 2014 Reply

    Thanks Lexvo and thanks for reporting it.

      Lexvo - February 19, 2014 Reply

      Yesterday I got a reply from Readdle that they’re planning to fix it in version 5.1, due in spring.

        Brooks Duncan - February 20, 2014 Reply

        Great, thanks for the update Lexvo! I’ll look out for it.

Andre Benrubi - February 5, 2014 Reply

Don’t forget that you can also add one or more blank pages (a feature imported from the now defunct app Remarks) to a document. Great for extra notes!

    Brooks Duncan - February 5, 2014 Reply

    Nice tip. Didn’t even think of that one!

lucy - February 5, 2014 Reply

Has anyone heard of similar but equally good app writepdf?

Jhon - February 4, 2014 Reply

thank you for this review, I have tried PDF Expert 5 , and I am very pleased, its user interface is quite amazing on ios7 , and became my number 1 PDF and File organizing app, but then “vertical scrolling” !!!!!!! I have to say I am disappointed for such a great Application to have this horrible way of scrolling, I really enjoy Continuous Scrolling and the smoothness it gives you while reading , unfortunately its not available.
But still PDF Expert 5 is an amazing File organzier and PDF manager app, but not for reading PDFs obviously without continuous scrolling,

    Brooks Duncan - February 5, 2014 Reply

    Thanks for your update Jhon. Personally I like horizontal better, but yeah the way vertical scrolling works is a little weird. It’d be nice if it was continuous.

      Paul Mack - February 19, 2014 Reply

      You can switch it to horizontal scrolling simply in the settings: 1) click on the ‘settings’ wheel icon in the top left corner; 2) choose ‘PDF’ in the left hand column; 3) about half way down you will see ‘scroll pages’ – just choose ‘horizontally’ and you’re done.

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