5 ms·

What device do you use to read PDF's?

crazygringo 6y ago
I personally use an iPad. It's amazing for it. Especially when you use the Apple Pencil to highlight text, make annotations like circles or question marks, etc.
- lilactown 6y ago
  I struggled to find good software for this. Is there a specific app you recommend?
  - schaefer 6y ago
    On the iPad, I use goodnotes for that. You can import PDFs and then mark them up.
  - crazygringo 6y ago
    I've gone back and forth between Apple Books and Acrobat Reader a lot. Ultimately I currently use Books because I do a lot of multicolored highlighting which is far more consistent in Books, and because Books lets you set bookmarks (to go back and forth between main text and endnotes) which Acrobat inexplicably still does not support. Ultimately every PDF app is good at some things and terrible at others, and you're just going to have to find the app that has the best set of features for you. It is pretty sad that all the apps have significant drawbacks for certain common workflows.
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    PDF Viewer has worked well for me, personally.
  - ghufran_syed 6y ago
    I use notability on the 12.9 inch iPad Pro. You can import the pdf, then annotate
  - sjy 6y ago
    I like GoodReader for this. It’s the only app I’ve found that stores my annotations in the PDF files themselves, and allows me to keep my PDF library in sync over SFTP, Dropbox, etc. so that I can read and annotate documents on non-Apple devices as well.
  - e_proxus 6y ago
    I’ve been a very happy user of LiquidText [1]. You can load multiple PDFs/images/documents into a LiquidText project and annotate and cross reference. There’s a separate work space outside of the documents where you can store clippings and collect summaries. It’s great for reading long standard documents and cross reference between them and supporting material like examples etc. [1]: https://www.liquidtext.net/ https://www.liquidtext.net/
gpm 6y ago
I've really been enjoying a remarkable tablet since I got it a few weeks ago. Great for taking notes, great for reading pdf's (and scribbling on them - which is surprisingly useful!), terrible for literally anything else.
- krn 6y ago
  > terrible for literally anything else I hope it will soon be the best e-reader on the market, thanks to KOReader[1]. [1] https://old.reddit.com/r/RemarkableTablet/comments/jsb3r7/koreader_on_the_rm2/ https://old.reddit.com/r/RemarkableTablet/comments/jsb3r7/ko...
  - gpm 6y ago
    Hopefully, but I don't like counting features before they exist. A feature that does exist - and I maybe should have mentioned, is that one of my house mates finds it really useful for remote teaching, they screen share the remarkables screen to their students and use it as something like a blackboard.
- rsfinn 6y ago
  That does sound like a remarkable tablet. What's it called? (...oh, now I get it: <https://remarkable.com/ https://remarkable.com/>)
- pklausler 6y ago
  I love reMarkable 2 for note-taking, but the fact that internal links in PDFs cannot be traversed makes it a non-starter for me as a technical document reader.
- ketamine__ 6y ago
  Is it a good ebook reader if you're not a prolific note taker?
  - gpm 6y ago
    It renders PDFs, let's you scale/move where on the screen the page is rendered, let's you flip through pages, let's you switch to a view of page thumbnails, let's you go to a page number, remembers the last page you were on. If you expect more from your ebook reader than that, it is not just because of software. As a sibling comment mentions that might be fixed soon. V1 had long since had support for third party apps. V2 is taking a bit of time (because controlling eink screens in weird) but will probably have third party apps support soon. At that point you will be able to use one of the well known open source ebook reading apps. Edit: And to be clear, all the third party app support is unofficial, the help menu on the tablet includes the ssh password for root, everything past that is just reverse engineering (it's a pretty typical linux system apart from the display).
cjsawyer 6y ago
I use an ipad pro for reading pdf textbooks. The high refresh rate screen makes it more pleasant to use than the android tablets I’ve tried. Also the iOS books app is great, if a little bloated by the store half
mhh__ 6y ago
A computer. I started off my "learning more than what you get taught in school" reading PDFs on a tiny phone, I now do it on a bigger phone, a big DPI monitor etc. none of these platforms makes a blind bit of difference to me because my eyes aren't the bottleneck.
systemvoltage 6y ago
iPad Pro, 10”.

I personally use an iPad. It's amazing for it. Especially when you use the Apple Pencil to highlight text, make annotations like circles or question marks, etc.

lilactown 6y ago
I struggled to find good software for this. Is there a specific app you recommend?
- schaefer 6y ago
  On the iPad, I use goodnotes for that. You can import PDFs and then mark them up.
- crazygringo 6y ago
  I've gone back and forth between Apple Books and Acrobat Reader a lot. Ultimately I currently use Books because I do a lot of multicolored highlighting which is far more consistent in Books, and because Books lets you set bookmarks (to go back and forth between main text and endnotes) which Acrobat inexplicably still does not support. Ultimately every PDF app is good at some things and terrible at others, and you're just going to have to find the app that has the best set of features for you. It is pretty sad that all the apps have significant drawbacks for certain common workflows.
- saagarjha 6y ago
  PDF Viewer has worked well for me, personally.
- ghufran_syed 6y ago
  I use notability on the 12.9 inch iPad Pro. You can import the pdf, then annotate
- sjy 6y ago
  I like GoodReader for this. It’s the only app I’ve found that stores my annotations in the PDF files themselves, and allows me to keep my PDF library in sync over SFTP, Dropbox, etc. so that I can read and annotate documents on non-Apple devices as well.
- e_proxus 6y ago
  I’ve been a very happy user of LiquidText [1]. You can load multiple PDFs/images/documents into a LiquidText project and annotate and cross reference. There’s a separate work space outside of the documents where you can store clippings and collect summaries. It’s great for reading long standard documents and cross reference between them and supporting material like examples etc. [1]: https://www.liquidtext.net/ https://www.liquidtext.net/

gpm 6y ago

I've really been enjoying a remarkable tablet since I got it a few weeks ago. Great for taking notes, great for reading pdf's (and scribbling on them - which is surprisingly useful!), terrible for literally anything else.

krn 6y ago
> terrible for literally anything else I hope it will soon be the best e-reader on the market, thanks to KOReader[1]. [1] https://old.reddit.com/r/RemarkableTablet/comments/jsb3r7/koreader_on_the_rm2/ https://old.reddit.com/r/RemarkableTablet/comments/jsb3r7/ko...
- gpm 6y ago
  Hopefully, but I don't like counting features before they exist. A feature that does exist - and I maybe should have mentioned, is that one of my house mates finds it really useful for remote teaching, they screen share the remarkables screen to their students and use it as something like a blackboard.
rsfinn 6y ago
That does sound like a remarkable tablet. What's it called? (...oh, now I get it: <https://remarkable.com/ https://remarkable.com/>)
pklausler 6y ago
I love reMarkable 2 for note-taking, but the fact that internal links in PDFs cannot be traversed makes it a non-starter for me as a technical document reader.
ketamine__ 6y ago
Is it a good ebook reader if you're not a prolific note taker?
- gpm 6y ago
  It renders PDFs, let's you scale/move where on the screen the page is rendered, let's you flip through pages, let's you switch to a view of page thumbnails, let's you go to a page number, remembers the last page you were on. If you expect more from your ebook reader than that, it is not just because of software. As a sibling comment mentions that might be fixed soon. V1 had long since had support for third party apps. V2 is taking a bit of time (because controlling eink screens in weird) but will probably have third party apps support soon. At that point you will be able to use one of the well known open source ebook reading apps. Edit: And to be clear, all the third party app support is unofficial, the help menu on the tablet includes the ssh password for root, everything past that is just reverse engineering (it's a pretty typical linux system apart from the display).

cjsawyer 6y ago

I use an ipad pro for reading pdf textbooks. The high refresh rate screen makes it more pleasant to use than the android tablets I’ve tried. Also the iOS books app is great, if a little bloated by the store half

mhh__ 6y ago

A computer. I started off my "learning more than what you get taught in school" reading PDFs on a tiny phone, I now do it on a bigger phone, a big DPI monitor etc. none of these platforms makes a blind bit of difference to me because my eyes aren't the bottleneck.

systemvoltage 6y ago

iPad Pro, 10”.