6 Best PDF Viewer iPad Apps for Convenient and Seamless Reading

PDF is the most commonly used digital file format to preserve documents in electronic form, such as books, user guides, contracts, business plans, and others. When it comes to viewing PDFs, the iPad provides a convenient way to consume content due to its large display. However, considering the overwhelming number of PDF viewer iPad apps, it is difficult to pick the one that provides the most comfortable and seamless reading experience. To resolve this hassle, we have shortlisted six top PDF viewer apps on iPad. We will explore their features, pros, and cons and provide a comprehensive comparison chart. By the end of this article, you will be able to choose the best PDF viewer app for your iPad. So, stick with this article to pick the app that best aligns with your needs.

A Top List of 6 Must-Try PDF Viewers/Readers for iPad Users

The best PDF viewer iPad app is the one that provides a smooth usability and readability experience with many feature-rich offerings. From this perspective, below are the top six must-try PDF viewers/readers for iPad users:

1. UPDF

The first and most powerful PDF viewer app for iPad is UPDF for iPad. UPDF provides an intuitive interface to open and read PDFs on your iPad. You can open and read any size of PDF file and use its various annotation tools to highlight, mark, or do other annotations on the document while reading.

The key features of UPDF are as follows:

• It provides a click-based interface to open and read any PDF on your iPad.
• It supports three viewing modes, i.e., single page, continuous scroll, and thumbnail grid.
• It provides many built-in annotation tools to highlight, mark, underline, comment, etc.
• It serves as an effective file manager, making it easy to manage all PDF files within the app.
• It allows you to add bookmarks to keep track of where you left reading.
• Its Security Space feature offers top-notch protection for documents.
• It provides a centralized place to view, upload, share, organize, and secure multiple documents.
• It provides a smooth and speedy user interface.
• Its built-in smart scanner (OCR PDF) allows you to scan things on the go.
• It provides signature and form-filling features.
• It supports dark mode.
• Its search feature allows you to search for any word, phrase, or sentence.
• It can split the screen into two for reading two PDF files at once.
• It provides an AI assistant (UPDF AI) to chat with PDFs and make reading fast and thorough.

Overall, UPDF is a complete, powerful, and feature-rich PDF viewer app for iPhone and iPad. It is compatible with almost all iPad models and supports all versions of iPadOS. So, download UPDF now and explore its features yourself.

Besides the above state-of-the-art capability of UPDF, it works more than a PDF viewer on iPad. To learn additional functionalities of UPDF, read Part 3 of this article.

2. PDF Viewer

PDF Viewer is another PDF viewer app for iPhone, iPad, and Mac, providing an intuitive interface for easy viewing of PDFs. It also supports annotating features, such as highlighting, marking, commenting, etc. Besides that, its features also include adding bookmarks, filling in forms, inserting signatures, protecting documents with passwords, sharing documents, and more.

Pros

• Easy and intuitive interface
• Annotating tools
• Password protection
• Signature and form fill

Cons

• Slow processing speed for large-sized PDF files
• Less efficient line drawing function

3. Preview mini

Preview mini is an image and PDF viewer/editor app. It provides a minimalistic design and workflow to view images and PDFs and do basic-level editing. Talking specifically about its PDF viewing feature, it supports full-size preview, text highlighting, duplication/conversion of PDF pages, and adding/removing passwords.

Pros

• Minimalistic design
• Custom PDF highlighting options
• Password protection
• Full-size preview

Cons

• Lack of multiple PDF viewing modes
• Lack of extensive annotating features, like adding stamps, stickers, etc.

4. Adobe Acrobat Reader for iPad

Adobe Acrobat Reader is a reputed PDF viewer for iOS, iPadOS, Android, Windows, and Mac. It provides all the essential features you need to view PDFs on iPad with ease. You can conveniently read PDFs and use its annotating features to highlight, mark, etc. Furthermore, it also provides a seamless approach to filling out forms, adding e-signatures, and more.

Pros

• Extensive annotating features
• Form filling and e-signing
• Easy file sharing

Cons

• Organizing pages or protecting PDFs require in-app purchases
• Learning curve

5. GoodReader for iPad

As the name implies, GoodReader for iPad intends to make your reading experience good and pleasant. That's why this PDF opener app for iPhone and iPad provides comprehensive features you need to read and annotate PDFs. Besides that, it serves as a central hub to manage files. Furthermore, it can encrypt files and can connect with many cloud services for easy download and syncing of files. However, most of these features require a subscription.

Pros

• Extensive viewing and annotating features
• File management
• Files encryption (require subscription)
• Cloud services connectivity (require subscription)
• Split-screen mode to read two files at once (require subscription)

Cons

• Minimal features in the free plan (viewing, annotating, and file management)
• Lack of new features updates outside the subscription

6. PDF Expert for iPad

Last in our list of top PDF viewer iPad apps is PDF Expert. It enhances the PDF viewing experience through its extensive sets of features, such as viewing in a single page or continuous scroll, smooth scrolling and zooming, text searching, etc. Furthermore, it provides many annotating tools, including adding shapes and stickers. You also get to organize PDF pages. It also supports features like form filling, e-signatures, password protection, and others but requires a subscription to access them.

Pros

• Multiple viewing modes, including single-page and continuous scroll
• Advanced annotating features
• Organize PDF pages
• Dark mode
• Form filling and e-signing (require subscription)
• Password protection (require subscription)

Cons

• Advanced features require a subscription plan
• Occasionally freezes and crashes
• Slow search function

Which is the Best and Finest PDF Viewer App for iPad?

Now that we have looked into the key features of all the above six PDF viewer apps for iPad, it is evident that all ensure a smooth readability experience. So, the main question is which one is the best and finest choice among all of them. To come to this conclusion, let's go through the comparison table below.

Looking at the above comparison table, it is evident that UPDF is the only tool that ticks all the checkboxes. GoodReader and PDF Expert also seem to offer similar functionalities, but most of their features are accessible only with paid subscriptions. In contrast, UPDF provides many features for free. In short, if you want more value for money and access advanced features at a fraction of the cost, then purchase UPDF right away.

UPDF Works More Than a PDF Viewer for iPad

UPDF is not just a PDF Viewer for iPad. In fact, it is a complete PDF viewer and editor tool that includes all the features to handle every aspect of PDFs for Windows, Mac, Android, and iOS. Below is a quick glimpse of all the other features you can access with UPDF:

• Edit PDFs: It provides a comprehensive set of tools to edit text, images, and links in PDFs. Moreover, it can also add watermarks, change backgrounds and headers/footers, and do other customizations you want.
• Convert PDFs: It can convert PDFs into many other popular formats, such as Word, PowerPoint, Excel, RTF, CSV, image, text, XML, and HTML.
• Compress PDFs: It can compress PDFs to lower their file size without compromising the document quality.
• UPDF AI: It provides a ChatGPT-powered AI assistant to chat with PDFs and ask for summary, translation, explanation, rewriting, proofreading, and more.
• UPDF Cloud: It provides dedicated cloud storage to store, access, and share documents from anywhere, anytime.

In short, there are endless features UPDF offers to users, making it truly the most powerful PDF viewer and editor tool. Download and try it out now!

FAQs About PDF Viewers/Openers on iPad

Q1. How do I view PDFs on my iPad?

To view PDFs on your iPad, you need a PDF viewer app. So, download the UPDF app, the best PDF viewer app for iPad. Once done, launch the UPDF app and open the PDF you want to view. You can use its different viewing modes to read PDFs in any way that seems convenient to you.

Q2. What is the best PDF reader on iPad?

Out of the many available PDF readers on iPad, UPDF is the best one due to its feature-rich offerings. It provides multiple viewing modes, advanced annotations tools, split-screen options, password protection, bookmarking, and many other features.

Q3. Why can't I view PDF files on my iPad?

If you cannot view PDF files on your iPad, then the likely reason is that the files are corrupted. iPad won't be able to open corrupted PDF files. So, try to re-download the files and then open them again.

Conclusion

iPad users often prefer to view PDFs on their devices due to the large screen and convenient way of reading content. Using the best PDF viewer iPad app makes the experience more comfortable. Above, we have discussed in detail the six best PDF viewer apps and talked about their features, pros, and cons. Out of all of them, UPDF shines as the winner mainly due to its extensive set of features, such as multiple viewing modes, powerful annotation, split-screen option, built-in editing, and many more. Therefore, download UPDF right now if you want to view PDFs on iPad with all the advanced features accessible at your fingertips.