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Documents vs pdf expert 5 free download |
- (PDF) PDF Expert 5 User guide | Claudia Nicchiniello -
PDF Expert is delightfully easy to use, offers the fastest PDF app reading experience, works with many syncing services, and has the most robust toolset available on the iPad. PDFs also happen to be one of the best and most universal ways to send a document to another person. Almost any computing device can view them, and they will almost always display as intended — with formatting and layout intact — across all manner of platforms and devices.
We spend an inordinate amount of time sorting through hundreds of apps to find the very best. Our team here at The Sweet Setup put together a short list of our must-have, most-used apps in These apps work on iPad, iPhone, and Mac.
And they range across several different categories but are mostly focused on productivity. They will help you get the most out of your devices and your day. Get the List ». For our testing, we included both paid and free apps that were popular or recommended. The apps we tested were:. There were many apps that could do almost every task, but often fell short in one or more tests — most notably in the merging and form-filling tests. In talking with many iPad PDF users, a common theme ran throughout: The most important features of a PDF management app are organization , annotation , and reading.
PDF Expert 6 offers the best of class in all three of those categories, and adds yet another: editing. Many of the other apps we tested hide common user tasks with gestures and tap zones the user must somehow learn and remember.
For example, in PDFpen you rename a document by double-tapping the file name, yet — even as a long-time user of the app — I often forget that shortcut every time I want to rename a document.
PDF Expert tries to avoid taps and buttons where it can by clearly labeling things where needed and tailoring the gestures intuitively based on the view the user has chosen in the app. Like everything else in PDF Expert, moving files around is extremely quick and easy. Side note: Dragging a PDF file on top of another creates a folder, which is shown via the files changing into a folder icon nice touch , but we would love to be able to toggle this action into a merging action.
Dragging one PDF file onto another to merge the two together would be a better use for this action; after all, folders can always be created by tapping the new folder icon. When you do find yourself tapping the Select button, be prepared to smile if working with PDFs is a large part of your life, as it is for me. As expected, tapping this button allows you to select multiple files to act on.
However, it also opens up a new set of options in the sidebar, including:. Not all of these features are unique to PDF Expert, but it was the only app we tested with all of the features together in one app. The most elusive to other apps are the tagging, zipping, and merging features.
Even at that, many other apps simply did not perform these actions as easily as PDF Expert does. Not to mention, some of these tasks are even easier in PDF Expert on the iPad than they are in some desktop applications for the Mac. Though specialized apps do exist for this specific task, we are trying to find a good all-in-one PDF solution. In both cases, PDF Expert handled the task quickly and without hiccups.
While viewing a document, tap either one from the top-hand toolbar to select that mode. When it comes to annotations, PDF Expert has always had the most feature-rich highlighting engine in our testing.
Offering very opaque coloring and dark colors makes it one of the few apps tested that allow you to easily redact lines of text using a black highlight, but do note that you need to flatten the PDF if you want it to remain redacted when shared.
This is something the NSA should probably look into. Creation of those annotations is also a simple task. The small nature of the note bubble can make for rather tricky placement with a finger.
On the plus side, the note text is rendered in Helvetica and not Marker Felt. PDF Expert also boasts solid signature support, but we wish that we could insert a signature without the tap to hold gesture, which is hard, if not impossible, to do while holding the device with one hand. It is odd that clicking the signature icon in the toolbar is not how you insert a signature, but rather how you create signatures, making it a confusing icon to have persistent in the toolbar.
It used to be that you could only stow one signature in PDF Expert. Now you can insert any signature you like, whenever you like. Doing so unlocks the following features:. PDF Expert allows you to switch between vertical and horizontal scrolling modes, both of which perform admirably. Prior to the 6. Thankfully, that issue has since been resolved and vertical scrolling now performs exactly the way you want it to.
Another welcome update is the ability to zoom out past the width of the page in landscape mode. It used to be that in landscape, the document would simply fill the width of your device, with no option to zoom out and view the entire page. Overall, the reading experience is solid, offering one of the fastest renderings of large PDF files we tested. In other words, no matter what your office uses, you can probably sync your documents in the app. PDF Expert works very well with Dropbox shared folders.
If you have several different people you collaborate with on certain PDFs, you can all share a folder in Dropbox and that folder can be added to your Documents tab in PDF Expert. The app also allows you to enable iOS Data Protection file-encryption system. These are great options that help keep access to your cloud storage secure but easily accessible to you. The iCloud syncing between your Mac and iPad alone makes it a valuable tool, though one could just as easily use services like Dropbox to achieve a similar solution with PDF Expert.
Additionally, there is no universal search for PDFs, nor is there a tab bar for quickly switching between several different currently-open PDFs in the app. It offers strong export options and import sources, and our favorite feature is the media library. There is a standard set of items like those found in other apps: comments, text, arrows, boxes, lines, and camera roll.
There is also a massive set of proofing markup icons for proofreading documents. However, unlike the stamping tools in other apps tested, PDFpen can use iCloud to sync over media from its Mac counterpart. Additionally, PDFpen comes with a library of proofing markup tools that are sure to be a boon to serious reviewers. PDFpen is a solid, well-designed offering, and we have no doubt that with future updates it could knock PDF Expert out of the top spot.
The editing features alone are killer, if you choose to unlock them. For almost any contract-based business, PDFs are a way of life. Curated List of Must-Have Apps We spend an inordinate amount of time sorting through hundreds of apps to find the very best. A special, pro tip for each app to help you save time and become more of a power user. A hidden feature of each app that you may not have known about. PDF Expert is easy to use, works with many syncing services, offers the fastest document reading experience, and has the most robust toolset available.
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