iPhone Need a iPhone app to handle PDF "smartly" in landscape mode

[alxwang]

I just got the iPhone XS MAX and I am impressed with the screen. Unfortunately, it is still too small for the PDF.

Is there an iPhone app which can:

1. Auto fit with width when displaying a PDF in iPhone's landscape mode.
2. Smartly split the page into multiple pages so I can use page up/down instead scroll up/down(like Kindle).
3. Do not display too much redundancy content, instead, always overlap each "sub-page" by one line or 20 pixels. So I can easily move my eye onto the end of the last page.

I know Ipad is the way to go for the PDF but I always have my phone, not iPad.
Thanks!

[jocampo]

You answered yourself... an iPhone is just too small for viewing PDFs. You can, but it is just too small.

I do have a 10.5 inches iPad and I am considering myself in getting a bigger screen, so you can imagine.

There are certain limitations that an iPhone will be restricted too, due hardware or software, and in my opinion, viewing PDFs is one of them. It is ok to open a one or two pages document, like a movie theater receipt sent by an online company, but that's pretty much what an iPhone may be able to do in a comfortable way for your eyes.

Do yourself a favor, and get a tablet. You will thank me later.

[alxwang]

Actually, the new ipad pro 12.9 will be in my hand this Friday. But again, I will not have the ipad with me all the time instead iPhone is always in my pocket.

Is there any app can make PDF reading more useful in iPhone?

[jocampo]

Originally Posted by alxwang

Actually, the new ipad pro 12.9 will be in my hand this Friday. But again, I will not have the ipad with me all the time instead iPhone is always in my pocket.

Is there any app can make PDF reading more useful in iPhone?

I am not aware of any. But pretty much all allow you to pinch zoom, that's standard.

Remember, PDFs are not ebooks, so they do not re-flow and scale the same as epub or mobi documents.

[alxwang]

OK K2pdfopt does the job perfectly - I am surprised there is no app can do the same job(extract, cut and output) on the fly.

[DaleDe]

I use the Pocketbook app on my iPhone. It has a wrap mode that works pretty well for PDF files. Wrap mode is likely to be the only way to read PDF reasonably. You could also try the PDF reader from Adobe using wrap mode.

Dale

[OtinG]

I'm surprised PDFs have not become extinct, except perhaps for legal documents. They were designed in the 1980s for being printed out. They were never designed for reading on devices, although they were adapted to be able to do that over the years, yet they suck for mobile documentation, especially on small screens like smartphones. Even on tablets they suck. What looks readable on a printed 8.5" x 11" page might be, and often is, difficult to read even on a tablet. Tiny print gets even tinier on a small screen.

[OtinG]

BTW, if you are creating your own PDFs, there are ways to make them work well with smartphone screens. Most of the PDFs we get on the internet are formatted for 8.5" x 11" paper, or some similar large size compared to a smartphone screen. Since PDFs don't scale/flow text, that creates the issue of using them on small screens. But if you create your own, try making them 2.5" x 4" instead, and then play around with the font and font sizes to make them work well with a smartphone screen. Then you don't have to scroll the page around to read the text. Of course a 2 page letter size document will need probably 10 or more small sized pages to hold the same text, but at least they fit a comfortable reading size text on the screen and each page can be viewed full sized and then flicked to reveal the next page.

[rfog]

Originally Posted by OtinG

I'm surprised PDFs have not become extinct, except perhaps for legal documents. They were designed in the 1980s for being printed out. They were never designed for reading on devices, although they were adapted to be able to do that over the years, yet they suck for mobile documentation, especially on small screens like smartphones. Even on tablets they suck. What looks readable on a printed 8.5" x 11" page might be, and often is, difficult to read even on a tablet. Tiny print gets even tinier on a small screen.

As today date, PDF is the only "ebook" format that as a standard annotation system that goes integrated with the document itself. I think that is one of the most evident reasons.

Is what I do. All non-literature books are converted to PDF by me because then I can have the document and the comments in same file and can be viewed by any PDF viewer (well, most of them).