Tech Tip - PDF Expert - Do More With Your Documents

Last month I shared a tech tip on working with PDFs with the built-in tools from iOS, which anyone with an iPhone or iPad can use right away. Sometimes, though, you need to do more with a PDF document that requires advanced options. That is where an application like PDF Expert comes into play. There are many good PDF utilities, but PDF Expert is the one that I have been working with the most lately and offers everything you need in managing and editing PDF documents.PDF Expert from Readdle has growth its feature set nicely over the past several years. Not only is it an excellent utility for marking up documents, but it also allows you to manage your document library effectively as well.

File and Document Management

PDF Expert now works in conjunction with the iOS Files app to allow you access the files you have stored on your device directly, or connected to iCloud, Dropbox, Google Drive, Box, and others. Once you have opened a document in PDF Expert you can continue to manage that through your recent files within the application. This makes it easy to find your documents when you need to refer back to them.If you are completing research online and find a PDF you are interested in, you can select to open it directly from the iOS Safari browser into PDF Expert and it will place it in your library. From there you can begin any annotations, edits, or markups you would like.You can manage within categories and additional folders as well. PDF Expert gives you many tools to work with your PDF documents.Choose ‘Select’ to activate the sidebar options to manage individual documents.

Customize how you view your documents

PDF Expert gives you plenty of options to view your documents. You can select to view in light or dark modes. I expect they will update the software soon to take advantage of iOS 13’s native dark mode. Until then, you can choose that in the ‘view settings’ menu. You can also select how you scroll or page through your document. You can scroll up and down as you would an online document. Or, you can page through it as you a would a book. Both can be handy options depending on what type of document you are working with. 

Document Navigation

You can easily see and navigate your document in many ways. Selecting the four box icon at the top left of the screen will take you into a Lightbox view allowing you to see all of the pages of your document in one place. This is a great way to move pages around if you need to reorganize the order of your document. This is also where you will want to manage any duplicating of pages or removal of pages. You can select multiple pages at once and either delete them or expert them as their own separate pdf. You will be presented with different options to handle that export process. Another great way to navigate your documents is based on the edits, annotations, and bookmarks you establish while working with your document. You can see your annotations, bookmarks, or an outline of the document in one place for quick reference and document navigation. This is a great way to get a quick review of a multi-page document.As you review your documents, you can select key headers or pieces of information you want to quickly refer back to. Selecting the text and adding to the outline will essentially let you create your own table of contents so you can quickly jump through to specific areas of your document.Any text you highlight will all be captured in the sidebar view and allow you to not only quickly review your notes, but tap on them and be taken to that part of the document. Using this in conjunction with the lightbox tool, you can see where you have edits, annotations, and notes in a single view.

Sticky Notes and comments

There are a couple of ways you can make notes for yourself or others that will be using your document. You can create comments and place them where you need throughout the document. This allows you to type text into the comments field to refer back to later. These are also noted in the sidebar for quickly referring back to. The nice thing about the comment box is that it collapses when not in use and doesn’t take up much space on the viewing page. You can also create a shape box and make these your own sticky notes that sit on the side of the document. Again, these can be found in your sidebar by clicking on the shape you created. If you like to use stickies in your review, this is a great way to do it in conjunction with your Apple Pencil to write directly on the ‘note’.

Edit and change text

Yes, it is possible to edit and change the text within an existing PDF document right from the iPad! PDF Expert allows you to take an existing PDF document and change the text and in some cases the layout of a PDF document. It also allows you to copy the text directly from the PDF and into other documents if you need to reference something or quote from the document in different communication. It is as simple as tapping the ‘edit’ button. PDF Expert creates boxes around all of the blocks within the document that can be edited. All you need to do is match the font and size and you can make any edits you need.

Sign documents

One of the handiest tools that PDF Expert offers is the ability to quickly fill and sign forms. If you have any type of equipment requisition for work you can complete the form without leaving your iPad. There is no need to print the document out, fill it in, then scan it back to be emailed to someone. You can do it all in one application. Start by selecting the ‘Fill & Sign’ options from the top menu.That will open up new tools on your tool sidebar that allows you to use a predefined signature you have already set up, or write directly into a signature box and place on the page. You can then place the signature anywhere you need.

Stamps/Watermarks

Sometimes it is necessary to watermark or ‘stamp’ your documents based on your feedback. PDF Expert gives you several options for this. You can see in the image below that there are several predefined options that cover most situations. It is just another way this tool makes it easy to work with and update documents that once were nearly impossible to change or add comments to without using a printer, scanner, or other tools prior to sharing information back with another person.PDF Expert is a powerful and useful tool. It does come at a price. It is not an inexpensive app, but it is a quality app. You can find PDF Expert in the iOS App Store for $9.99. There is a free trial, a basic version, as well as an upgrade to a Pro edition you can select from. Readdle has been excellent on continuing to update the application usually with free updates. When new full versions are released they have been generous with upgrade pricing so you do not need to pay full price for the application. They have a companion application for the Mac that works seamlessly with the iOS version. It is a separate purchase, but well worth it if you frequently use PDF documents and you work between your Mac and iOS devices.Join other retail leaders in continuing their development journey with Effective Retail Leader.com. SUBSCRIBE today to receive FREE leadership tips directly to your inbox and monthly newsletters that provide many tools to help further develop your leadership skills all at no cost. JOIN NOW!No spam ever - just leadership goodness.