We read books both for information and knowledge. Although both are essential aspects of reading, we cannot tell the difference between them. When you annotate, your mind develops a contextual relationship with the book.
You include facts, criticisms, and links to related documents or web links. This all gives you better navigational cues. We’ll show you five PDF readers for Android that let you read and annotate ebooks to provide you with a better reading environment.
1. Xodo PDF Reader & Editor
Xodo is a feature-rich PDF viewer that lets you read, edit, and annotate ebooks. It comes with a built-in file manager, cloud storage support, and collaboration tools to annotate ebooks and review them in real time. You can fill forms and sign PDF documentsHow to Sign a PDF: The Best Tools for Electronic SignaturesHow to Sign a PDF: The Best Tools for Electronic SignaturesNeed to electronically sign a PDF? Here are the best tools to sign PDF documents from your PC or phone.Read More. It’s also compatible with the latest Adobe Acrobat specifications, which makes annotations consistent with other PDF viewers.
Annotate and View Notes
To create a highlight, tap the center of your screen to bring up the Action Bar. Tap the Annotation Toolbar, then the Highlighter icon. Drag the marker with your finger to the end of a sentence or paragraph to highlight the text. To change the color of the highlight, tap and hold the text to bring the popup menu. Tap Style to change the color, opacity or even annotation type.
If you wish to add a note, tap the selected text, then tap Comment Note to add a comment. Xodo supports many annotation tools including strikeout, underline, link, text, and more. You might also want to enable some options in the Settings screen.
Tap the Hamburger menu and toggle the Continuous Annotation Edit switch. The annotation toolbar will no longer swap with the hand tool, letting you focus on annotating the book. Also, toggle the Copy Annotated Text to Note switch. While adding a note, the selected text gets automatically copied into the annotation’s note.
Export Notes
After marking up a whole chapter, tap the center of your screen to bring up Bookmark icon on the bottom navigation bar. Tap the Annotations tab, then choose Export located at the bottom of the screen. A new document (PDF) will open in a new tab, with a summary of annotations you did on a chapter. Long-press this tab and tap Show in Folder to jump to the file location.
If you’re viewing the same PDF on an app that doesn’t support annotations, you can save a flattened copy of the document. Tap on the Overflow, then choose Save a Copy > Flattened Copy. The flattened copy’s annotations are no longer editable, but you can see the edits in any PDF viewer.
Download:Xodo PDF Reader & Editor (Free)
2. PDF Viewer Pro by PSPDFKit
PDF Viewer Pro is an all-in-one app that lets you annotate, fill forms, sign documents, and edit them. It comes with a built-in file manager, support for cloud storage, and collaboration tools to review edits with your team. The app writes annotations as per standardized Adobe specifications, so you can view them on any device.
Annotate and Export Notes
Open the document you would like to annotate. Tap the Annotation Edit button on the toolbar, then drag a finger to select the text. If you want to change the color of the annotation, tap the selected text and choose a different color from the toolbar.
To add a note, tap the selected text and choose Comment from the toolbar. You can add text annotations, comments with different styles, and callout annotations. Thankfully, the toolbar is not cluttered with a bunch of options. It’s neatly categorized into groups, and you can even drag the toolbar to other locations.
After doing all your markups, tap the Share icon in the toolbar and select an app to share your annotations. You can choose to either Embed or Flatten the annotations. When you embed annotations, they remain editable in other PDF viewers.
You can also share a particular page of the PDF. And the app lets you decide if you want to keep annotations, flatten them, or remove them altogether.
Download:PDF Viewer Pro by PSPDFKit (Free, subscription available)
3. ezPDF Reader
ezPDF is the only Android PDF viewer with embedded multimedia capabilities. The app has a slightly old, skeuomorphic interface, and the red/orange action bar makes the interface non-intuitive. But despite the old interface, the app comes with many useful features. Annotating a document is just the start.
Write On Pdf App For Pc
Annotate and Export Notes
Lee ki woo religion. The top action bar is always visible while viewing a PDF. It allows you to make all sorts of annotations—adding text, commenting, highlighting, attaching files, creating shapes, and more. The controls are a bit confusing, as some options have an undo button and others rely on the eraser. Tap the Settings icon at the top bar and de-select any options you don’t use to reduce clutter.
To highlight the text, drag the marker to select a desired portion of the text and tap Highlight. To do more with the text you highlighted, tap the AddAnnot option. Here, you can add a note with different colors, attach a file or image, write on a text box, and more.
After you’re done marking up, tap the Annotations List on the action bar and select the annotation types you want to display or export. Then tap the Overflow menu and choose Export. Save or send the file as XFDF, FDF, or plain text. The FDF file format is compatible with Adobe specifications, so you don’t have to worry about annotations disappearing.
Download:ezPDF Reader Free Trial (Free 15-day trial) | ezPDF Reader ($4)
4. PocketBook Reader
PocketBook reader is your virtual library that lets you read ebooks in multiple formats, including PDFs that use Adobe DRM. It enables you to read ebooks in foreign languages with a built-in dictionary and listen to them with its text-to-speech function. The app even includes a barcode scanner to detect metadata, plus much more.
Annotate and Export Notes
To create a highlight, drag the marker to the end of a sentence or paragraph. In the popup that appears, tap Highlight. Then from the color picker box, select the color of your choice. If you marked the wrong text, select the highlighted text and tap Delete.
If you wish to add a note, select the highlighted text and tap Note. Enter your note and tap Save. The note sign will appear on the page. To view or edit the note, just touch the icon. Resident evil 2 dolphin textures. After you’ve marked up as you wish, go to the Reading menu and choose Notes and chapter. Here at the bottom of the Reading menu, tap the Export option.
The note saves in the PocketBook folder as an HTML file. What makes this app unique compared to others is its natural reading settings. At any time, tap the center of your screen to evoke a radial menu. You can adjust brightness, the page display mode, zoom settings, and even create a highlight without going through tedious options.
Download:PocketBook Reader (Free)
5. Moon+ Reader
Moon+ Reader is an innovative app designed to give you complete control over your screen experience. You can fine-tune the screen brightness and tap the screen to effortlessly switch between day and night mode.
In PDF Options, you can change the view mode, increase or decrease the render quality, and enable thumbnail previews on the bottom bar. In Visual Options, you can set the font type, size, alignment, spacing, and more.
Annotate and Export Notes
To have the best experience while reading PDFs on this app, you must tweak specific options. Tap Overflow menu > PDF Options and choose View Mode as Continuous with Render Quality as High. Set the quality to Low if the PDF you’re reading has lots of images.
To create a highlight, drag the blue marker to the end of a sentence or paragraph. In the popup that appears, tap Highlight. You can also underline or strikethrough text with different colors. From the color picker box, choose the color you want to highlight with. Tap Note to add a comment on the selected text.
When you tap Save, a sticky note will appear on the text. After you’re done marking up, tap the Bookmarks button, then Share, and choose to export notes and highlights as TXT or HTML. Do remember that scanned PDFs don’t support any markups. The only option you have is to use OCR on the imageThe 3 Best Free OCR Tools to Convert Your Files Back Into Editable DocumentsThe 3 Best Free OCR Tools to Convert Your Files Back Into Editable DocumentsOptical Character Recognition (OCR) software turns printed documents into machine-readable text. Here we show you the best free OCR tools and how they work.Read More, but even then, markups may or may not work.
Download:Moon+ Reader (Free) | Moon+ Reader Pro ($5)
You Can Annotate EPUBs Too
It’s difficult to think critically when you only passively consume information. Deep work requires you to think harder beyond the simple context. Creating annotations is your first step for developing a knowledge-based mindset because you begin to establish connections with different ideas.
The Android PDF apps discussed here will help you become a better reader and thinker. But you can annotate EPUB files too. Some excellent EPUB reader apps lets you annotate and take better notes. If this interests you, check out the best Android ebook reader apps with amazing annotation features6 Android Ebook Reader Apps With Great Annotation Features6 Android Ebook Reader Apps With Great Annotation FeaturesWant an ebook reader app for Android with great annotation support? We have several excellent options for you to choose from.Read More.
Explore more about: Android Apps, Ebooks, Note-Taking Apps, PDF, PDF Editor.
- All I can see in Playstore is WaveEditor and it looks complicated! Can you point me in another direction or is this what I need to record with my Samsung tablet and my blue yedi microphone?
- PDF Max - Terrible recommendation - ignore. Very buggy. Spent 2 hours annotating a pdf. Did Cloud upload + it crashed loosing all work. Tried again + the google error says the software isn't set up to work with google drive.
Poor recommendation, MUO. Won't be following your reccs again.. - Thanks for the helpful review. Unfortunately, one important criterion you left out is the ability to upload and download pdf files from custom locations on the Internet, such as computers, NAS drives, and the like.I keep my large library of pdf books and articles on a NAS drive and have no trouble accessing it directly from anywhere in the world using PDF Expert on an iPad. But I tried PDF Max and Adobe Reader, and neither has the same capability. Both limit you to a pre-given set of cloud services. PDF Max has four (Google Drive, etc.), and AR only one (a paid Adobe service). I was able to work around this by using another app to download a file, open it in AR, and upload the annotated version, but I'm still looking for a single-app solution for Android.
- Thank you for recommendation. I use PDF Editor frequently, home, office and on the way to visit my client. So i need cross-platform software to help me edit PDF file. I use #PDFelement software to edit PDF document on Mac, Windows & iOS. It's very helpful. Now Android is really what i need. I will try it. Thank you.
- That is, PDF Max is doing that to me - telling me the PDF files are invalid.
- Keeps telling me my PDF's are an 'invalid file'.
They open fine with other PDF viewing and annotating apps. - While Adobe is free to download, it is worth noting that it is not at all free to create and edit PDF's. You can view PDF's for free, but in order to edit or create you have to subscribe for $9.99/month.
- Thank you very much! I am looking for an app that my music students can use to do homework (in pdf form). Sometimes, this requires writing words and other times it requires writing notes and other musical notation. One of my students uses Notability to do this, but at least half of my students have Windows or Android tablets. Will PDF Max do this? Thank you again!
- Nice commentary ! I Appreciate the information . Does someone know if my business would be able to grab a fillable a form form to work with ?
- Are there any of Android PDF editing apps that edit files directly on Google Drive?Neither Xodo or PDF Max do this - both make local copies, and the re upload the results (with a new / different file name).
- To get around this I use Autosync for Google Drive. With the free version you can auto sync any local folder with Drive. The paid ($5 I think) version gives you all the sync functionality of the desktop Drive app.
- Great article. Just tried PDF Max and it's the best. It can annotate easily and has One Drive support (opens the pdf and re-saves to cloud when done). Just what I needed!
- I have an application forms pdf
what is the best Android APP to use - my pdf reader (on my tablet) was working like a dream..until i updated it! its now lost all its functions and seems to be pretty much useless? so strange and incredibly infuriating.
- What about pdfannotator?
- Too bad you did not review Xodo. It is a great editor and is free and without ads. Better than any reviewed here.
- I confirm. And it is the only one with which you can fill editable pdf, save them and, most important of all, make them visible and printable by every printerWith the others, some text doesn't appear in the phase of printing
- I agree with you. Xodo docs is the best.
- Foxit?The latest version of Adobe Reader often hangs while making annotations.
- Do you know Mantano?
It's better than those ones.
Read Documents on the Go with These Top Apps
PDFs are light, portable and can support a variety of document styles, from text-heavy manuals to highly image-based documents such as ebooks and comics. Form-fillable documents can also be used as official forms and documents. The best PDF reader apps do more then just open files, providing a variety of navigation, annotation, and cloud storage functions to provide a full spectrum of document features. Check out our favorite PDF reader apps for Android and iOS devices. (Image Credit: dennizn/Shutterstock)
The iPad and iPad Pro are great for many reasons, but I love them in part for helping me make paper documents and forms almost obsolete: I can't think of the last time I had to print a form and send it through the mail (or worse — fax it). Instead, I rely on iOS's built-in tools and great third-party apps to take care of all my form, document, and signature-related needs.
After testing a bunch of PDF markup apps — and asking for your favorites on Twitter, here are my top apps worth considering.
Markup isn't an app, but it's still pretty great
Preview may not exist on the iPad just yet, but its excellent markup and annotation tools are available systemwide in iOS 11 as an extension. The Markup extension can be triggered by pressing either the Share button or new Markup button in certain apps — it looks like a pen tip with a circle around it. (You can also tap an email attachment in Mail, or take a screenshot to activate them.)
In the Markup interface, you can add pen, highlighter, or pencil notation; basic shapes like squares, circles, arrows, and quote bubbles; drop a magnifier on the image or document; and even add text or a signature.
It's basic, to be sure, but sometimes basic is all you need.
PDF Viewer is a smooth alternative to Markup
While putting together this roundup, I had a number of people point me in the direction of PDF Viewer, a newer annotation app released at the end of 2016. After a few minutes with the free app, it's clear why they did — between its clean, simplistic interface and powerful annotation tools, PDF Viewer is a perfect in-between for users who need a bit more than iOS's Markup tool provides, but don't need the power of apps like PDF Expert or LiquidText.
A PDF app's interface can frequently appear daunting to the average user, thanks in part to the sheer number of annotation options developers try to shove inside of them, but PDF Viewer smartly simplifies this process. Taking a page from Apple's own iWork suite, the app provides a series of nested views depending on which feature you're using. For instance, if you're looking at a document, you'll be shown the tools for sharing, zooming, and browsing through annotations; tap the annotation button, and the app brings you into Annotation mode, with its various tools — still simplified into easy-to-understand icons.
PDF Viewer can even rearrange, delete, or insert blank pages within a PDF, though it doesn't have some of the more advanced combination features (like merging multiple PDFs or adding existing PDF pages into a document).
Twitter, you did well to bring this app on my radar. It's an excellent one.
PDF Expert is an annotation juggernaut
When people ask for an all-purpose PDF markup and annotation app, I tend to send them to Readdle and PDF Expert. The $9.99 app offers basic PDF reading, annotation, and digital signatures, but where it shines is in its advanced tools.
You can create customizable 'stamps' for oft-used annotations (a friend to copy editors everywhere), edit the structure of the PDF, zip multiple documents together, password-protect your files, and sync with iCloud. A $9.99 Pro upgrade takes those tools one step further and allows you to physically crack open a PDF and edit it on the spot. Have a spelling error in your ready-to-print proof? Even if you can't jump back to InDesign on your iPad, you can fix it in the PDF.
You may never need the tools that PDF Expert provides, but I for one love that an app this complex and functional exists on iOS.
Researchers, writers, and copy editors will love LiquidText
I've rewritten this intro to LiquidText about five times now, largely because the multitouch annotation app has this slippery way of defying description. A traditional sign-and-form-fill annotation app this is not: LiquidText is built for projects, novels, research papers, and dusty libraries. Lawyer and Mac enthusiast David Sparks describes it as being 'engineered around the idea of reviewing long PDF documents better.' It looks at books filled with post-it notes and string-covered bulletin boards and laughs. There's a better way to organize your research, and the app is it.
At its core, LiquidText focuses on the pain point of annotating lengthy documents, giving users a number of tools to do it in a way wholly unlike any other PDF app on the market. You can use multitouch gestures to pinch together large sections of a document; for instance, you could look an introductory thesis statement next to its midpoint argument to see if it properly connects the dots. You can pull annotations out from the document they belong to — like clippings or post-its — and organize them together or even link them along the right side of the screen. And all of this is lightning fast and wholly enjoyable, thanks to LiquidText's speedy and simple UI.
The Apple Pencil makes all of this even better, giving users specific gestures to highlight and pull out annotations as you review documents. For those who need this kind of workflow, there's no better app than LiquidText out there — and possibly no better workflow.
Other apps we tested
For this roundup, I narrowed down an incredibly large pool of PDF apps to highlight the best ones in their respective classes, which naturally meant excluding otherwise beloved apps. Here are some alternative PDF annotation apps that are great, but didn't quite make the cut.
- GoodReader, $4.99: GoodReader was my stalwart PDF manager and annotation editor for a long time, in large part because it supported uncompressing ZIP files, but I tend to look at it as more file management system than proper PDF annotation app.
- GoodNotes, $9.99 & Notability, $9.99: Both of these apps have PDF annotation features, but they're first and foremost note-taking apps.
- PDFPen, $19.99: Smile Software makes excellent apps, but as good as PDFPen on iOS is, it doesn't outshine PDF Expert.
- iAnnotate, $9.99: iAnnotate was another app recommended by a number of Twitter users, but I don't find the interface or ease of use as enjoyable as working with PDF Expert.
- Pages, free: Apple's latest update has brought Apple's Smart Annotation feature to the app, but I'm hesitant to recommend it for everyday use until it's fully out of beta.
Your favorites?
Do you have a favorite PDF annotation app I missed? Let me know below so I can check it out for our next roundup!
Updated April 2018: Added Pages as an app to consider thanks to Smart Annotation.
Drawing on iPad: The ultimate guide
Main
This post may contain affiliate links. See our disclosure policy for more details.