The .PDF file format is probably the most popular for digital paperwork, and we’ll show you how to sync and view PDFs on your iPad.
With more and more people going “green” to keep the environment as clean as possible, many users are saving paper and printing less by taking advantage of digital books and other digital literature that would normally be printed on paper.
We’ve shown you how to set up iBooks and sync your content across multiple devices, but we’ll show you how to manage your PDF files on your iPad.
Unlike a regular computer, you cannot download or copy/paste a PDF to your iPad and view it immediately using a PDF viewer of your choice. This is a warning to the so-called “walled garden” that Apple likes to lock down to keep its ecosystem safe and privileged.
But that doesn’t mean you still can’t easily view PDFs on your iPad. In fact, there are several ways to do this, some easier than others, but we’ll review a few options you can try to see which works best for you and your workflow.
Sync PDFs with iTunes
If you want your PDF documents to be viewed on all your Apple devices, this is currently not possible via iCloud and you have to do it manually. In other words, sync your PDFs individually to all your Apple devices via iTunes.
It’s definitely a pain in the ass, but it’s the only way to have your PDFs in iBooks on all your iOS and OS X devices. This is because Apple only syncs content from iBooks via iCloud purchased from Apple, so PDFs you download yourself from a third-party source cannot be synced via iCloud.
Fortunately, syncing PDFs from your computer to any of your iOS devices is pretty easy. To do this, open iBooks on your Mac and drag and drop all PDFs into the iBooks app. They will now appear in your iBooks library on your Mac.
From there, plug your iPad into your Mac and open iTunes. Then click on your iPad in iTunes and select the upward tab. Put a checkmark next to it and you can sync all your books at once or select specific books to sync only to your iPad. Then click the bottom right corner to start the syncing process.
After syncing is complete, your PDFs can now be viewed on your iPad and you can view them in the iBooks app.
Using Cloud Storage to Sync and View PDFs
Perhaps the easiest way to sync PDFs across all your devices is to store them in a cloud service, that way you simply drag and drop the PDFs into the cloud storage folder and they will be available on all your devices. Install cloud app.
Probably the most popular options are Dropbox and Google Drive, and we’re guessing you’ve already used one of them. All you have to do is make sure you have the app installed on all your devices, including your computer (you can upload files from the web interface if you want) and make sure you’re signed in to your account on all of them. .
From there, you can add PDF files to your Dropbox or Google Drive folder and they will appear on all your devices in a matter of minutes. To view them, both Dropbox and Google Drive have their own built-in PDF viewers, so you don’t need any third-party utilities to open your PDFs.
The only downside to using cloud storage is that if you can’t save PDF files for offline use, which many cloud apps can do, you’ll need an internet connection.
The next best option is to email PDF files to yourself and view them on your iPad from your email client. It’s not as easy as using a cloud storage service, but it’s easy to do if you don’t use the cloud.
If you are using Gmail, you can open the PDF file directly in Gmail and view it without any third party help. If you’re using Apple’s default Mail app, you still have a few more steps to take.
Specifically, when you tap the PDF file, you’ll want to tap the Share button in the top-right corner and then select . iBooks will open and you can view your PDF from here. Also, when you use iBooks to open a PDF, the app automatically saves a copy of the PDF to your iBooks PDF shelf. These PDFs are synced to your iTunes library the next time you sync your iOS device with iTunes.
