I deal with a number of PDF documents at work and home.  For the most part, they are purely for reference (I do receive some monthly newsletters in PDF I read), but I may refer to them while on the go, meeting with prospective students and their families, studying for my Sunday school lessons, and so forth. Since my wife and I share one laptop having access to these PDFs is important to me. The solution that I found is using GoodReader [iTunes Link] on my iPhone.

Top features:

The main feature to GoodReader is its claim to handling large PDF documents. I have done my best to throw large PDF documents at the app and it has handled them all just fine. My largest PDF document was about 50 MB which is the largest I would likely use. On their website, users have reported “flawless performance with files over 1 gig in size.” You can also search a PDF document, add bookmarks, or go to a specific page.

GoodReader can read other file formats like MS Office .doc, .ppt, .xls, iWork'08/'09, HTML and Safari webarchives, images, audio, and video.  This makes the app rather versatile and not just a one trick pony.

Files are organized via a folder hierarchy. You can create folders, move files or folders, cut, copy, paste, zip, email, rename, protect, star items, paste links to files, create new files from your iPhone’s clipboard, and even integrates with Appigo’s Todo app. One nice touch is when selecting a downloaded file from the Web Downloads folder (yes, you can download files to GoodReader more on this later), GoodReader doesn’t just open the file, but shows you where the file is located screen by screen. I really liked that!

Downloading/Transferring Files

I mentioned the ability to download files earlier. Thru additional add-ons, GoodReader can access your POP3/IMAP email accounts, google Docs, MobileMe, FTP servers, and more. Just the other day, I used GoodReader to access my Gmail account and download a password protected PDF that I needed. GoodReader downloaded it and allowed me to enter my password and read the PDF. Worked perfectly!

There is a web browser built-in so you can navigate to a web page to download a file you need. I have tried it out, but found it to be a bit clunky to use. Each time you tap on a link, it asks you if you want to follow the link, download the file, or cancel. It does show the link for you to help you determine whether to follow or download, but not very smooth when surfing to your download. I also couldn’t access my Safari bookmarks either which would help with downloading some files. You can paste a URL and GoodReader will download the file.

You can also transfer files via WIFI using your internet browser or using your iPhone as a network folder (WebDAV).

For those who don’t like pinching to zoom and sliding documents around to view the text, you can use GoodReader’s PDF reflow. The reflow takes your PDF down to just the text and formats it to fit your screen (how does it know the size of your screen, it’s just that good!). Seriously, it’s a handy feature when you are reading thru a lengthy newsletter.

Conclusion

GoodReader is the best iPhone app for reading PDFs, MS Office files, iWork files, text, audio, and video files. I have found it to be robust and fast even on my 1st generation iPhone. The Help topics give you all the info you need to learn to use GoodReader and its features.

GoodReader currently sells for $.99 in the App Store and the additional add-ons are     $.99 each. The add-ons are Accessing E-mail servers via IMAP or POP3 protocol, Server-style access to Google Docs, and Accessing FTP servers. I bought GoodReader when it sold for $4.99 and I still feel like I got a good deal. Featured packed with a clean UI, GoodReader provides the best PDF viewing experience on my iPhone. Try out all the features of GoodReader with the lite version.

GOODREADER GALLERY: View my screenshots of GoodReader