GoodReader is a file viewer with many powerful features, most of which address PDF and TXT viewing.
GoodReader is a very complex application. It incorporates a lot of non-obvious features and solutions. We strongly encourage you to read all our manuals, otherwise it will be hard for you to enjoy the full power of GoodReader.
Here you will find a brief description of GoodReader's features with links to more detailed manuals.
There are two types of viewing engines - the ones that we wrote ourselves, and the built-in device's standard viewing engine. Our own engines provide great flexibility and many additional features not found in the built-in engine (for example, opening very large files). The built-in engine is very powerful and knows many file formats, but has many limitations and no additional features.
Using inter-app Document Interchange (a.k.a. Open In... functionality) to exchange files between apps (including Apple's Mail app to transfer E-Mail attachments to GoodReader). Works both ways - GoodReader can open files stored in other apps, and other apps can open files stored in GoodReader. Apple's Document Interchange works only with apps that explicitly support this feature.
Accessing E-Mail servers via IMAP or POP3 protocol to download mail attachments
Accessing WebDAV Servers (MobileMe iDisk, box.net, FilesAnywhere.com, AnyDisk.se, and any other WebDAV server on the Web) for both downloading and uploading files. Plus you can connect to any iPhone/iPod/iPad on your local WiFi network that has a file sharing and management application that supports WebDAV connections.
Accessing Google Docs via its proprietory protocol for both downloading and uploading files
Accessing Dropbox via its proprietory protocol for both downloading and uploading files
Accessing FTP servers for both downloading and uploading files. Only plain FTP is supported, no security additions. SFTP and FTPS protocols are NOT supported.
Importing/exporting pictures from device Photo Album. Importing of recorded videos (on iPhones with video camera).
Tips for folder navigation
tap in the middle of the navigation bar (in the middle of a folder name) to see the stack of all enclosing folders and to quickly jump to those folders
swipe file or folder name to delete this file/folder (be careful - this can't be undone)
use Find Files feature in one of four modes: find by a name, recently read, recently added, starred
file or folder name shown in black means that you have opened this file/folder, shown in blue means that it is unread
mark your files/folders with a star to visually distinguish them
protect individual files and folders with a password
Managing files/folders, sending e-mail
There is a powerful set of features accessible by opening the Manage Files control panel (iPad) or by pressing the Actions button (iPhone) in a file list view. You can send files to other apps that support Apple's Document Interchange. You can create new folders and rename/copy/move/delete existing files and folders. You can compress multiple files and folders into .zip archives, and you can unzip .zip archives. You can also send files via e-mail from GoodReader. You can mark files as read/unread, set/remove a password protection for individual files/folders, set/remove a star for a file or folder, extract files from PDF Portfolios and save a text from clipboard as a TXT file for further reading. You can also create a special URL link for integration with other apps. Read more here.
Password protection
There are three ways to protect your sensitive data:
by setting a password check at GoodReader's startup. Open Application Settings page, General Settings section for this (see Buttons on the main screen section below on how to open Application Settings page). Please note that this is a very simple security measure, no encryption is performed on your files.
by setting a password protection for individual files and folders. Please note that this is a very simple security measure, no encryption is performed on your files.
by setting an opening password for PDF files during their creation (consult your PDF creation software manual for this)
You can combine all these methods for extra security, if you don't mind entering three different passwords to open a single file.
iOS 4 introduces multitasking, which redefines the application startup concept a little bit. Now real app startup is a rare thing to happen. More often you will be bringing apps from the background, which is not a real app startup. However, it is a very common thing for a user to send an app to the background and forget about it for a while. Which brings a need to re-enter a password when re-activating already running copy of GoodReader after a certain period of time. GoodReader defines this period of time as 10 minutes. However, there's the Paranoid mode switch available in settings, General section, which will force re-entering of a password after any app re-activation, if you prefer this.
Be careful not to forget your startup and protected files passwords, because no way of retrieving or resetting these passwords is provided. However, if you have forgotten your passwords, the only way to reset them is to delete and reinstall the app, which will also erase all your files and settings.
If you're really concerned about security, you may also want to encrypt your iTunes Backup files.
Buttons on the main screen
iPad version only
import pictures from device's Photo Album.
locks the interface autorotation. If you feel that sudden screen autorotations are a little annoying when you're reading in bed, you can temporarily lock the autorotation with this button. This button has any effect only if the hardware rotation lock switch is off.
iPhone version only
Actions
opens up additional menu to work with files and folders. See Manage Files, Send E-mail for more details.
rotates interface. GoodReader lets you choose between autorotation and manual rotation of the screen. If you feel that sudden screen autorotations are a little annoying when you're reading in bed, you can turn autorotation off in General section of Application Settings and then you can always rotate the screen manually with this button. Manual rotations can be done in 2 or 3 ways (selectable option on the Application Settings page).
Find File. Use it to find files/folders in one of four modes: find by a name, recently read, recently added, starred.
opens the WiFi-transfer page used for WiFi file transfers. For security reasons and to save your battery power, transfer is allowed only when you're on the WiFi-transfer page. This button opens this page. See WiFi File Transfer section for more details.
opens the Application Settings, where you can change various GoodReader settings
tap in the middle of the navigation bar (in the middle of a folder name) to see the stack of all enclosing folders and to quickly jump to those folders.
Video out adapter
GoodReader supports Apple's Video out adapters to show your documents/movies on an external computer display, TV or a projector (iPad or iPhone 4 is required). There's a dedicated button on the main screen of GoodReader that may appear in one of three states:
Video out adapter is not connected, button is disabled
Video out adapter is connected, but the feature is not activated. Press this button to activate the feature.
Video out adapter is connected, the feature is activated. Open a document or a movie to start sending video signal to an external display. Press this button again to deactivate the feature.
Disabling device auto-lock when reading
Usually your device uses the auto-lock feature (after a certain period of inactivity screen dims and then turns off). You can let GoodReader temporarily disable device auto-lock while reading (it will be restored once you close a file). This option is configured on the Application Settings page. Disabling auto-lock may discharge your battery faster.
Integration with other apps
GoodReader fully supports Apple's Document Interchange feature. It works both ways:
Files stored in other apps can be copied directly to GoodReader. This includes Apple's Mail app - now you can open email attachments by simply selecting GoodReader in the Open In... menu in Apple's Mail app. The same approach also works with any other app that supports Document Interchange.
GoodReader also supports Document Interchange from the other end - you can select any file in GoodReader, and ask GoodReader to open this file in any other app that supports Document Interchange for that type of file. This is done on the Manage Files control panel, with the Open In... button.
GoodReader also offers integration with other apps via mechanism of custom URL addresses. Other applications that support opening URLs can use a special URL generated by GoodReader to launch GoodReader and to open a file encoded in this generated URL. For example, it could be a to-do app or notebook app. Basically, any app where you can paste an URL generated by GoodReader and later click on that URL to open it.
GoodReader provides an easy 1-click integration with to-do app called Appigo Todo.
Integration with other apps can be achieved by using the Link button on the Manage Files control panel. More information here.
Known limitations
GoodReader heavily relies on iOS capabilities. Some features that are related to file viewing are limited on iPhone/iPod/iPad. Here are some limitations that we know of:
JPEG2000 image compression used in some modern PDF files is not supported (you will see an empty space instead of a picture). There's an easy workaround for this issue.
256-bit AES PDF-encryption is not supported (you will either see empty pages or a file will simply not open). There's an easy workaround for this issue.
Some PDF eBooks are protected by DRM technology (Digital Rights Management). This is a piece of software embedded into a PDF file, that asks for your user name and password upon file opening and then checks if you have the right to view this particular file. This is different from general PDF password protection, which usually only asks for a password, not your user name. DRM-protected PDFs are not supported, while general password-protected PDF files are supported.
PDF's 3D, audio and video content is not supported
PDF's annotations are not supported (this support is expected in one of the future updates of GoodReader)
PDF Portfolios are supported, but not for a direct reading, like it happens in Adobe Acrobat 9 or later. PDF Portfolios are complex PDF files with a very simple first page (usually it says something like "This file can be opened with Adobe Acrobat 9"), and a set of many PDF files embedded into this file, which is used simply as a container for other PDF files. GoodReader lets you extract those files from a PDF Portfolio for further reading them as normal PDF files. Due to a specific technology used for this extraction, every file must be fully loaded into memory before extraction, so very large embedded files will not be extracted.
iOS contains only a subset of Asian fonts, so to display PDFs with Asian fonts correctly, those fonts must be embedded into a PDF file itself. Please read our detailed guide for an explanation on how to fix this issue.
MS Office files with password protection are not supported
Some Microsoft Office files are shown a little bit incorrectly (converting them to PDFs solves the problem)
iWork'08/09 files must be saved with Include Preview option
Help us to help you
GoodReader was dramatically improved since its earlier versions. The only thing that made it possible is user feedback. Our customers sent us a lot of problematic files, we studied those files, came to certain conclusions, and finally we were able to write a better code. We can't improve our application if you don't talk to us. We might actually solve the problem if you tell us about it! So we encourage you to send us as much feedback or feature requests as possible. Help us to help you!
