PDFreflow / Guides
Reading a PDF on your phone: PDFreflow vs Adobe Liquid Mode vs converting to EPUB
A PDF keeps its printed page, so on a phone you pinch, zoom and pan. Three ways turn it into text that fits the screen instead. They differ most on the hard parts: two columns, formulas, tables and headers.
Adobe Acrobat Reader: Liquid Mode
Acrobat Reader on Android, iPhone and iPad can show a PDF in Liquid Mode, which rebuilds the page as text that wraps to the screen.
- Where it stops: Adobe's own requirements say Liquid Mode may not work on files larger than 10 MB, files with more than 200 pages, scanned files, files converted from presentations, encrypted files, and complex layouts.
- Good for: a short, simple PDF you already have open in Acrobat.
Converting the PDF to EPUB
A converter turns the PDF into an EPUB, which every e-book app reflows. You convert first, then read the copy.
- Novels and plain text convert well: chapters and a table of contents often come out right.
- Papers and textbooks are harder. We ran a free converter built on Calibre over a textbook's maths pages and a two-column paper: every formula drawn as shapes was gone, sometimes with the words around it, sentences were cut into several paragraphs, and one page of the paper lost its text altogether.
- Paid modes send each page to a maths-recognition service and rebuild formulas and tables well. They cost per page, and your pages go to that service.
A reflowing reader: PDFreflow
PDFreflow reads the PDF itself, on your phone; your file never leaves it. It finds the columns, drops running headers and page numbers, rejoins sentences cut by a page break, and keeps formulas and figures as pictures in the text, so no maths is turned into garbled text.
- On the same pages it kept more of the maths than the free converter, and no text went missing.
- Where it is weaker: tables stay pictures, and on maths-heavy textbook pages some displayed formulas and headings still come out wrong. A paid maths-recognition mode does better there.
Which to use
- A short, simple PDF already open in Acrobat: try Liquid Mode.
- A novel for your e-reader: convert it to EPUB.
- Papers, textbooks and manuals on your phone, privately: a reader that reflows the PDF itself, such as PDFreflow.
It's not perfect on every layout yet. If a page reads wrong, long-press the text and send feedback from the app. I read every report.
Try it
Free to try: the first 30 pages of every document are free, and during the open beta one tap unlocks the rest of a book.
Works with text-based PDFs. Scanned documents aren't supported.