Reading PDFs on Screen

PDF stands for personal document formatting and is the standard for sharing documents both on the web as well as for business and education. There is a general view that PDF documents are not accessible but this isn’t strictly true. There are some great options to change the look of the text within Adobe Reader – if the document is constructed correctly.

Many readers will need the text to be magnified in order to read it.

Magnifying a pdf ofter results in this happening.  The text is larger but it extends past the window so that you have to scroll to the right and left to read to the end of the line.

This is a screen shot from a document that is exemplary in its structure.

If you click on View, Zoom and then select the bottom option – Reflow.

Magic happens.

All the text ‘wraps’ inside the visible window so no left to right scrolling. You can increase the zoom and still read the content with ease.

This is not all that Adobe Reader offers.  It provides an auto scroll option – perfect for reading quickly or for those with limited motor skills or like me wanting to read a long document on the train – reduce the line length and start autoscroll and your reading speed increases immediately.

Try it yourself and see what happens.  this is great but, there’s always a but – not all pdf documents are formatted to enable this.  Sometimes – this might happen!