What you need to know

• Internet Explorer 11 has suffered an issue preventing PDFs from opening.
• Apps that use the 64-bit WebBrowser control suffered the same problem.
• The issue has now been addressed by Microsoft.

In case you're one of the people who's been trying to open a PDF via Internet Explorer 11 to no avail, fear not: Microsoft heard you and has addressed the problem with its KB5004760 update.

Here's how Microsoft describes the issue and its current status, which is listed as the sole item under the "highlights" section of KB5004760's notes: "Updates an issue that might prevent you from opening PDFs using Internet Explorer 11 or apps that use the 64-bit version of the WebBrowser control. Additionally, a PDF might render as just a gray background when using the Adobe Acrobat plug-in."

For those of you not in the know, Internet Explorer's days are numbered. Microsoft is cutting off support to the aging browser in 2022 and putting it into retirement. For all your future browsing needs, Microsoft will expect you to hop over to its direct competitor in the space, Google Chrome, or to its own product, Microsoft Edge. Edge has a built-in IE mode to help you compartmentalize your love of Internet Explorer, so if you truly want to see the dying browser, you can still visit it at the digital retirement home Microsoft has set up for it inside the more relevant browser.

The whole Microsoft experience is changing. Internet Explorer, Windows 10, and all the other relics of yesteryear are on the way out. The Tomorrowland of Microsoft products is made up of Edge and Windows 11, and the company has not been afraid to announce that. So the fact that it's still addressing issues with Internet Explorer, such as the PDF bug, is a pleasant surprise.

We've got some bad news for those who rely on PDF Reader for checking through documents on the go. The app will soon no longer be supported on Windows 10 Mobile. A notification detailing the end of support for PDF Reader has been put on display for app users. Come July 1, all things PDF Reader for mobile will cease to be worked on.

Should you wish to continue viewing PDFs on your Windows 10 Mobile handset post-July 1, you'll need to download a third-party app or – as Microsoft would prefer – fire up Microsoft Edge and view documents in the web browser.

Thanks to Ahmed F. for the tip!

Over 275 million people use Foxit Reader (foxitsoftware.com) as their PDF reader on their computers. If you're a Windows Phone user, you can now install the company's MobilePDF Reader on your phone. It has been released as a Universal Windows app, so you can also install it on your Windows tablet. It's quick and dependable. Want to see it in action? Check out our hands-on video.

Foxit MobilePDF Reader features

• High quality PDF rendering
• View PDF files from local storage, SD card, and OneDrive
• Text search within PDF content
• View document properties
• View password-protected PDF files

Foxit MobilePDF is built on the same core technology as Foxit Reader. You are able to read and navigate PDF documents.

The documents section of the MobilePDF reader shows your recently viewed files. You can see the file name, file size and time last viewed. There doesn't seem to be any loading time when opening documents. They open immediately on my Lumia Icon. PDF documents are shown in continuous mode by default. This means you scroll down to browse like it's web page. You can change this to single mode, which requires you to swipe left to go to the next page. You can tap the search button at the bottom if you need to look for something in the document.

Foxit MobilePDF Reader supports landscape view. You can also see the file properties by tapping the three dots on the lower right corner and selecting properties. Unfortunately, this initial version does not support comments, highlights, or annotations like the Android and iOS versions of this app. We look forward to that in a future update. On a positive note, Foxit MobilePDF has the ability to open files from OneDrive.

There are other free PDF readers for Windows Phone like Adobe Reader and Microsoft PDF Reader, but Foxit MobilePDF is worth checking out. Give it a try and let us know which one you prefer.

• Download Foxit MobilePDF for Windows Phone (Free)
• Download Foxit MobilePDF for Windows (Free)

Thanks for the tip, Praveen N.!

The super-handy Office Lens app for Windows Phone today's received an update that enables users to save their scanned real-world-paper documents as PDF files. The update to the free app brings it up to version 1.4.3727.0.

Here's the full changelog:

• Now you can convert your pictures to PDF files with selectable text, in addition to Word and PowerPoint files, and save them to OneDrive.

That's right, folks, PDFs with text parsed into a selectable format. We're not just talking about saving a PDF of an image, this is the full Office Lens you know and love, now with support for saving to Word, PowerPoint, and PDF files. Isn't that awesome?

• Download Office Lens for Windows Phone 8

Thanks to Stuart, Arpit, and John for the tips!

It has been a long time since Microsoft’s PDF Reader for Windows Phone has seen an update. The last update we covered took place nearly a year ago. Today we’re looking at a new update for PDF Reader that should make a handful of you happy. Let’s check it out.

So a year ago PDF Reader received a few updates with features and bug fixes for those features. What features? The ability to open password-protected files was the biggest (and most welcomed) change to PDF Reader. Today we have version 1.2 in the Windows Phone Store with the following changes:

• Ability to open more PDF files
• Better rotation and rendering of files
• Increased stability and performance

While not a gigantic update at face value, it’s also appreciated. The new version of PDF Reader can open more PDF files. To be honest we haven’t encountered an instance where PDF Reader wouldn’t open a PDF file, but then again we don’t use PDFs too much. Let us know us if you’ve had troubles with certain files in the past and whether or not they’re working after the update.

PDF Reader also supports better rendering of files and improved rotation. You’ll also see stability and performance increased in this latest version.

Want to try out the new and improved PDF Reader for Windows Phone? Of course you do. So go to the Windows Phone Store to grab it or use the QR code below.

Thanks for the tip Kyle M!

We’re not everyday users of Microsoft’s PDF Reader for Windows Phone 8 but we know many of you are, hence this post. Just a day ago, version 1.1.4784.14585 went live in the Store with some important new features, including opening password-protected files, which is pretty huge.

Today a slight revision has gone with version 1.1.4785.5817 rolling out to devices.

Seeing as that is such a small change, we’re presuming there aren’t any new features or UX changes to the app but instead a quick bug fix or optimization instead. If you’ve had problems with the last update or need this app daily, you’ll want to grab the latest version that is available now.

And if you happen to discover something new (or better), feel free to share with others in comments.

Pick up PDF Reader here in the Store.

PDF Reader is a documentation viewer that can open and display PDF files. As well as being able to access said formats on Windows Phone, the app enables users to bookmark pages, manipulate zoom levels, search content, and resume viewing from last saved point. It's a fully featured PDF viewer.

As an alternative to Adobe's Windows Phone offering, Microsoft's PDF Reader is a free app that sports the following:

• Quickly open PDF files
• Bookmark pages and jump back to the bookmark from anywhere in the document
• Easily zoom in on text or images for a closer view
• Search text to find specific information
• View documents in single page mode or continuous mode
• Resume document reading from the same point you left it last time.

While it may come across as simple and slightly basic, the app is solid and gets the job done. The UI is easy to navigate around and it's free, which is always a welcomed touch.

You can download PDF Reader from the Windows Phone Store for free. Unfortunately the app appears to be restricted to Windows Phone 8 handsets.

If you are looking for a fairly simple, straight forward document scanner for your Windows Phone, HD Scanner should make your short list. It was recently released to the Windows Phone Marketplace and creates .PDF files that can be uploaded to Skydrive, Dropbox or Google Docs. Created documents can also be save to your Pictures Hub or emailed.

HD Scanner can come in handy if you need to scan a receipt, scan research papers, shopping lists, or any other document you may need to archive or copy on the go.

HD Scanner's interface is simple. From the main page you can search existing document files, view your document file list, start a scan or delete/rename your files. The scanning interface has options to turn on/off image stabilization and your Windows Phone flash/light up top and the capture button at the bottom of the screen. Just line things up on your Windows Phone screen and tap the capture button.

Once you accept a captured image you can crop the image, convert the image to grayscale or keep it color, and then save the image. Once saved you will see options to start a new scan, add another page to the document, edit the page, or export it. Export options include sending the file to your Pictures Hub, email the file or upload it to your Skydrive, Dropbox or Google Docs account.

Export settings cover the file type (.pdf or .jpg), orientation, format (letter, legal or A4) and quality (high, medium or low). The edit option allows you to adjust the crop, adjust the enhancements (grayscale, color, and black/white options), rotate the image, de-skew the image and add text or a signature to the image.

HD Scanner is a nice document scanner for your Windows Phone. It was fairly stable (only crashed once) and it is nice to have multiple cloud options to share and store your document files. Image resolution was nice but as with any document scanning app for your Windows Phone, the better the light the better the document quality. Even though you can turn on the Windows Phone light, it seems to create more glare than worth. In the end, where pen meets paper, HD Scanner is worth considering if you're in the market for a document scanner.

There is a free trial version of HD Scanner that is fully functional except for uploading/sharing the files. The full version will run you $2.99 and you can find HD Scanner here at the Windows Phone Marketplace.

Adobe Acrobat PDF support has been available on Windows Mobile for years now, but until things like Text Reflow became supported and adopted, it was rarely a fun experience (plus slow load times). And while Microsoft Office is covered in Windows Phone 7, the fate of Adobe and PDF has been unsure, until now.

Today, Adobe announced Acrobat X solutions, including Acrobat, Reader and Suite. More importantly, they announced support for Windows Phone 7:

Curious, no iPhone support? (snicker)

The whole shebang is expected to ship "within 30 days" although it is unclear if that means we'll see an Adobe Reader X in the Windows Phone Marketplace at the same time. Lets just hope its pretty and works well.

Source: Forbes