Official Adobe Reader app jumps to Windows Phone 8 in latest update

Good news for those who rely on Adobe’s Reader for their PDF viewing as version 10.1 built for Windows Phone 8 has just hit the Store. Long a sore spot for some on Windows Phone, Adobe’s Reader has always lagged behind where the desktop version, causing some frustration amongst those who desire more robust document support on-the-go.

Detailed in a blog post on the official Windows Phone site, the app takes advantage of the current gen’s much faster tools, allowing a more fluid experience.

Some of the features include:

“...the ability to copy and paste, search the text for specific words, and zoom in on a page. Navigate docs quick with thumbnails, then read page-by-page or in continuous scroll mode. Hyperlinks and bookmarks are supported, too, so you can jump directly to a webpage or to a particular section of a PDF.”

Indeed the app is fast to load and at least for our more basic needs, fills the gap. What about you, road warriors? Yay or nay on the new version?

Pick it up here in the Store. Windows Phone 8 only.

Daniel Rubino is the Editor-in-chief of Windows Central, head reviewer, podcast co-host, and analyst. He has been covering Microsoft since 2007 when this site was called WMExperts (and later Windows Phone Central). His interests include Windows, laptops, next-gen computing, and for some reason, watches. Before all this tech stuff, he worked on a Ph.D. in linguistics, watched people sleep (for medical purposes!), and ran the projectors at movie theaters because it was fun.

91 Comments

And the dominance of the Windows Phone era begins.
6% Market share already, projected to be 10% by the end of the year. Surface next-gen, Nokia next flagships, WP Blue, W8 Blue.
Never count Microsoft out!
I think the word you're looking for is growth, not dominance.
Source for 6% market share? Cause when I argued it with someone it was still at 3.2%
Kantar is reporting 6% of current sales. I think the ComScore numbers are lower because they are reporting marketshare of all smartphones currently in the market regardless of when they were sold, so it would be a lagging indicator of growth.
I think ComScore also uses the activation numbers from Google, who counts a rooted device as a new activation :|
That is exactly right. Why they won't use standard accounting is a mystery.
Reports today have it at 5.6% in the US.
It seems like the lists are always way off from each other. Kind'a makes you wonder where they are all geting their "data" from.
Makes it way too easy for people to choose whichever "official" numbers they want to make thier arguements for or against WP seem more valid.

But anyway, does anyone know if this app is better than the PDF reader that's currently out? I'll happily ditc that one if this one offers more.
Looking at Nokia/Samsung/HTC's sales figures in their annual report might be the most effective way at looking at it, but even then those figures represent sales to vendors and not necessarily consumer adoption.
The best way will probably be searching ghtough microsoft's annual report and see whether they comment on active devices, although that approach won't necessarily give you market share unless google/apple do the same.
5,4% overall in the US (6.8% in Verizon)
6.7% in EU overall(?)

source:
http://www.engadget.com/2013/06/03/kantar-smartphone-q1-2013/
http://www.zdnet.com/windows-phone-climbing-in-uk-but-cheap-androids-rei...
I don't know what this has to do with the Adobe reader article, but I like your gusto!
How this compares to Microsoft's own?
I recall hearing complaints about the MS version but I can't recall what they were. I hope/imagine that this is a more complete experience.
The Microsoft app is complete garbage. I can't remember how many times the app closed by itself when trying to view a document.
As far as I remember, yes it is in fact a garbage application. It doesn't even have an option to print.
I use it all the time on windows phone/windows 8 and I've never had this issue your having.....strange
You're
Yeah, I am so I happy to be able to finally delete that application =P
I was also wondering the same, but I think we have to find it out ourselves. It has just been launched.
Far better than pdf reader from MS which, refused to render a number of frequently used documents I rely on.
Initial experience: great UI, intuitive way of scrolling pages, fluidity in use. However, you: 1. Can't bookmark. 2. Can't rotate pages.

edit: 3. Can't delete pdfs. 4. Can't share pdfs.
U can bookmark and delete
It has a weird functionality where if the pdf is in your "recent" list you can't delete it from there. You have to go to the "documents" section and delete it from there...but it does work.
Thats probably because the recent section only holds shortcuts and the actual documents are listed in the documents section.
how do i bookmark??
I use the green PDF "green colored tile" reader, which is much faster than MS and Adobe readers.
OK, I tryed the Adobe Reader and it does what I need better than MS Reader. So, MS PDF Reader got deleted from my phone.
Daniel, your mystery Lumia 820 is appeared!
:) Yeah, gonna start to use it now, add variety to our photos
Wow... So... Smooth... Finally, i can view the London underground pdf!
Finally! The MSFT one was terrible!
It wasn't terrible please stop saying that. It was pathetic, garbage, and slap to your grandma's face.
Leave he's grandma out of this!
GRANDMA NOOO!!!
I just want to be able to pin a specific pdf.
It's very fast with opening up the app.. Like Flixter..
Does it still store a copy of every PDF you open from IE and email in the isolated storage? It's extremely annoying to have to constantly go in there and delete them out one at a time.
The default PDF reader works just fine though this is always welcome.
No. It doesn't.
Yay.! :)
That was fast ...... for Adobe
About freaking time.
+1 because I was literally scrolling down to find the first person thinking exactly what I was.
Heck, I'll say it anyway!
IT'S ABOUT FREAKING TIME!!!!!! (Ah, I feel better, now.)
Finally!
This seems to be able to render and show much faster some complex pdf's than MS Reader. I only tested a couple of pdfs though. Manuals with a huge amount of small text and graphics and stuff like that.
So I click a PDF attachment in an email and I get to select which PDF app I want to use. Why doesn't the same happen if I click a YouTube link? MS inconsistencies. Actually what we need is a new setting page to set your default apps that you want to use.
It does. I have the good You Tube app from Microsoft and the bad one google mad them put back on there. It always gives me the choice of which app to use. I think 3rd party app makers just don't know how to implement it.
It looks like an app choosing interface is already partially implemented. Settings to choose default apps isn't as unlikely as I thought.
First Win8.1 to have native Miracast support now this, its been a nice day this has. Still 8 more days to a potentially epic day in the ecosystem.
Should I get this if I'm satisfied with Microsoft's app?
Yes, the MS one is painfully slow by comparison. Seems better than the 3rd party 'PDF Reader' app too as the pages flow better, and there is double tap resize.
Totally. It's fast.
Thanks, I'll give it a go. The Windows 8 app kind of sucks, that's why the suspicions.
All I need to know is, is it better than PDF Reader?
I'm also interested to know which is better
This is definitely better IMO. In MS PDF reader, I always had this problem where if I quickly scrolled, as I always have to do, the pages go blank until I stopped scrolling. I've been unable to replicate this in this app. Also the page scrubber is a godsend for large documents when compaired to having to jump to pages in the MS app. besides this additions I think it literally does everything the other app does.
In my opinion no. It's zooming is nowhere near satisfactory for me. Fast and smooth yes, but takes time for it clear up a bit
At last, the Jedi are no more
Execute order 65. Wait! Make that a 66 with an extra order of fries.
oh i thought that the official microsoft-developed PDF Reader was in collaboration with Adobe.
i already have PDF Reader installed. should i ditch that for this?
Absolutely
Wow, now that really is superfast. FINALLY!
This seems to be able to load documents immediately without any slow down like in the PDF Reader.
It is still annoying however that there is no easy way to select documents to delete, other than holding your finger down on each document. .
This app doesn't allow PDF to be delete.

Am I missing something?
tap and hold on the documents tab not on the recently viewed tab.
Still needs SkyDrive Integration and the ability to read the files on a micro-SD. I like the 3rd party developed app that does both of these.
Puts MS' version to shame. I was afraid it's not going to remember my last spot where I left but no, it's remembered. Great, now I don't to have convert all my ebooks into a nice format so I can read it with the MS' version.
Any easy way to transfer files from the MS app to this one?
Maybe not that easy, but you can share to SkyDrive, and download/open in adobe...
Great :)
Waaaay smoother than PDF reader, even if that one also was good after last update.
Nice to scroll without lag on a 5 Mb PDF :D
The App lacks an important feature - PDF cannot be shared in any way. This was also the case with msft's PDF Reader also, but they updated it (Skydrive upload).
Worst scenario is - you get an email with a PDF attached, open it in the reader and delete the mail. Then it is trapped in the phone forever - very annoying.
Think I'll keep both and open new pdf's in both. Hopefully this'll be fixed :-\
Still the PDF Reader from PompolutZ is the king in this business. Much faster and smoother than Adobe's or MS's apps. It also has Skydrive integration.
What am i doing wrong? My pdfs are blurry until i zoom in. I never had this problem with pdf reader.
I have been needing this for work. Glad to see its finely here
Still no text reflow - making it useless on a small phone screen.
Not useless. But this feature is definitely missed. Worse is that there is still no way to email a PDF (no, sharing a link doesn't count). C'mon MS, give developers the APIs needed to make usable applications!!!
Don't blame MS - the APIs are all there. Adobe just isn't adding the stuff.
The APIs are certainly not there. There is no way to email a file other than an Office document or from your album on Windows phone. If there was, surely MS' own reader would have been able to do it.
+1
Looks like Adobe Reader has a pretty big zooming bug, it won't "overzoom", it keeps snapping back to a maximum of roughly 125% of the full screen. This makes it nearly impossible to zoom small areas of single page documents. The MS PDF Reader doesn't have this problem.
Did a quick test with this and MS's. A 19mb 481 PDF ebook.. MS's would stop to download after about 2-3 pages. Adobe's faired fine, no notice of neededing to download even fliping 15 pages ahead. Performace is a lot better with Adobe's.

I opened a PDF but, can I delete it after I view it ? Tried to hold on the PDF listed in Adobe but, it would not let me delete it..
One rather bad problem: the fonts are blurry comparing to the MS' version.
...but I don't see how you can share or email a document. At least you can do that with the one made by MS...In fact, you can delete all of them easily without selecting each one, but the adobe version can't
I don't really see how the adobe one is better
It is much better when you need to read documents on the go, compared to the one made by Microsoft. While it's not perfect, it's a good start and hopefully, they'd pour more support. Since apps can coexist, you have the best of both worlds.
My phones a Nokia lumia 710 and it says this app is unavailable, any ideas why?
This is a WP8 only app
yeah this adobe reader link is for wp8 only but wp7 phones had adobe reader more than one year allready... try searching on the marketplace on lumia 710 then u will find it.
Its 2mb file surprisingly much lighter than 5mb from MS. I might ditch the MS one over this. So anyone can recommend decent pdf converter/writer/printer for WP?
I can finally open my secured PDF's. The MS version would crash 100% of the time.
Ok I just installed the app but it does not display my old pdfs already stored in my phone. It just says "no files available". Is it just me or it is happening to everyone?

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