GoodReader, an app that you can use to store, view, and annotate PDF files and other types of documents, was recently updated to version 5. That sentence may not sound all that interesting, but I have been waiting a very, very long time to be able to type it because this is the first major update to this app in five years. The app includes all of the features that folks liked about the prior version, and adds some new capabilities that make the app particularly useful for attorneys. I'm thrilled to see that this app is back and better than ever.
A little GoodReader history
GoodReader has been around since 2009, so it predates the iPad (which was announced in January 2010). Soon after I started using the iPad in 2010, I started to organize all of my PDF documents in this app. It quickly became an essential part of my law practice. I gave it a rave review in early 2011, and later that year I called it "the best $5 an attorney can spend on an iPad app." For many years, the app received regular updates adding more useful features.
The last major update was GoodReader 4, released in 2014. Not long after that, the developer of the app, Yuri Selukoff (whose mother, by the way, was a patent attorney), obtained a difficult-to-receive EB-1 Visa (reserved for foreign nationals with extraordinary abilities) and moved from Moscow to San Francisco, as described in this interesting profile of Selukoff from a 2016 post on the Inside BlackBerry blog, which I'm surprised to see is still online.
In 2017, Selukoff started to tease that version 5 of GoodReader was in development. As other iPad PDF apps started to add interesting new features, I thought about switching to a different app, but so much of my time was invested in GoodReader that I decided to stick with it and wait for that promised update. After about a year, in early 2018, I ran a post called "The latest on GoodReader version 5" in which I mentioned that Selukoff was still saying that the update was coming soon. I ended the post by stating: "If the developer is 'finishing' version 5, hopefully that means that we will see it in weeks or months, and won't have to wait until 2019."
That post ended up being one of the most read posts on iPhone J.D. in 2018, and I'm sure that I know the reason why. Lots of folks, like me, were wondering if the app would ever see an update. And after no update came, many longtime GoodReader users decided to jump ship to a more modern PDF app.
I was one of them. About six months ago, I got tired of waiting for the update that might never come, so I surveyed the market of PDF apps and I decided to switch to PDF Expert by Readdle. I was planning to write a review of PDF Expert last month when I was invited to beta test GoodReader 5. After recovering from the shock of seeing an actual update to the app after all this time, I started to try it out. And I liked what I saw. As of January 30, 2019, GoodReader 5 is now available for everyone. GoodReader has a few shortcomings compared to PDF Expert, but it also has some better features, many of which are new to version 5. I still plan to post a review of PDF Expert in the future, but I want to continue to use both that app and GoodReader to get a better perspective on the advantages of each.
Here are the most notable features of GoodReader 5, the 10th anniversary edition of the app.
Easy to get around
In an app to manage your PDF files, you will frequently want to go back and forth between documents, and between looking at a list of files and looking at an actual document. GoodReader has always made it easy to get to a document because it has the Back to Reading button at the bottom. Now, it is easier to go the other way too. When you are looking at a document you can swipe in from the left edge to go back to the prior document you were working on, or if you go back far enough, the list of files. Once you start using that feature, you will use it all the time.
Every document in GoodReader has its own tab, and you can tap the tabs at the top to switch between the eight most recent documents that you have not yet closed (by tapping the arrow on the right side of the tab). You can also quickly jump to recent files and other files by tapping the title of a document at the top to see a list of recent files.
Similarly, it is very easy to move around within a document thanks to the bar at the bottom of the screen which you can slide your finger across to quickly scroll through the document, along with thumbnail images of pages to give you a small visual clue of what is on the pages. I like this feature and use it often.
At the very bottom of the screen, there is a button you can tap to see thumbnail images of each page in the document. Unlike GoodReader 4 which would often only load some of the thumbnail images, GoodReader 5 seems to quickly load all of the page images making this feature even more useful.
Split screen
Although this $5.99 app is a free upgrade for owners of prior versions, you can purchase an optional Pro Pack for an additional $5.99. Attorneys who use GoodReader are going to probably want to pay for the Pro Pack for the additional features that it enables. One of these features is Split Screen, where you can view two documents side by side. You can view the same document in both panes, useful if you want to compare something in one part of a document with something in another part of a document. Or you can have two different documents side-by-side.
GoodReader isn't the first app to do this. For example, the Easy Annotate app had split screen back in 2013. But now that I have easy access to it in a primary app that I use for working with PDF files, I find myself using it more often.
Apple Pencil annotation
GoodReader adds support for the Apple Pencil. I like the new features, but for me there is still one big omission.
I'll start by mentioning a feature that isn't new, but I still love it. The first time you start to annotate a file, GoodReader asks if you want to edit this file or if you want to create an annotated copy. This is incredibly useful for my law practice. I will often have a folder of pleadings synced via Dropbox to GoodReader, and while I want to annotate some of those documents — such as highlighting and marking up a brief filed by opponent while I prepare a response — I also want to keep an untouched version of the document just in case I want to share it with someone else without exposing my attorney work product. In other apps, I have to remember to make a duplicate of the file before I start to edit. But in GoodReader, I can choose to do this at the time I start to edit. This feature in GoodReader is an oldie but a goodie.
In GoodReader 5, as soon as you touch the screen with an Apple Pencil you start to annotate (unless, as noted above, this is the first time you have started to annotate the document). For documents with text, you can select whether you want to jump into highlight mode when you tap on text. Otherwise, you jump into the pen mode to write on the document. This is a very useful feature. You can use your finger to scroll move around in a document, then pick up your pen and just start annotating when you are ready for that, all without ever having to tap on any annotation tools.
GoodReader also now supports double-tap on an Apple Pencil 2 to switch between the tool you are using and the eraser.
I do have one complaint. When you are in an annotation mode — highlighting, writing, eraser, etc. — touching the screen with the Apple Pencil will create the annotation, but so does tapping the screen with a finger. In some other apps, the app is smart enough to know that once you start using an Apple Pencil, you only want to annotate with the Pencil, and when your finger touches the screen that means you want to scroll through the document. But in Goodreader 5, I will frequently touch the screen by accident while the Apple Pencil is in my hand and create unwanted annotations. Ugh. I was advised by a person who handles PR for GoodReader that the developer is considering adding a feature in the future that ignores finger input when you are using the Pencil, so hopefully this will be addressed soon.
In the meantime, this sometimes annoys me so much that I turn off the "Track Apple Pencil" feature when I am working with a document (which can get to by tapping the Gear icon at the bottom of the screen to open PDF Settings) so that I have to manually enter and leave an edit mode. With this feature turned off, GoodReader 5 works the same way as GoodReader 4. You can first select text and then choose to highlight it, or you can manually tap the highlight tool to start highlighting.
File management improvements
GoodReader adds lots of new features to make it easier to manage your files. You can now use drag and drop to move files around and put them into folders. You can now view files in a list view with one, two, three, or four columns, or you can view items as either small or large icons on a grid. In prior versions of GoodReader, there was a pallet of tools that you could use to do something to a file located on the right side of the screen:
In GoodReader 5, all of those tools are hidden, giving you more screen space to see file names and, if you turn on this option, multiple columns. You expose the tools by tapping the Manage Files button at the bottom left, and then they appear at the bottom of the screen:
When you delete a file in GoodReader, instead of going away completely it now moves into a trash can. This gives you the ability to pull something out of the trash if you change your mind.
Folder icons now tell you the number of items in each folder.
You can tap one button to see all of your starred documents (the ones that you marked as favorites). You can tap one button to see all of your recent documents, making it easy to jump to a document you previously viewed without digging through a folder structure to find it.
And there are many other small improvements, all of which add up to make it easier than ever to manage your files in GoodReader.
Security
GoodReader adds a host of new features to help you protect the security of your documents. Perhaps the most useful one for attorneys is the new Secure Photocopy feature (which requires the Pro Pack). Here's how it works.
I often hear people say that if you have a digital version of a document and you want to give it to someone else but ensure that there is no metadata in the document, you should print out the document and then scan that copy. This creates a file which only has the image of the document, with none of the metadata that was in the original document. The new Secure Photocopy feature works the same way, without you needing to use a printer. When you select this option, GoodReader will create an image version of the file and you can decide the quality of the image (144 dpi to 400 dpi); a higher number of dots per inch looks better but results in a larger file size. Then GoodReader turns that into a PDF document which you can share with someone else.
You can also use the Secure Photocopy feature to securely redact a document. Use the highlighter tool and change the color from yellow to black so that you place a black box over text you want to redact. Or you can use the pen tool with a wide brush to draw on top of anything you want to redact. This process simply places ink on top of the document — the underlying text is still there, so the document is not yet truly redacted. Next use the Secure Photocopy feature to create a new document based on the image. This new document will include the redactions, and you don't have to worry about the text or anything else being underneath the redactions.
There are other security features too, such as the ability to encrypt files using AES-256 encryption and add passwords to files. You can also keep files in an encrypted format when they are in the GoodReader app.
Conclusion
These are only some of the new features in GoodReader 5, but these are the major new features that I think would appeal to most attorneys. Now that version 5 is released, it is my sincere hope that the developer continues to update and refine the app without us needing to wait years between updates. (Hopefully a sign of this: the developer has already released version 5.0.1 and version 5.0.3 containing small bug fixes.)
I think that every attorney who regularly uses an iPad to work with PDF files would benefit from having GoodReader 5. It works well as a primary app for working with PDF documents, but even if you are not going to make it your primary app, it is still a useful tool to have ready for when you want to utilize a feature such as split screen or Secure Photocopy.
I haven't yet decided whether I will switch back to GoodReader as my primary app for working with PDF files. I became a big fan of PDF Expert by Readdle over the last six months, and there are still some things that it does that I prefer over GoodReader. Nevertheless, I'm thrilled that GoodReader is back and in top form. GoodReader has always been a powerful and useful app for any attorney with a paperless law practice (or anyone trying to become more paperless), and with the fresh coat of paint and the new features in version 5, GoodReader is better than ever.
Click here to get GoodReader ($5.99): 
