GUTENBERG'S DREAM

Who needs a printer or scanner? Just use your mobile device

- J. D. BIERSDORFER

Need to fill out a form, scan a receipt or sign a permission slip when you're nowhere near your office equipment?

If the task involves a PDF file, you can do it all with builtin tools on your phone or tablet without having to print things out on paper first. (PDF, short for Portable Document Format, was first developed by Adobe Systems decades ago and has become a common file type across operating systems.)

In last month's iOS 26 software update for the iPhone and the iPad, Apple added new options for handling PDF files with an app called Preview. Likewise, Google has its own PDF-related tools for Android users.

Here's a quick overview.

IOS

Mac users may recognise Apple's “new” Preview app for the iPhone and the iPad as their standard computer utility software for images and PDF files. Both editions share many features.

When you open the app on your phone or tablet, you see buttons labelled New Document and Scan Documents. New Document is primarily used for pasting in images you've copied from elsewhere or creating a canvas for drawing with the iOS Markup tools.