App Review: Document Review with PDF Expert

Document review is never fun, but at least it’s easier with the iPad.

Typically, opposing counsel produces a mountain of documents. Your mission is to find the few pages in the haystack that will matter at trial. When you review .pdf documents on the iPad, how can you extract the pages that you need?

Here’s how you can use PDF Expert ($9.99) to work quickly to review documents on the iPad.

Let’s say opposing counsel produces a lengthy pleading.

First, you need to transfer the document as a .pdf file to GoodReader ($4.99), the iPad’s file manager:

For smaller files, email the document to yourself, open the email on your iPad, click on the attachment, click on the box-and-arrow button in the upper right corner, select “Open In” and scroll to select GoodReader.

For larger files, transfer the file(s) to GoodReader via Dropbox.

In GoodReader, open the document, select the box-and-arrow button in the lower-right corner, click “Open In” and “send file as-is”:

Choose PDF Expert to open the file in that app:

Now it’s time to review the document.

To flag a page, click on the “+” icon in the upper right corner to create a bookmark:

All of your bookmarks will be saved for later:

To stamp a page, click on the stamp icon:

Tap on the page where you want to stamp:

As you will see in the next step, your stamps will clearly identify by color the pages you want to copy or extract – your needles in the haystack. You can always remove stamps once the pages have been saved as a new document.

To copy or extract a page, click on the window pane icon in the upper left corner:

Select “edit” and choose the pages that you stamped:

Finally, you can email your selection, copy it, or extract it as a separate .pdf file.

Document review on the iPad is easier, quicker, and more convenient. With PDF Expert, you can extract pages, input form information, and create new files. It has all the main features of Adobe Acrobat at a fraction of the price.

Practice Tip: Keep everything stored in GoodReader and use PDF Expert as a separate document tool. With GoodReader, you can perform basic annotation functions, such as signing a document, highlighting text, and writing comments in the margin. When you need to extract pages from a .pdf document in GoodReader, click on the document, select the box-and-arrow button in the lower-right corner, click “Open In,” and choose PDF Expert to perform advanced editing.