If you are a Google Chrome for Android user, you will know that every time you want to view a PDF document from the browser (like a restaurant menu), you must download and open the file in question with the PDF reader that you have installed on your mobile, because the browser does not have a built-in native player. At least, that's how it is so far.
We've been waiting a long time for a native PDF reader to arrive on Google Chrome, and earlier this year we learned that the company was working on one. At that time it was only available in Google Chrome Canary (the experimental version of the browser), but it has just reached the stable version. Of course, you need to enable it for this to work.
Here's how to enable native PDF reader on Android
As Android Authority reports, native PDF file support for Google Chrome is now available for all users and works flawlessly, although for now it is necessary to modify a flag to prove it. It shouldn't take long to officially arrive, but there's no need to wait to enjoy its benefits.
The arrival of a native PDF reader was something highly anticipated by Google Chrome users, especially if we take into account that Browsers like Firefox already allowed you to open PDFs from the browser. With this change, we avoid having to use an additional app, which adds some friction to the process and isn't very convenient.
Enabling the experimental feature is as easy as changing a flag in Google Chrome. For that, just write Chrome://flags/ in the address bar of the browser and you will see the panel from which we can access the experimental functions. Once here you can use the search engine to find the option 'Open a PDF online on Android' and activate it by selecting 'Enabled'.
To test how the native PDF reader works you will need to restart the browser and search for a PDF document on the Internet. As you can see, Google Chrome will now be able to open the file directly, avoiding the need to download it and use a third-party PDF reader.
The native reader not only allows you to view PDF documents that you access from the browser: it also has editing tools which we can access by clicking on the pencil icon that appears in the lower right corner as soon as we open a PDF from Google Chrome. This way we can highlight important parts of a document and save a copy in case we need it.
Via | Android Authority
Cover image | Sergio Asenjo (Xataka Android)
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