Windows Reader

Windows Reader also works with Microsoft’s aborted XPS document format.

After fighting against the tide of Adobe’s popular PDF document format for years, Microsoft has finally given in and created its own Windows PDF reader app. Dubbed Windows Reader, this great little app works as expected and is a lightweight and fast alternative to Adobe’s bloated Reader application, even for those who prefer to stick largely with desktop applications.

Windows Reader presents a very simple full‑screen interface, like many Metro‑style apps, but some interesting features are revealed, as always, by activating the app bar (Winkey + Z, swipe toward the center of the screen from the top or bottom edge, or right‑click anywhere). Windows Reader is shown in Figure 8‑54 with its app bar displayed.

Figure 8‑54: Windows Reader with its app bar displayed

Windows Reader provides the following features related to PDF document viewing:

• Zoom: In any of the available view styles, you can zoom in and out to better see the document. Zooming works as it does elsewhere in Metro: Via pinching on touch‑based systems, with Ctrl + ‑ (zoom out) and Ctrl + + (zoom in) keyboard shortcuts, or by holding down the Ctrl key and using your mouse’s scroll wheel.

NOTE

Zoom out enough and you’ll see a nice thumbnail view.

• View styles : The Two pages, One page, and Continuous buttons in the Reader app bar work like toggles so that only one can be on at a time. In Two pages view, Reader will display two pages of the current document side by side. In One page view, only one whole page will be seen at a time and you must use the app’s navigational controls (discussed next) to move from page to page. In Continuous view, only one whole page will be seen at a time, but you can scroll through the document continuously, with the start of the next page being visually attached to the end of the current page.

• Navigation: In Two pages and One page view, you can swipe left and right, use the left and right arrow keys, or click the pop‑up navigational controls that appear to move through the document.

In Continuous view, navigation works differently. That is, instead of behaving like a standard Metro‑style app with horizontal navigation, it behaves like a traditional document‑based Windows application and utilizes vertical navigation instead. In this mode, you can move through the document by swiping up and down, by using the up and down arrow keys, or by utilizing the scroll bars that appear on the right side of the application.

• Find: By using the Find button in Reader’s app bar, you can search for text within the current document. This interface supplies Previous and Next buttons so you can find individual references to the search text, and an optional results pane, that calls out each instance of the search text in the document for quick navigation.

This right‑click menu also lets you copy the text to the Windows clipboard.

• Annotations: You can make annotations (but not edits) to a PDF document with Reader by selecting a block of text, right‑clicking, and choosing Highlight (to add a colored highlight to the text) or Add a note (to embed a note in the PDF). You can then save the changes to the original PDF or to a copy.

Reader won’t save rotation changes you make to the document, for some reason.

• Rotate: If you’ve ever gotten a PDF file that seems to be visually sideways, you know how useful this command can be.

• Print: Since Windows Reader is a document‑based app, you may actually want to make a hard copy from time to time. That works as it does elsewhere in the Metro environment: You access the Devices charm (Winkey + C, Devices) and then select the appropriate printer from the list. Or, access the printer list directly with Ctrl + P.