Any way to access a PDF on PC home network?

[kenatease]

Besides the iPad 2 I have a couple of PCs (ie. Microsoft OS) and they share certain printers and files via the usual home networking protocols. Some files are PDF and is there any way an iPad 2 could connect and access them? Thank you.

 

[twerppoet]

Besides the iPad 2 I have a couple of PCs (ie. Microsoft OS) and they share certain printers and files via the usual home networking protocols. Some files are PDF and is there any way an iPad 2 could connect and access them? Thank you.

Some PDF reader apps can be set up to read local file sharing services on your network. Documents by Readdle supports these four.

Windows SMB
WebDAV Server
SFTP Server
FTP Server

Depending on your OS, they can either be turned on in your share settings or installed as thrird party apps/services.

I haven't used any of these services, so I'm not sure if Documents supports reading and editing the files in place, or whether it only supports downloading to the iPad app.

 

[kenatease]

I thank you for that! I'm not familiar with those four protocols you mentioned. Also I found that the free app, Documents 6 by Readdle, requires IOS 9 and I have IOS 8. And I saw nothing specific in its descriptor mentioning Windows network publicly shared files - it only mentioned WebDAV. It's really no biggie and I think I'll consider the issue dead-ended.

 

[giradman]

I thank you for that! I'm not familiar with those four protocols you mentioned. Also I found that the free app, Documents 6 by Readdle, requires IOS 9 and I have IOS 8. And I saw nothing specific in its descriptor mentioning Windows network publicly shared files - it only mentioned WebDAV. It's really no biggie and I think I'll consider the issue dead-ended.

Hello - you've already received some 'network' suggestions from TP, which might be difficult to accomplish - not sure? Also, not clear about the number & size of PDF files you want to read on the iPad, nor the amount of storage on the device (assume 16 or 32 GB); but, one option is to simply email the PDFs as attachments to yourself and then view/download them to your iPad (I use iBooks or GoodReader for my PDFs on the device).

Another choice is to use one of the many 'wireless' storage devices that communicate w/ an iDevice - I own several, but just gave the RAVPower Hub a try (see first pic below) - put a couple of PDFs on the hub's SD card (from my MBPro laptop), then connected to its wireless network w/ their proprietary app on my iPad Air 2 - the PDFs opened immediately (see 2nd pic) - a LOT of those files could be stored on a SD card w/o using up storage on your iPad 2. Not sure if these added suggestions are what you desire, but would work. Dave
.

 

[kenatease]

Thank you thank you. (Actually, of the four protocols, I am familiar with FTP.) I wanted to access on the fly without ado in real time and it is totally not real important - so kerplunk, finis.

 

[twerppoet]

I thank you for that! I'm not familiar with those four protocols you mentioned. Also I found that the free app, Documents 6 by Readdle, requires IOS 9 and I have IOS 8. And I saw nothing specific in its descriptor mentioning Windows network publicly shared files - it only mentioned WebDAV. It's really no biggie and I think I'll consider the issue dead-ended.

Yes, well, that would be an older version of Documents. I'm using the most recent version on iOS 10.

WebDAV is probably the most troublesome of the mentioned protocols to set up, especially on older computers. Windows SMB would have been the easiest if you were able to run the current version of Documents and had anything later than Windows XP (and maybe even XP).

At any rate, if you are on iOS 9, then there isn't any support for opening a document in place on the computer. All you can do copy it to an app on the iPad and read it locally.

You could install DropBox on the computer, move the PDF folder to the DropBox folder, and then use the DropBox app on the iPad. However, you'll need a DropBox account, and an internet connection. It won't work with just your local wi-fi network.

This is still reading it locally, but any changes made to the document would be synced between the computer and iPad.

 

[twerppoet]

Thank you thank you. (Actually, of the four protocols, I am familiar with FTP.) I wanted to access on the fly without ado in real time and it is totally not real important - so kerplunk, finis.

No problem.